Google’s December 2020 Core Algorithm Update
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On December 3, 2020 Google announced that it was applying its new core algorithm update. This marks the third core update of the year. The Google SearchLiaison (@searchliason) tweet confirmed that, by the end of the month, we should have witnessed the full reach of the third core update for 2020.
Early Signs that the Google Core Update Was Impacting SERPs
It was apparent that there was an impact on SERPs. Here is how the Algorithm Trackers detected the impact of the December 2020 Google Core Update.SEMRush Sensor
The SEMRush Sensor saw a large impact of the Google Core Update on December 3 and 4, 2020.MozCast
Initially, the bulk of the impact seemed to arrive on December 3, with MozCast spiking at 112.4°F.December 2020 Core Update Winners and Losers
Multiple sectors seem to be affected by this core update. In fact, even on December 4, we saw updates happening to “green zone” categories which normally see very little, if any, changes during these core updates.Industries Which Were Affected Most
The following industries were the most affected during the first two days of the core update:- Finance
- Health
- Jobs and education
- Law and government
- Pets and animals
- Real estate
- Travel
The Biggest Winners from the Google Update
Industries that tended to see the biggest upswings were beauty and fitness, business and industrial, and internet and telecom industries. The sites that saw large positive movement included:- brides.com
- businesswire.com
- ebay.com
- linkedin.com
- nerdwallet.com
- realtor.com
- soundcloud.com
- twitter.com
- vimeo.com
- whitepages.com
- yahoo.com
- zoominfo.com
The Biggest Losers from the Google Update
Industries which tended to see the biggest drops were online communities, shopping and news industries. The sites that saw large negative movement included:- aliexpress.com
- dnb.com
- echovita.com
- findanyanswer.com
- gettyimages.com
- local.com
- newsbreak.com
- urbandictionary.com
- wish.com
- yellowpages.com
What to Focus on With the New Update
As we have seen in updates in the past, Google is always focusing on delivering the best results at the top. In this last core update, we have seen the following be a major focus of the moved pages both positively and negatively.Google’s Quality Raters’ Guidelines and E-A-T
Recently changes have been made to Google’s Quality Raters’ Guidelines (QRG) they focus on two main areas:- YMYL pages and a larger impact that the safety implications can have on the end user. Anti-vax sites and non-mainstream health sites can and have been negatively affected by the update.
- E-A-T content that answers a user's intended search best have moved up as well. In many cases, we have seen where People Also Ask results have started to migrate and change, based on specific content on the site.