The fourth, and I suspect, last core update of the 2024 year, the December 2024 core update, is now done rolling out and complete. It started on December 12, 2024 and completed about 6 days later on December 18, 2024. This update was a typical core update where Google updates its core ranking system to make search results more relevant and helpful.
It was atypical in that it started only about a week after the November 2024 core update was completed.
What Google said. Google said about this core update:
“The Dec. 2024 core update is rolling out, and we expect it will complete in two weeks. If you’re wondering why there’s a core update this month after one last month, we have different core systems we’re always improving.”
What we saw. Based on what I’ve been seeing, the update touched down pretty quickly, just a couple of days after it launched. It was a big update, causing many of the third-party tracking tools to spike significantly, showing a lot of volatility.
Here are some charts showing the volatility over this update:
Previous communication. Google told us weeks ago that an update was coming soon but websites negatively impacted by the September 2023 helpful content update should not expect to see big recoveries. It is too soon to know what type of impact this November core update will have.
What to do if you are hit. Google has given advice on what to consider if you are negatively impacted by a core update in the past. Google has not really given much new advice here but here is the past advice the company provided: