Google Updates in the UK During December 2021
According to SEMRush data, December was the most turbulent month of 2021 for Google Search. The Product Review update, which was completed a few days before Christmas, meant that many webmasters saw high volatility levels during this time, even for their non-review related websites. Around the same date, many other tools also displayed turbulence, and the chatter about this on both SEO Forums and Reddit leads us to believe that a non-confirmed update occurred. This could potentially have been as a result of an adjustment to November’s Update.
The official advice for those concerned about the Product Review Update is to make sure that the reviews posted are compliant with the best practices mentioned in the technical documentation, These entail providing enough evidence to support expertise and reinforce authenticity, for example including videos and pictures detailing your experience with the product, and making sure you link multiple sellers. It is also advisable to check Google’s official guide on how to write quality reviews, in order to fully understand all of the requirements that may affect your reviews-based website.
Google Updates in the UK During January 2022
The start of 2022 has shown early signs of more volatility for Search Results. We could be facing another non-confirmed update, with tools displaying high-turbulence in UK Search Results, and SEO Chatter mostly consisting of user complaints about traffic drops.
In the UK, the most affected verticals are Sports, News, Arts and Entertainment, ranging from High to very high SERP Volatility. According to SEMRush data, some of the verticals that seem to have the best recovery rates following the big changes on search results are Real Estate and Finance.
Google’s advice for those affected remains the same. However, if you are noticing that your rankings and traffic are not progressing as expected, and you are following Google’s official guidelines, we recommend the following approach: First, check which of your pages are losing traffic YoY and MoM using your web analytics tool of choice. Next, check ranking changes for keywords tied to those pages, and finally, try and figure out what added value your pages are missing in comparison to the pages now ranking in top positions.
We hope that this article helps you to understand how the latest Google search updates launched in December 2021 and January 2022 work, and how they could affect your website. If you are interested to learn about other Google updates that have happened, be sure to check the Google SEO Updates Section of our website, and if you are interested to learn about topics such as Digital PR and International SEO, you can also find this information on our page.
