At the beginning of December, Google officially confirmed via Twitter that there is a new algorithm core update called “December Update”.
Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the December 2020 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. Please see this blog post for more about that:https://t.co/e5ZQUAlt0G
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) December 3, 2020
The update launched on December 3 and, as expected, will take about two weeks to fully roll out. With the update in January and May, this is now the third core update this year.
Google is continuously making changes to its own algorithm, most of which we don’t even notice much. Core updates, however, are major changes to the search engine’s core algorithm that can have far-reaching effects on the organic visibility of websites. Therefore, the outcry in the SEO scene is usually great when such an update is officially announced. Here, with a little wink, is a fitting tweet about it:
Yep pic.twitter.com/wY61BL05vx
— Nino Andrasec (@nandrasec) December 3, 2020
Some sites are already reporting big losses or gains in organic visibility, some as much as 30%. And still others have not (yet) noticed any effects at all.
According to SISTRIX, especially dictionaries and encyclopedias are negatively affected by the update, such as wiktionary.org and urbandictionary.com.
In general, however, the update does not seem to be designed to be industry-specific; there are winners and losers.
Winners and losers of the current Google update (examples):
| Branche | Winner | Loser |
| Professional networks | linkedin.com | xing.com |
| Real Estate | von-poll.com | immobilienscout24.de |
| Travel | wikitravel.org | expedia.de |
A particularly interesting example is the opposing development of linkedin.com and xing.com. LinkedIn has long been preferred by German users, especially since the functions on XING are relatively straightforward, and LinkedIn simply scores more points here in general when it comes to professional networking. This is now reflected in the visibility index of both domains after the core update.
Google itself provides corresponding recommendations to be observed in the event of a core algorithm update. However, these apply in general and you should not pay attention to them only when your own website has been negatively affected by an update and has lost visibility. If you provide high-quality content on your website that meets the needs of your users, you don’t have to fear a core update.
