As we explained a few days ago in this article, on December 3, Google announced its third central update to its search algorithm this year. Dubbed the December 2020 Core Update, its release has again baffled many SEO analysts for two reasons. For one thing, these big updates typically happen every three to four months. Expected since August, recently a Google spokesperson had announced that, finally, there would be no major update until next year. On the other hand, Google had already commented on occasion that it does not make updates of this type in the face of large commercial campaigns. Instead, this time he has decided to do it just after the Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaign, just before the Christmas campaign. If its intention was not to affect the markets, it must be a very urgent update.
Previous core Google algorithm updates
This year we’ve had two big updates to Google’s core algorithm. The first was the January 2020 Core Update on January 13. Of relative impact, its effects were especially noticeable in the YMYL (your money, your life) sector, niches related to finance and health.
The second was the May 2020 Core Update on May 4. Defined by RankRanger’s Mordy Oberstein as an absolutely monstrous update, it was an especially strong update that had a lot to do with rankings and SERPs. In general, the sectors most affected were travel, real estate, health, pets and animals as well as sites related to people and society. It consisted of an update focused on the trust and credibility of the content.
La actualización del algoritmo de este diciembre
This December 2020 Core Update has been developed over almost two weeks in two phases. It began on December 3 with a particularly important peak on the 4th and a second phase that occurred around the 10th. Apparently, all the experts, seeing its effects, have had a much greater impact than the previous update of the month of may.
At RankRanger, for example, they compare the May algorithm update to the latter in terms of ranking volatility for the terms it monitors:
And, like the May 2020 Core Update, it is a uniform determinant in terms of the niches it affects:
In Cognitive SEO we can see the evolution of the volatility of the Google ranking over the last few days:
In the Algaroo analysis we can see the differences between the May update and this December update:
The SemRush sensor highlights that this update shows a score of 9.4 on December 4, similar to the one reached by the May 2020 Core Update. On the other hand, the January update barely reached 8. Regarding the affected sectors, SemRush indicates that they have been health, real estate, travel, finance, law and government on the desktop, and health, law and government, jobs and education, pets and animals and real estate in mobile search.
How the December 2020 Core Update has affected
Like the previous May update, the dynamics of the December 2020 Core Update seem to have followed the same steps: the more trust and credibility a domain has in a certain sector, the greater the change will be when Google adjusts its value.
One of the most notable aspects is the drop in visibility of dictionary and encyclopedia websites. Although it was already a more or less expected change. In mid-October, Google updated its guidelines for search quality evaluators, and in these guidelines under the section entitled “Classification of results from dictionaries and encyclopedias for different queries”, the internet giant assured that these do not comply with the intention of the user in all cases, and they only do it under a specific context.
The changes observed in social networks are also curious. Sistrix has analyzed the situation in the United Kingdom in which there have been many movements on social networks: YouTube (+116), Facebook (+76), Twitter (+70), Instagram (+41) or LinkedIn (+68. ) Only Pinterest loses visibility (-36).
Although one of the most notable changes has been the notable drop in Amazon sites:
The impact of the update in Spain
Sistrix has shared some examples of the domains that have undergone changes since the December 2020 Core Update was released. These are the domains that gained visibility after deployment:
| Domain | Change |
| educalingo.com | 184.8% |
| juegosdiarios.com | 144.5% |
| mundocuentas.com | 121.8% |
| frases.top | 113.5% |
| conceptodefinicion.de | 100.6% |
| definiciones-de.com | 98.0% |
| coveralia.com | 96.7% |
| cifraclub.com.br | 94.8% |
| buenamusica.com | 93.0% |
| letras.mus.br | 88.7% |
| lahiguera.net | 88.4% |
And if there are winners, of course there are also losers. These are the domains that have lost visibility after the implementation of the new Google algorithm update:
| Domain | Change |
| jaleco.com | -76.2% |
| lexico.com | 47.9% |
| famousbirthdays.com | -47.3% |
| actualidad.es | -45.3% |
| estilonext.com | -44.1% |
| wikiwand.com | -40.3% |
| aliexpress.com | -38.0% |
| merca2.es | -35.5% |
| cochesyconcesionarios.com | -35.2% |
| agoda.com | -34.6% |
| 65ymas.com | -34.5% |
Impact on Sinapsis accounts
Regarding our clients’ accounts, despite being an update with a greater impact than the May one, we have observed 61% of sites showing a positive trend. Of all of them, more than half begin the first phase with a downward trend that later, on the 10th, not only recovers but also surpasses the positioning of previous dates and maintains an upward trend.
In 28% of the accounts we observe a negative trend. In some cases this trend is quite subtle, although in some it is quite pronounced. 11% of the remaining accounts show an irregular behavior in which a stable positioning trend is maintained.
In terms of sectors, all the accounts negatively affected are related to the shopping sector. Although it is difficult to establish a pattern since accounts in the same sector have experienced significant increases in positioning. We also observe that the accounts in which there is a change in trend between the first and second phases correspond to the health sector.
Comments
Although it is possible that the implementation of this update has not yet been fully developed, at Sinapsis we are already analyzing its effects. And we have already taken measures and established strategies to counteract its effects. We will continue to monitor the situation of all the accounts in the coming days as well as the different tools that analyze the volatility of the search algorithm in anticipation of possible changes.