Google Announces the Release of its November 2024 Core Update

Yesterday, Google began rolling out the November 2024 core update. It is expected that the rollout will take up to two weeks to complete. 

Google has said the update is ‘designed to continue our work to improve the quality of our search results by showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search’. 

Google Search Central announced the update on X:

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And on LinkedIn:

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Google did warn us of an impending update a few weeks ago, at Google’s Search Web Creator Event. They told several creators that a new search ranking update was coming soon, but this update would not help recover sites affected by the 2023 helpful content update.

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Previous Core Updates

Google rolls out core updates multiple times a year. The company says that these updates ‘make significant, broad changes to our search algorithms and systems.’ 
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Last year there were a total of four core updates -  a step up from just two core updates in 2022. Here are all the core updates that have taken place since the start of 2023. 
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• The August 2024 core update was on August 15 and ended on September 3.
• The March 2024 core update was on March 5 and ended on April 19.
• The November 2023 core update was on November 2 and ended on November 28.
• The October 2023 core update was on October 5 and ended on October 19
• The August 2023 core update was on August 22 and ended September 7.
• The March 2023 core update was on March 15 and ended March 28.
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The most recent update of the year, the August 2024 core update, was also part of Google’s ongoing efforts to bring people helpful content. It completed much faster than anticipated, taking just 19 days instead of the anticipated month-long roll out. 

This update is the third in 2024 and will most likely be the last for this year since Google tries to refrain from large updates in December to avoid major interference around the holiday season. 

However, with high volatility in the SERPs for weeks following the August update, there is concern about how close this update is to the upcoming holiday season and major ecommerce events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 
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Barry Schwartz commented on X:

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November 2024 Core Update Predictions 

The response to this update has been less than positive, with most believing this update will further hinder chances of recovery. 

X user, Jeff W, commented on Google’s X post: 

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Another user, Blaine Smith, responded with: 

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What You Can Do

Core updates can cause high volatility and you may see a significant shift in traffic and rankings. It’s important to keep an eye on analytics and stay up to date with the latest news surrounding the core update. 

Google has said before that a drop in rankings doesn't necessarily reflect poor content and the best thing you can do is to continue creating user first content that follows Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines.

If you are concerned about the effects this core update will have on your website, don’t hesitate to contact our experts.