After first being launched on December 3rd, Google’s December 2020 core update completed on December 16th which was announced via Google’s twitter feed.
Google’s December 2020 core update has been the biggest update in a while. Significantly more impactful than an earlier core update Google ran back in May this year which affected a wide scope of site types. We have seen extensive coverage all month long from multiple search engine news publishers.
So, what does Google want? How can a site rank well in this current search environment?
What has become apparent is that useful and unbiased, context-focused content seems to thrive even in business oriented searches made up primarily of sites that need to promote their brand and their message. If you are looking for a service or product by searching in a search engine the results may contain sites that aggregate content related to the service or product you are looking for rather than being made up of only individual companies who actually sell you said service or product. This is why so many directories like Yelp, Homeadvisor, and Upcity continue to rank well in Google.
Whether or not this December 2020 core update has had any effect on directory sites hasn’t been completely determined but because many still maintain a 1st page ranking so it’s clear they haven’t been negatively affected overall.
Content > Backlinks
It’s still early but backlinks are being weighed less it seems. Content is being weighed more. This is not anything surprising. Since 2014, when Matt Cutts of Google first spoke on links losing value over time, we’ve officially known links have been losing importance in Google’s algorithm. Any veteran SEO who has been in this game for the last 10 years has first hand experience when it comes to links losing strength in Google. My Facebook page ranking at the top for my core keywords in my city is some proof of this. It has some social shares with nofollow links behind each one so you could argue that the page has hardly any links at all and none that Google officially recognize to pass authority (dofollow) but it does have a healthy amount of content related to SEO. My official website (what you’re on now) has better backlinks but that doesn’t matter with this update at least. Examples of this can be seen in many cases by anyone who is familiar with looking at backlink profiles.
So far this core update has definitely changed the landscape of search but the core of search seems to be showing the same 1st page batch of sites for their respective keywords relieving SEOs everywhere including me. It means the foundations are still here and there is a right way to do SEO to get constant and stable (somewhat) rankings.