The most feared moment at the end of the year has arrived: Google officially announced a new update to its algorithm, the November 2021 core update. According to the tweet published in his Google Search Central account, this new update began at approximately 11 am EST (Eastern Standard Time), that is, approximately 5:00 pm on Wednesday, November 17 in Spain.
As the internet giant announced: “November 2021 core update is rolling out right now. As usual with these updates, will typically take one to two weeks to fully implement«.
Later today, we are releasing a broad core update, as we do several times per year. It is called the November 2021 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates is here:
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc)
Google releases the November 2021 core update just before the Christmas sales season
While this year has been very active in terms of Google algorithm updates, it is surprising to see that the internet giant decides to launch its last core update of the year just before the Christmas sales seasonthe most important for online sales: it is less than two weeks until Cyber Monday and the update will still take a few days to a couple of weeks to show its changes.
However, as we have explained on previous occasions, Google’s core updates are aimed at improving tracking systems in general. A) Yes, the pages that fall in their indexing after this type of update are not being penalized, but reevaluated in comparison with other web content published since the last update.
That’s why it’s important follow Google’s recommendations on factors to consider if this new algorithm update has affected your rankings, And while it is true that there are no specific actions to recover, this is an opportunity to review the content of your website and its usability. In any case, in the early hours of Thursday the 18th, the Semrush volatility sensor, one of the main tools, left no doubt about the impact that the update was having.
This is the third core update that Google has made this year: The previous core update was made in July 2021 and a little earlier the algorithm update was made in June 2021, one of the most important so far.
This was the July core update, the second update of the Google algorithm in 2021
After Google confirmed in early June a new update to its algorithm: the core update of June 2021, the first major Google update of this year, and in a way one of the most surprising, since it would have a second part in July.
And July July arrived:
As Google announced at the time, this update meant the second part of the process started in the first weeks of June. As explained by the internet giant “Some of our improvements planned for the June 2021 update they’re not quite ready, so we’re moving forward with the parts that are, then we’ll follow up with the rest with the July 2021 update. Most sites won’t notice any of these updates, as is typical with Core Updates.”
The July 2021 Core Update, previously announced, is now rolling out:
These typically take 1-2 weeks to finish. Our guidance about such updates is here:
Here’s more on how we improve search through updates:
— Google Search Liaison (@searchliaison)
2021 represented a busy summer for SEO experts
In fact, last summer Google launched a flurry of algorithmic changes of varying depth, including an update dedicated to and another much more relevant for the eCommerce sector such as , which began on June 15 and ended in August. Thanks to this update, the Core Web Vitals were taken into account along with the rest of the elements in the search ranking of the internet giant, which made them an essential part of any SEO strategy.
In any case, although Google has been making other types of updates to its algorithm (as in the case of last April, focused on enhancing the visibility of quality reviews), one of these has not been produced for a long time. big updates, which they usually do shake the SEO specialists for its ability to significantly alter the visibility of some domains.
Impact of the summer core updates in Spain
Once the July core update was over, the SEO consultant MJCachón selected 20 to 25 sites from each sector to before, during and after the summer core update, a complete vision of its evolution and the impact caused by the previous update of the internet giant’s algorithm.
eCommerce Sector and Marketplaces
The big winner in the summer core update was , with a 149.47% gain in visibility. Well below this average and in second place we find Casa del Libro, with a profit of 23.98%, and Etsy in third place, with 14.34%.
Travel industry, flights and hotels
The travel sector was one of the most affected after this core update, since Traveling Mouse (-36.09%), Tripadvisor (-27.55%) and Lastminute (-27.34%) They have resulted in considerable loss of visibility compared to the winners Nautalia Viajes (17.87%), Logitravel (11.52%) and B, the travel brand (19.05%).
Marketing Media Industry
The marketing media also saw a variation in their visibility, and in Marketing4eCommerce noticed an increase in our visibility of 12.39%, only behind PrNoticias (27.53%) and IPMark (24.97%).
The marketing media with the greatest losses after the summer core update were Ecommerce News (-68.46%), Advertising (-43.67%) and Direct Marketing (-26.31%).
The big changes in the Google algorithm in recent months
Last year Google made the December core update, an update that was extensive and took a couple of weeks to fully roll out, managing to impact several websites that saw their Google rankings change abruptly with effects that . In that case, the most affected categories were dictionary websites and encyclopedias, which lost positions, while the visibility of many sectors has been reorganized.
The change in dictionary and encyclopedia results is well founded: In mid-October 2020, Google updated its guidelines for search quality raters, and in these guidelines under the section titled “Ranking dictionary and encyclopedia results for different queries”, the internet giant claimed that these did not meet the user’s intention in all cases, and only under a specific context.
They also gained a lot of visibility after that updateled by YouTube (+116), Facebook (+76), Twitter (+70), Instagram (+41) and LinkedIn (+68.) Only Pinterest lost visibility (-36.) In any case, one of the most notable changes was the drop in visibility on Amazon websites:
In the specific case of Spain there were very popular domains that managed to significantly increase their visibility, such as Filmin (+66%), Ivoox (+65.9%), Eurekakids (+50.5%) or Apple (+42.6%).
What should you do if the core update impacts your website?
Although the general rule is that there is no specific action you can take to gain or regain rankas usually happens after a central update of the algorithm and keys that you should consider if you notice any negative effects during this change, especially if your website has been impacted by core updates in the past.
A starting point is check if your site is offering quality content, since Google focuses on offering users content that is relevant, helpful and able to clearly answer your questions and requests.
An exercise that you should do to know if you offer quality content is to answer the following questions:
- Do you trust the information presented in the article?
- Is the article written by an expert or enthusiast who is truly knowledgeable about the topic, or is it superficial in nature?
- Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
- Would you feel comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
- Does the article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
- Are the topics driven by genuine interests of the site’s readers, or is the site generating content by trying to guess what might rank well in search engines?
- Does the article provide original content or information, original research or analysis?
- Does the page offer substantial value compared to other pages in search results?
- How much quality control is done on the content?
- Does the article describe both sides of a story?
- Would you expect to see this article in a print magazine, encyclopedia, or book?
The intention behind these updates is to display the most relevant content for user searches.
One more point that Google always emphasizes is that it may be that a negative impact on the ranking is not a sign that there is something wrong with your websitesince these updates are made with the intention of improving the way the internet giant evaluates content in general, showing results that are really relevant to user searches.
So in general you should consider creating a quality site with great content tailored to your theme or vertical well beyond just getting past this Google update, but to improve your general positioning with valuable content that really matters to your target audience.
Now it only remains to be attentive to the changes that the core update of November 2021 shows us during the coming weeks, but as always, there will be websites that gain or lose positions in the search results and then we will understand what are the factors that Google has changed in this update and if it is necessary to make any changes in our SEO strategy.
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