Google Broad Core Update Released: "November 2021 Core Update"

[engine]

Google has announced its latest core update is to roll out today. It's called "November 2021 Core Update"

Later today, we are releasing a broad core update, as we do several times per year. It is called the November 2021 Core Update.

[twitter.com...]

[rustybrick]

Any of you have clients that stocked up on inventory and added staff but now is nervous that this update will hurt their expected sales volumes?

[Jori]

No, but this core update, just before black friday, is a bit unfair.

[Brett_Tabke]

They did it last year during a pandemic.... which is worse?

[forense88]

People have not yet realized what all these algorithm changes are because they expect a lower/higher demand from companies for advertising spend. They use the search engine as "advertising balancer".

[KaseyM]

Seems big.

[RedBar]

Seems big.

In what way?

After checking my US G SERPs for 50-60 keyword phrases all I see is the usual shuffling at the moment for the big money phrases, maybe a little downgrading of non-US sites, but otherwise nothing untowards ... yet!

[BigKat]

Any of you have clients that stocked up on inventory and added staff but now is nervous that this update will hurt their expected sales volumes?

Google's host crowding of Amazon pages has kept most in our industry out of the top of organic search for years, which forced us to adapt long ago. Considering the lack of converting traffic from Google, and visibility lost over the years, what Google does has little impact on our staffing/inventory these days. In fact, I can barely notice even big Google updates reflected in our sales volume since Google steers most of their users to our Chinese competitors selling on Amazon. Google leaves little to no room in the SERPS for small specialized domestic businesses to reach American consumers, which is part of the reason why our nation's trade deficit with China is over $300 billion year after year.

[LouiseSavoie]

Thanks for sharing this! I wouldn't have known if I did not come here. Hope we recover in time with this another update.

[robzilla]

Google's host crowding of Amazon pages has kept most in our industry out of the top of organic search for years

If MozCast [moz.com] is any indication, this update has again increased the influence of the "Big 10" and reduced domain diversity.

[edited by: phranque at 9:57 pm (utc) on Nov 21, 2021]
[edit reason] thread cleanup after split [/edit]

[jediviper]

An interesting analysis with some examples of winners and losers:
[sistrix.com...]

[saladtosser]

(information site) Well got hit by July update from 700 daily visits to around 300, my partners been working on the site all day every day (content/design) since and got back up to 500 daily visits, November core update slapped us back down to 300...... Get daily e-mails from people like this that just came in

"Just wanted to say a really informative and cool site. Your are on my list of sites I will use. keep up the great work.

P.S. To become the coolest most informative website a search function would be great. If I missed it my apologies."

Guess I need to build a search function but don't think that will impact what google thinks to our site but will do one for the user anyway :)

YouTube I have been concentrating on and that's still going very well from the effort, some of our videos are at the top of the serps as standalone (not carousel) google likes our content that much, strangely all we are doing is reading the content off our website and putting it on video format, google doesn't like the content on our site but loves the same content as a YouTube video, go figure!

[BigKat]

strangely all we are doing is reading the content off our website and putting it on video format, google doesn't like the content on our site but loves the same content as a YouTube video, go figure!

Not strange at all and your experience is to be expected. Google owns YouTube and will surround your videos with ads and other videos to draw in click happy users who then deplete advertisers budgets. Google has historically given their own heavily monetized properties preference in search and the same applies today.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Bigkat, while I agree in general you need to apply a slice of politics to it as well. If you share an opinion or allow conversation it had better fit the approved narratives else you'll feel a wrath like no other right now, which is fine unless you aren't ready for it. Remaining neutral is almost not enough to avoid fallout in the current climate.

[sofie77]

The first 6 days of the update were good, things went up a bit. Since yesterday things have gone even deeper than before.

A few months ago I reported here that I had seen completely different serps for about 3-4 days (no update). It was a whole exchange of the Top10. Never saw this before. I had hoped that this would not consolidate and my prayers were answered. After the 4th day this top 10 exchange was gone again. Nevertheless, it was clear to me, that this was a test and if it was positive for Google, then we will see it again at some point. Now it happened. I hope it doesn't stay that way but why should you roll it out a second time?

Furthermore, I now see more ads above and below the serps. Many pages contain up to 5 ads, then YouTube videos, then Google Shopping, then search suggestions and the answer box. After that, the organic results come with only 5 instead of 10. Google does not want searchers to click on the websites, but rather to increase the time that searchers spend on Google. We're just slaves, doomed to deliver content and hope to get a piece of the pie. People are gradually getting used to seeing more and more Google products.

[ichthyous]

Furthermore, I now see more ads above and below the serps. Many pages contain up to 5 ads, then YouTube videos, then Google Shopping, then search suggestions and the answer box. After that, the organic results come with only 5 instead of 10. Google does not want searchers to click on the websites, but rather to increase the time that searchers spend on Google. We're just slaves, doomed to deliver content and hope to get a piece of the pie. People are gradually getting used to seeing more and more Google products

@sofie77 I have been seeing this being tested for months. For the hours that this type of page layout stuffed with ads is running traffic drops like a stone. Previously people would skip ads and scroll down to organic. I believe this is an effort to exhaust and confuse the searcher and they give up and click ad links.

At the same time the quality of the traffic from ad words is abysmal...mostly just fake clicks and Google does not respect your exclusions at all. They send clicks from anywhere and charge you for it.

[RedBar]

@sofie77 I have been seeing this being tested for months.

Yep, me too, I commented about this months ago, I think it was that mid-March update when I was first affected and immediately lost 40% of my traffic.

However, Joe Public must be getting more than a bit pi$$ed off with this since I am now getting more emails than ever from Joe asking me about my widgets because they cannot find any answers elsewhere since all G does is try to SELL them stuff regardless of their widget query.

I have been asked to create a widget wiki, now that would keep me busy:-)

[anotoki]

Looking at Semrush Sensor this update seems to be continuing and we have seen a big increase in traffic from UK

[not2easy]

They announced today that the November Update was officially finished: [webmasterworld.com...]

[rustybrick]

not2easy, no, that was different and it was not today.

[not2easy]

TY! You are right rustybrick, I skimmed past too fast. That was the November local search update.
'pologies.