Google said on Tuesday, December 21, 2021 that the December 2021 Google product reviews update is now fully rolled out. Alan Kent from Google shared this news on Twitter after I asked him for an update - he said "the Google product review update is fully rolled out."
The update started 20 days ago on December 1, 2021, so just under a full three-weeks as the original announcement said it would take:
Our December 2021 product reviews update is now rolling out for English-language pages. It will take about three weeks to complete. We have also extended our advice for product review creators: https://t.co/N4rjJWoaqE
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 1, 2021
I have a ton of information about this update in my original story including a new story about this update being lit and that it will finish rolling out days before Christmas, which it did. Glenn Gabe posted his massive analysis and findings piece on this update that you should check out as well.
Here are some updated facts:
Google Product Reviews Update Quick Facts
Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:
- Name: Google December 2021 Product Reviews Update
- Launched: December 1, 2021 at around 12:30pm ET
- Finished: December 21, 2021 (mostly to all data centers)
- Rollout: It will take about three weeks to fully rollout
- Targets: It looks at product review content
- Penalty: It is not a penalty, it promotes or rewards "insightful analysis and original research."
- Not a core update: Many are going to say this is a core update, it is not.
- English Only: This is only looking at English-language content right now, this is a global launch but only for English content at this point.
- Impact: Google would not tell me what percentage of queries or searches were impacted by this update.
- Discover: This update can impact your performance in Google Discover, Google previously said.
- Recover: If you were hit by this, then you will need to look at your content and see if you can do better with Google's advice below
- Refreshes: Google will do periodic refreshes to this algorithm but may not communicate those updates in the future. This may be the first refresh that Google has done, it is the first refresh Google communicated about.
Is it fully rolled out? Probably 99%, here is why I don't say 100% yet:
I will check again, but it involves a complicated deployment processes across multiple data centers etc. E.g. a machine is down so does not get the update until its back up - that sort of thing. So most rolls out fairly quickly, but there is a tail that takes longer.
— Alan Kent (@akent99) December 21, 2021
So by now "it is mainly done" is true. Is it 100%? That can be harder to verify with certainty (but remaining nodes are probably in the noise by now).
— Alan Kent (@akent99) December 21, 2021
As you know, the tremors over the past few weeks have been intense - but there are signs that it is now cooling down a bit - but that can change in a minute.
For more details on what to do if you got hit by this update, see over here.
I will add that the Google search results tracking tools have calmed down a bit today - which is good.
I hope you add did well with this update!
Forum discussion at Twitter.
