On the 11th November 2024, Google began rolling out their third and final Core Update of the year, which completed its rollout on the 5th December 2024.
Previously, we’ve seen a Core Update in March and another Core Update in August – both of which came with plenty of ranking volatility (where rankings seem unstable) and noticeable improvements in performance for helpful, user-focused content.
So, what’s changed with the November 2024 Core Update?
Here’s the update explained by our SEO specialists.
What’s new in the November 2024 Core Update?
As was expected, with the November 2024 Core Update, Google’s focus is still firmly on rewarding helpful content in search results and reducing the visibility of content that has only been created to manipulate search engines.
So, there’s nothing especially new in this update compared to the previous August 2024 and March 2024 Core Updates.
Google wants to provide as much accurate and helpful content to searchers as possible.
Ranking volatility caused by the November 2024 Core Update.
With the November 2024 Core Update, there was quite a lot of ranking volatility.
While some industries saw varying levels of instability, the update targeted all types of content, resulting in volatility across dozens of industries.
Here’s a graph showing ranking volatility since the update’s release:
What you need to do if you’ve been affected.
If you’ve lost rankings and seen reduced organic traffic since the November 2024 Core Update began rolling out, here are some tips straight from our SEO specialists.
Carry out a content audit
If you’ve been affected, you must first conduct an audit to analyse your website’s overall quality of content.
If you have a blog on your website that hasn’t been updated for a while, or you’ve been guilty of whacking out quick posts that might not be as high-quality as other posts (as we have at some point), that content could be weighing down your SEO as Google continues this focus on helpful content.
A content audit can help you identify the following:
- Low-quality content that doesn’t add value to the reader
- Older articles that could do with an update
- Content with low word counts that can be expanded
- Content that is no longer relevant and can be removed
- Content that hasn’t been optimised
- Content that isn’t indexed on Google
- Topics that you should cover that you haven’t already
If you’re unsure where to start with a content audit, our SEO specialists can handle the whole process for you.
If you’d like to speak to a specialist about organising a content audit, get in touch.
Update or remove outdated or low-quality content
When dealing with outdated or low-quality content on your site, you have two main options: update it or delete it.
In most cases, we recommend updating your content to add more value to the reader, increase low word counts, improve content optimisations, and make information more relevant and accurate.
Updating your content and making it more valuable to your audience is what Google wants to see, so it can help improve your content’s indexability and position in organic rankings.
It’s important to regularly go back and update content to ensure it stays relevant, accurate, and helpful to your readers.
As a last resort, you can delete any irrelevant content that no longer serves a purpose or can’t be updated. Just remember to redirect any deleted pages to their replacement content or back to your main blog page!
Identify content gaps that you can fill
Identifying topic gaps in your content will help you generate new and helpful content ideas for your audience.
This is what we call a content gap analysis, where we create several topic clusters to help you brainstorm all the content ideas that would be good to cover on your blog. It’s also good to verify how valuable this content will be by looking at the keyword search volumes for related questions.
With that information, you can begin covering the topics that are most relevant to your audience and your business, optimise your content better for search engines, and increase your visibility and rankings in organic search results.
Familiarise yourself with Google’s helpful content guidelines
As always, it’s a good idea to familiarise yourself with Google’s latest guidance and best practices.
In this case, there haven’t been any significant updates to their guidance.
Nevertheless, here are our recommendations on Google’s guidance that are important to understand:
- Helpful Content Guidance: Creating Helpful, Reliable, People-First Content
- Core Updates: Google Search’s Core Updates & Your Website
- Update Status: Google Algorithm Update Status Dashboard
Get support from our SEO specialists
If you’re noticing big drops in website traffic and keyword rankings due to the November 2024 Core Update, our SEO specialists can help you monitor your performance, review your content and on-page optimisation, and take steps to improve your organic rankings and SEO performance.
To speak to an SEO specialist today, visit our contact page or call us on 01329 565001. We’ll be more than happy to help.
