Google December 2024 Core Update Fast & Furiously Finished Rolling Out

Dec 19, 2024 - 7:51 am 19 — by
Filed Under Google Updates

Google Core Update Done

The Google December 2024 core update quickly and brutally finished rolling out yesterday at around 2:00 PM ET. It took just over 6 days to roll out, starting on December 12, 2024 at 10:45 am and finishing on December 18, 2024 at 2:00 pm. This Google algorithm update finished fast, but it seems quick and mighty (or fast and furious).

Google posted on X, "The rollout was complete as of December 18, 2024."

This was the fourth core update of 2024 and likely the last one for this year. Although, Google can always roll out another one tomorrow. I mean, Google did say to expect more core updates, more often and the November core update completed a week prior to this December core update starting. So anything is possible - but it is Christmas next week, so hopefully not...

Google December 2024 Core Update Quick Facts:

Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:

  • Name: Google December 2024 Broad Core Update
  • Launched: December 12, 2024 at around 10:46 am ET
  • Rollout: Completed December 18, 2024 at around 2:00 pm ET
  • Targets: It looks at all types of content
  • Penalty: It is not a penalty, it promotes or rewards great web pages
  • Global: This is a global update impacting all regions, in all languages.
  • Impact: The normal core update - updating some of the "core systems".
  • Discover: Core updates impact Google Discover and other features, also feature snippets and more.
  • 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 core update advice.
  • Refreshes: Google will do periodic refreshes to this algorithm but may not communicate those updates in the future. Maybe this is what we saw the past couple of weeks or all those unconfirmed Google updates.

Google December 2024 Core Update Details

Google didn't say much specific about this December 2024 core update. Google did say, "we have different core systems we're always improving." So this update should differ from the November core update but how it is different, is not clear. I don't know if this will help those the folks who went to the creator summit or not.

So it seems like it is more of the same:

  • Show more content that people find genuinely useful.
  • Show less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search.

Yes, a lot of joking in the SEO community about these statements. Yep, it sounds a lot like the helpful content update statements... Yes, the helpful content update is no more, it's part of core updates now, in some sense...

Will there be another core update before years end? I doubt it, see John Mueller's comment on LinkedIn:

Johnmu Core Christmas

What We Saw With The December 2024 Core Update

Being that this update was only over the course of six days, we just saw a lot of volatility start to spike around Friday and Saturday, December 13 and 14th, and then continue throughout the length of this six-day update.

We covered the volatility and chatter on Sunday, the 15th, and that volatility continued through today.

This was the fastest documented and official core update on record.

It seems like this update was very volatility, over a short period of time - like fast and furious.

But of course, with any core update, while some sites can be totally devastated by one, some can find themselves seeing huge gains. I hope you all are on the winner side of this update (but I suspect not).

Video on December 2024 Core Update Completing

I've been working on my YouTube skills, so here is a quick video I did on this core update finishing last night:

Google Tracking Tools On December 2024 Core Update

The update took about 24 days to roll out, so here are those volatility tracking tools and what they showed - just look how much heated this was than the November core update:

Semrush:

Semrush

SimilarWeb:

Similarweb

Sistrix:

Sistrix

Wincher:

Wincher

Cognitive SEO:

Cognitiveseo

Accuranker:

Accuranker

Advanced Web Rankings:

Advancedwebranking

Mozcast:

Mozcast

Mangools:

Mangools

Algoroo:

Algoroo

SERPstat:

Serpstat

SEOclarity:

Seoclarity

Data For SEO:

Dataforseo

SEO Chatter On December 2024 Core Update

Here is some of the early chatter shortly after the update was announced it was completed - but again, it seems like this one had a wider net than the November core update:

With the update ending after only 6 days, which is the shortest one I can remember, it makes me wonder:

1. The update was flawed (obviously)

Or

2. The update killed the remaining sites faster than expected, so rollout complete.

My initial thought too, but I’m unsure if “recovery” is a thing anymore.

Low trafic today in Romania .... :-(

This update is funny: it completely reverses the ranking and seems to put an even stronger focus on big brands. My traffic: through search, it has levelled off, always around +/-100 difference per day but at a low level. Discover traffic comes back once a week. It's as if Google News only updates once a week.

The shop is dead, though, sales have completely collapsed, and that at peak season. Good work Google.

Absolutely atrocious traffic...USA is still -36% at almost 3pm. Seeing very large drops in top three ranking terms in the past two days. This is far worse than November...let's see what the next few days will bring as this update subsides.

I wouldn't call it a recovery, since our travel information site's Google traffic is still far, far down from where it was two years ago. But we definitely gained in both the November and December core updates.

That was quick! I wonder how long the aftershocks will continue. On the whole, our information site has benefited from both the November and December updates, but we're still way down from where we were in 2022.

If the update is over I’m left with like -50% traffic (e-commerce), but the google metrics don’t match traffic on the website host. I’ll check later when the WP engine metrics update.

Something started yesterday again. Multiple page views for one item from all over the world within seconds. Rubbish Google traffic with a drop of -40%. This year, Google shifted from quality serps to rubbish serps while UI gets worse with every update.

I am absolutely dreading January and next few months. lol. Nov and Dec have always been my best years. When I used to make 6 figures, in these two months, I'd make 1/4th of it. I have barely made any money this year. It's so bad I just have to laugh. It's pathetic at this point. There is no reason to do this, which is why I have scaled back big time.

Previous Broad Core Updates

Here is a list of the most recent core updates we've seen since Google started to confirm them. Previously we nicknamed them Phantom updates or unconfirmed updates.

Previous Helpful Content Update Impact

Here is the list of the previous Google helpful content updates:

So what are you all observing with this update now that it is fully done?

Forum discussion at X and LinkedIn and WebmasterWorld.

 

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