Google has confirmed that the rollout for the latest broad core algorithm update is now “complete”, just two weeks after it revealed that the release was imminent.
In a tweet on its Search Liaison account on Wednesday (16th December), Google said that the December 2020 Core Update was now impacting all search results in regions globally.
The update is the third major algorithm tweak of the year and the first since May.
Feedback from the community and data from software providers suggest that the December update was very big as search rankings were particularly volatile during the days after the initial rollout.
As with every major update, there were big winners and losers, with many seeing up to a 100% rise or fall in organic traffic levels.
Some webmasters and SEOs were also vocal about the timing of the update, coming just three weeks before Christmas Day.
Google has urged anyone affected by the update to follow its standard guidelines, which are rooted in publishing high-quality content.
In the past, Google has said: “We know those with sites that experience drops will be looking for a fix, and we want to ensure they don’t try to fix the wrong things. Moreover, there might not be anything to fix at all.”
Google always stresses that there is not necessarily anything wrong with pages that are performing worse post-update and that other sites may just be more relevant.
In other search news, Google’s John Mueller has said that keyword-heavy titles are a common practice and will not be penalised in rankings.
Mueller was asked why titles and descriptions with a large number of keywords were prevalent in SERPs.
He claimed that it was not “problematic”, but believes that things could be improved if better titles were used as it would help Google to more easily understand the context and relevance.
Source:
