Google December 2024 spam update done rolling out

Google’s June 2024 spam update rollout is now complete. The spam update started on December 19, 2024, about seven days ago, finishing on December 26, 2024. This was the third spam update of the 2024 year and started a day after Google completed the December 2024 core update.

This update was a general and broad spam update, it was not a link spam update and did not automate the site reputation abuse policy, which is still only done via manual actions.

Google wrote, “The rollout was complete as of December 26, 2024.”

What we saw. While the update was announced the day after the December core update, it does seems that it hit very hard within a few days and was much more widespread than some previous spam updates. Although, it is still a bit too early to dig too much into the update. If you were hit by this update, you may notice the rankings drops in Search Console. Keep in mind, holiday traffic can be very volatile and low for many sites, so look at rankings and not traffic for this specific update.

Previous spam updates. The last spam update was on June 20, 2024 and was named June 2024 spam update, it completed on June 27.

Here’s our past coverage of confirmed Google spam updates:

• June 2024 spam update
• March 2024 spam update
• October 2023 spam update
• December 2022 link spam update
• October 2022 spam update 
• November 2021 spam update
• July 2021 link spam update.
• A two-part Spam Update – June 23 and June 28

Why we care. This Google update took a lot of us by surprise, since it happened only a day after the core update and just days before the holiday season. We were taken back by Google releasing an update that will end close to, or into the holiday season.

This is the 7th Google search algorithm update we had in 2024, including four core updates and now three spam updates. It is unclear exactly what type of spam this targets but if you noticed any ranking changes during this update, it might have been related to this spam update.

Spam updates. Google linked to its standard spam updates documentation that reads:

“While Google’s automated systems to detect search spam are constantly operating, we occasionally make notable improvements to how they work. When we do, we refer to this as a spam update and share when they happen on our list of Google Search ranking updates.

For example, SpamBrain is our AI-based spam-prevention system. From time-to-time, we improve that system to make it better at spotting spam and to help ensure it catches new types of spam.

Sites that see a change after a spam update should review our spam policies to ensure they are complying with those. Sites that violate our policies may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all. Making changes may help a site improve if our automated systems learn over a period of months that the site complies with our spam policies.

In the case of a link spam update (an update that specifically deals with link spam), making changes might not generate an improvement. This is because when our systems remove the effects spammy links may have, any ranking benefit the links may have previously generated for your site is lost. Any potential ranking benefits generated by those links cannot be regained.”