Google Denies A Major Update On December 17th

Yesterday, most of the Google search results tracking tools showed major changes in rankings within Google’s search results; but, during my analysis of webmaster communication within the discussion forums and social space, I saw very little discussion around changes in rankings at Google. Then, Google’s Matt Cutts implied there was no update on Twitter saying […]

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Yesterday, most of the Google search results tracking tools showed major changes in rankings within Google’s search results; but, during my analysis of webmaster communication within the discussion forums and social space, I saw very little discussion around changes in rankings at Google. Then, Google’s Matt Cutts implied there was no update on Twitter saying Google tries to minimize doing major updates right before the holidays.

Here is Matt Cutts tweet in response to being blamed for doing a major Penguin update yesterday:

 

The tracking tools disagree and show signs of major changes in the search results. I personally believe that something tripped up the tools, like user interface changes or something, but not ranking changes. Here are screen shots of the tools, including MozCast, SERPs.com, SERP Metrics and Algoroo, statistics for December 17th:

mozcast-dec17 serps-dec17 algoroo-dec17 serpmetrics-dec17

And from what I see in the webmaster discussion areas, very few are complaining about traffic or ranking shifts around December 17th.

Finally, Matt Cutts and Google has said time after time, they try not to do major updates during or before the holiday season.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.

In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.

Barry can be followed on X here and you can learn more about Barry Schwartz over here or on his personal site.

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