Google’s November 2024 core update began on November 11, 2024 and ended approximately 24 days later on December 5, 2024. Every core update that Google confirms, by definition, means ranking changes compared to the main update should be visible enough for Google to announce them. he. But with the latest core update, the November core update, it seemed to have less impact than some previous core updates released by Google over the years.
Make no mistake, if a site is impacted by a core update, it can cause a huge change in that site’s search visibility. But it appears this update wasn’t as big as previous major updates, according to the data providers we surveyed.
Manual actions during. Additionally, to shake things up with data, Google expanded its Site Reputation Abuse policy just as Google was rolling out this November 2024 core update. This led to a good number of websites, small and large, to be affected by a manual action (Google search penalty), leading in some cases to numerous losses of visibility for these sites in Google search.
That being said, here’s what we saw regarding this latest core update from Google.
Data Providers on Google’s November 2024 Core Update
Semrush. Semrush (our parent company) was the first to send us data that seemed to show that the August 2024 core update was more volatile than the November 2024 core update. But as Mordy Obserstein told us , a company spokesperson, said the data was messy, as it was for the August core update.
What is messy data? Well, the volatility before the main update was high, making it difficult to analyze these updates.
Here’s a chart from Semrush’s sensor that tracks volatility over the last 30 days or so – note the Google logo around November 11 to indicate the start of Google’s update – it ended on December 5:
“As with the August 2024 main update, this update was marked by a long period of very high levels of ranking volatility. This makes it almost impossible to analyze the update compared to its previous reporting period,” Mordy Obserstein told us.
You can see this here in the rankings volatility levels compared to the immediate period leading up to the update. This shows that the ranking was noticeably less volatile overall during the update. This was similar to the August core update.
Now if you look at the volatility spike by sector, you can see that the August core update was much more volatile. In fact, the main November update seemed relatively quiet, with no days scoring 9.0 or higher. “Not a single cracked vertical ‘9’ on the Semrush sensor scale outside of the News slot – which is always extremely volatile (as opposed to the 8 in the August 2024 main update),” I said Mordy Obserstein.
Here’s another chart that shows that this November main update was less volatile than the August main update, it shows that the average positions won or lost was slightly lower:
Then, when you look at the percentage of new URLs ranking in the top 10 that, before the update, weren’t even in the top 20:
Similar website. SimilarWeb’s SERP Seismometer really didn’t report any massive spikes throughout the November core update rollout. “We’re seeing that there haven’t been any obvious spikes in fluctuations that we usually see during major updates,” Similarweb’s Shay Harel told us. This is definitely not what we would typically encounter during a core update:
Similarweb sent us a chart showing the average volatility for each major update (almost all of them), comparing them to each other and this November 2024 major update was the lowest of them all:
Zooming in and comparing the August 2024 Core Update to the November 2024 Core Update, you see this even more clearly:
Now, when comparing ranking changes between the top 3, 5, and 10 search results, the November update showed significantly lower fluctuations in the top 3 results. However, the fluctuations were slightly higher in the top 5 results compared to the August update:
Next, Similarweb looked by niche or vertical and found that there was less fluctuation in the top 3 and 5 results within the healthcare niche. The financial niche also saw smaller fluctuations in the top 3 results. In contrast, the travel sector showed higher levels of fluctuations across all positions.
Other tools. There are many Google search ranking volatility tools. This is what they looked like after the core update rollout was complete and during the update:
Advanced Web Rankings:
Cognitive SEO:
Algoroo:
SERP Statistics:
Accuranker:
Mangoes:
Winch operator:
Mozcast:
Sister :
SEO Clarity:
Industry. From what I’ve been following, this update started hitting a few days after it was announced on November 13-14, then seemed to hit more sites this past weekend, around the 16 and November 17. Towards the end of this update, many trackers showed relatively low ranking volatility, but then we saw a spike in volatility around November 25-26. We have even noticed a significant movement in recent days, at the beginning of December. We thought this update would be done before the Black Friday shopping season, but it wasn’t completed until well into the following week.
The funny thing is, we saw a spike in search volatility after the main update last weekend.
What to do if you are affected. Google has given some advice on what to consider if you’ve been negatively affected by a core update in the past. Google hasn’t really given much new advice here.
- There are no specific actions to take to recover. A negative ranking impact may not indicate anything is wrong with your pages.
- Google has offered a list of questions to consider if your site is affected by a core update.
- Google said you may see a slight recovery between major updates, but the biggest change would happen after another major update.
In short, write content that is useful for people, not to rank in search engines.
- “There is nothing new or special that creators need to do for this update as long as they have created satisfying content for people. For those who may not be equally ranked, we strongly encourage reading our help page on creating useful, trustworthy, people-focused content,” Google said previously.
Learn more about Google updates
You can read more about our coverage in Search Engine Land’s Google Algorithm Update History.
Why we care. While the data above shows how sites in general are performing with the latest major update, it does not represent how your individual site performed with the update. If your site was affected by this past update, it can be devastating. If you have been affected by previous updates and therefore no improvement with this update, again, this is devastating yet again. But some sites have seen big improvements.
Feel free to compare this to our August Core Update report.
We hope you have seen improvements.