On November 11, 2024, Google announced a new core update would begin rolling out. This update is a broad core algorithm update emphasizing the continual refinement of the search results.
Google stated in a post on X:
“Today we released the November 2024 core update. We’ll add it to our ranking release history page in the near future and update when the rollout is complete.”
Important things to remember during an algorithm update:
- Core updates affect all search results globally;
- Most websites may not notice a significant shift in rankings;
- Google recommends making changes after the update is complete;
If you find that the update has had a significant impact on your rankings, Google advises to:
- Analyze traffic before and after the update using Google Search Console;
- Prioritize changes to pages that dropped positions significantly (20 or more positions);
- Update your pages’ content quality according to Google guidelines.
Interesting observations have already been made about the results of this update:
- There is now an overlap between the AI Overviews (AIO) results and the top ten organic search results.
- Shopping queries in AIO and organic search do not overlap and increasingly differ.
- Ranking overlap between AIO and organic search experienced a slight increase in volatility, which trended downwards as the update was announced.
- Volatility between organic search results and AIO spiked after the update was released, which could indicate changes to both AIO and organic search rankings.
- There were significant changes in specific industries, with E-commerce showing a -22.1% shift in top citations.
- The volatility patterns may indicate what kinds of queries Google will prioritize after this update.
It’s also important to remember that recoveries aren’t guaranteed after the update is complete. Site owners must keep up with user experience and web content updates to ensure their site meets user and search engine expectations.
Google regularly releases core algorithm updates several times a year, and the November core update will be the last core update for 2024. Google will announce when the update is complete via the Search Status Dashboard.
