November 12, 2024
On 11 November, Google released the November 2024 core update which was expected to take two weeks to complete. The update came to an end over a week late, finishing on 5 December.
Google Search Central notified us of its completion via X:
Google Search Central initially announced the update on X:
And on LinkedIn:
Google stated that the update was ‘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’.
We were warned of an impending update a few weeks prior to its release, at Google’s Search Web Creator Event. They told several creators there that a new search ranking update was coming soon, but this update would not help recover sites affected by the 2023 helpful content update.
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.’
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.
The previous update, the August 24 core update, was also part of Google’s ongoing efforts to bring people helpful content. Unlike the November 2024 update, which took a week longer than expected, the August 2024 update completed early, taking just 19 days instead of the anticipated month-long rollout.
Movement in the search results was noticed around three days in, on 14 November, with some sites seeing huge movement and many returning to Google Discover.
Glenn Gabe posted about the early stages of the update on X:
However, movement wasn’t widespread. Barry Schwartz conducted a poll via X three days into the rollout of the core update. Out of 997 votes, 79.5% of people reported seeing little movement.
As expected, volatility in the SERPs did begin to pick up, particularly in the health and medical sector.
On November 16, five days into the rollout, Gabe took to X again to note the gains he’d seen in the gaming and entertainment space:
At this point, there was apprehension as to whether this update simply wasn’t going to have as big an effect as speculated, or if it was just slow to take effect.
The second week of the update appeared to be much calmer. It wasn’t until 26 November, 15 days into the rollout, that things began to pick up again, with high volatility being reported.
Image credit: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-november-2024-core-update-heats-up-again-38480.html
It’s still early days but as with past updates, there has been volatility in the SERPs which will likely continue for the next few weeks. Many site owners have noticed big changes in their traffic and rankings, however, others have seen considerably less movement compared to previous updates.
The November 2024 update hasn’t yet benefitted anyone hit by the 2023 helpful content update.
‘EditorialGuy’ posted on the WebmasterWorld forum:
If you have seen a significant drop in traffic or rankings either during or after the November 2024 core update, there’s no need to panic. Google has said before that a drop in rankings doesn’t necessarily reflect poor content and the best thing you can do is continue creating user first content that follows Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines.
If you are concerned about the effects of this core update and would like to discuss it with digital experts who can help, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today.
