How the Google December 2020 core update affects

Google has released a new core update , called Google December 2020, which according to the data provided by the company, will have a greater impact on search results than the last core update released in May 2020.
Core updates from Google are released every three months, however December 2020 has taken seven months, which means it is a major update
The Google December 2020 update was released onDecember 3 , although its results did not begin to be noticed until the next day. According to the company, the effects of this update will be felt during the weeks following its launch, when they begin to affect all the pages that are displayed in search results.
Like the May 2020 Core Update, it is a core update so it affects everyone, not just a region, a language or a specific category of web pages. Typically, Google releases one of these updates every three months, however, December 2020 has taken seven months to be released, so it is supposed to be much more extensive than the previous ones.
As is usual with this type of core update, Google does not provide information on the changes introduced. However, analysts and traffic experts have noticed that it especially affects the first results of the Google SERP page, as can be seen in the following image of Rankranger that has analyzed the fluctuation in the positions of the SERPs:
In this sense, the data suggest that the main fluctuations in positions have been noted on pages of topics such as: real estate, travel, finance, education, pets, work, health, legality and government pages. Everything seems to indicate that this update especially affects those niches in which Google understands that it is important to comply with EAT , since, in many of them, the opinion of a professional or expert is required.
At the moment, the information varies a lot, as the update has not yet been fully rolled out. For example, some users are experiencing a loss of up to 40% of organic traffic from Google, while others have seen growth of more than 100%. This means that you will have to wait to see the real effects.

December Core Update Damage Report: Winners and Losers

Just to end the year, the SEO universe has once again trembled due to Google’s core update December 2020 , a new update in its central search algorithm that has already been deployed worldwide.
Of course, after its application, the core update December 2020 has begun to show its consequences, and it is that despite the fact that the internet giant has accustomed us to the constant updates of its algorithm, every year some appear that manage to be a real pain headlong for SEO specialists , and the rollout of this update started quite late, and right around Christmas time and shortly before the December holidays.
Google confirms a new update of its algorithm: this is the core update of December
Although, as Google has always said: “this type of update normally takes one to two weeks to be implemented globally” and it will still take a while to know the full impact of its results, the volatile changes are beginning to be noticed in the SERPS, as many specialists have begun to report on Twitter.
What seems clear at this point is that the impact of this update has been greater than that of the previous one, in May, something that various SEO tools corroborate, as SEMrush has shared in the specialized medium Searchengineland. The volatility reached on December 4, equaled the figure for May, and greatly exceeded the result (8) of the previous update, in January 2020.

Visibility changes after the core update of December 2020 by sectors

The first changes in search results began to be noticed in Europe since last Friday afternoon, and the Sistrix team has shared some of the first impacts of this update.

The first notable point in this change is thatdictionary websites and encyclopedias have lost their place,while the visibility of many sectors has been reorganized.

The change in the results of dictionaries and encyclopedias is well founded: in mid-October, Google updated its guidelines for evaluators of search quality, and in these guidelines under the section entitled “Classification of results of dictionaries and encyclopedias for different queries” ,the internet giant ensures that these do not meet the user’s intention in all cases, and only under a specific context.

Now, many dictionaries are among the big losers of the core update December 2020, includinglexico.com, wiktionary.org, and dictionary.com.

Visibility drops on Amazon

To analyze the impact of the update at the international level, Sistrix has used the example of what happened in the United Kingdom . There, social networks have seen many movements after the new update, led by YouTube (+116), Facebook (+76), Twitter (+70), Instagram (+41) and LinkedIn (+68.) Only Pinterest loses visibility (-36.)

Despite this, one of the most notable changes has beenthe drop in visibility on Amazon’s websites:

Google Core Update December 2020: Spanish winners and losers

Sistrix has reserved a space to analyze the most outstanding results in Spain:

Winners

There are some very popular domains that have notably increased their visibility such as Filmin (+ 66%), Ivoox (+ 65.9%), Eurekakids (+ 50.5%) or Apple (+ 42.6%). In any case, the main beneficiaries of this update in our country have been:

Losers

Among the losers at the Spanish level, the case of Aliexpress stands out , which drops 38% in visibility. Other popular domains that have lost visibility areelplural.com (-21%), marie-claire.es (-20.9%) or asos .com (-20.6%).

How to know if your website has been affected by this update

We will remain pending to update the impact that the core update December 2020 has had on the websites of Spain, and in the meantime we suggest you check if your domain has presented notable changes in its positioning and scope in recent days.
Among the factors that you should review to know if you have been impacted by this update, we recommend you review:

• Organic traffic per day

• Your keyword ranking, and not only in the positioning of your main keywords but in the positioning of your competition, looking for some volatility in their results.

• CTR and impressions. Check the performance in Google Search Console for noticeable changes.

• analyze your results in Google Search Console

• Check your visibility in Google ranking.

What to do if you have been affected

Remember that a loss of positions for specific keywords does not mean that there is a problem with your pages , since Google seeks to offer the most successful content according to the interests of users, however, as we have said before , you should focus on offering quality content.
To help you, you can answer the questions about your website that Google suggests to make sure that your content meets the expectations of your target audience.