It has now been well over 6 months, yes, a half of a year, since the last confirmed Google core update was released on May 4, 2020. But we might not see another core update before the end of the year. Mihai Aperghis asked John Mueller of Google and John basically said he is not sure if there will be another core update done this year because of timing.
John said it is always "tricky" pushing these updates at the end of the year and timing is always hard. It is not like Google is done with pushing core updates, he said, but it is more about when would be a good time.
Mihai asked John this question at the 41:29 mark into the video, he asked "John, regarding these core updates do you know if the if there's any plans to launch any new ones by the end of the year?"
John responded "I don't know what what the specific plans are there. So it's not the case that we like stopped making core updates. I just don't know what the specific launch plans are there."
He then explained the issue around timing these updates before the holiday shopping season. I mean, Google has held previous Panda updates for the holidays because big Google updates tend to cause big stress.
John said:
I think it's always tricky towards end of the year because everyone's a little bit jittery and probably this year more than ever. So there's a little bit yeah a little bit of of trickiness involved with well we'd like to make improvements in search and we think our users deserve kind of to see those improvements in search but at the same time we don't want it to be super disruptive. So I don't know what will happen there it's it's possible at some point, maybe we'll have still have an update I don't know what's what the timing would be there because essentially all timing is bad when it comes to like the last quarter of the year.
Yes, SEOs are waiting for the next core update but now that it is November 15th, I am not sure anyone really wants a big update right now? Although Google did release a core update in May, during the pandemic despite people thinking they would hold off.
Here is the video embed:
Forum discussion at Twitter and WebmasterWorld.
Update: Or maybe Google will release a core update?
That sounds a bit too "optimistic" -- it's not a made decision, we're just trying to be thoughtful on how we make it.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) November 16, 2020
This sounds way too optimistic :). It's really not a made decision.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) November 16, 2020
