This month we bring you some exciting developments and updates from the world of search.
Following a turbulent few weeks post-August core update, Google has announced the rollout of the third core update for the year. This update follows an announcement at Google’s recent Web Creator Summit, where we were warned another search update was on the horizon.
Despite conversations at the summit providing hope for those who experienced a significant drop in rankings and traffic, Google has advised that recovery should not be expected as a result of the November 2024 core update.
Additionally, Google has updated its Core Web Vitals documentation, particularly around the INP (Interaction to Next Paint) metric, reinforcing a consistent scoring approach that takes into account mobile performance.
More helpful advice comes as Google Search Central publishes a new guide on Google Trends which aims to help marketers leverage search trends for smarter content strategies.
Finally, in the world of AI, OpenAI has unveiled powerful new features in ChatGPT, including an enhanced search tool aimed at delivering more accurate, context-driven answers.
We’ll explore these updates and more in detail in the article below.
Allow our traffic light system to guide you to the articles that need your attention, so watch out for Red light updates as they’re major changes that will need you to take action, whereas amber updates may make you think and are definitely worth knowing but aren’t urgent. And finally, green light updates which are great for your SEO and site knowledge but are less significant than others
Keen to know more about any of these changes and what they mean for your SEO? Get in touch or visit our SEO agency page to find out how we can help.
In this post, we’ll explore…
Google started rolling out its November 2024 core update on November 11 and it was confirmed on X that it would take two weeks to fully implement.
In the confirmation on X, Google stated that:
“This update is designed to continue our work to improve the quality of our search results by showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search. We’ll update our ranking release history page in the near future, and update it when the rollout is complete.”
While it’s too early to comment on its impact, we can see from SERP volatility tools that volatility remains high in the UK after a couple of periods of very high volatility were experienced on desktop throughout October:
This follows a similar pattern for mobile:
This update follows an announcement at Google’s recent Web Creator Summit, where we were warned another search update was on the horizon.
The August 2024 core update caused significant fluctuations in visibility for many sites and those who saw improvements following earlier drops reported that these gains have since reversed. This prompted many creators at the summit to express their concerns and ask questions to Google employees.
Discussions at the summit primarily focused on the impact of recent Google algorithm updates, particularly the September 2023 Helpful Content Update (HCU), which impacted ranking and traffic for many websites.
Google representatives, including Search Liaison Danny Sullivan and VP Pandu Nayak, engaged directly with attendees and listened to their experiences and concerns. Although they did not explicitly advise anyone to “move on,” some attendees interpreted the company’s comments as a signal to consider alternative strategies or diversify traffic sources, rather than solely relying on recovery from Google search changes.
Google cautioned attendees not to expect immediate improvements from the upcoming update, especially if their sites had been heavily affected by HCU. Despite creators’ concerns that smaller publishers are often deprioritised in favour of larger brands, Google maintained that their primary focus remains on user experience across the web.
While attendees valued the chance to voice their frustrations openly, Google clarified that feedback from this event would not likely affect the update which is currently rolling out.
You can read more about the previous Google algorithm updates in our guide.
Over the past few months, OpenAI has been testing a feature called SearchGPT. Now, OpenAI is also testing Search within ChatGPT, which is currently available only to ChatGPT Plus and Team users, with plans to eventually make it accessible to everyone.
With Search within ChatGPT, when users ask a question, they can now see the sites and articles that contributed to the AI’s answer. For some questions, users will see a split screen: on one side, they’ll see the standard AI-generated answer, and on the other side, a list of citations with links to the articles and posts that helped generate the response. Alternatively, users might see citations directly in the answer itself, along with a link at the bottom to the sources.
Search within ChatGPT uses three types of bots:
- OAI-SearchBot – Handles searching tasks.
- ChatGPT-User – Tracks user actions in ChatGPT.
- GPTBot – Collects information to make ChatGPT smarter and safer.
Website owners can use robots.txt to control how these bots interact with their content. For example, they can allow bots to use their content in search results while blocking it from being used for AI training.
Search within ChatGPT is still in its testing phase, though OpenAI has partnered with major news outlets like the Financial Times and Reuters to integrate their articles into AI-generated responses. OpenAI believes these partnerships will make the feature even more useful and appealing to users.
What impact this will have on Google Search remains unknown.
In a statement from Google, the search engine has said that:
“Our systems aim to understand if a section of a site is independent or starkly different from the main content of the site. This helps us surface the most useful information from a range of sites.”
This means Google’s systems try to assess whether certain pages or sections of a site align with the overall theme of that site. This could explain why some sections on sites like Forbes have seen notable drops in visibility over recent months, as they may not be thematically relevant to the main content of the site.
This new approach seems to contradict previous statements from Google, which suggested that sites didn’t need to stay within a specific niche to perform well. Now, however, it appears that sticking to a consistent theme may be more important.
Additionally, Google clarified:
“The site reputation abuse policy is not being tested, and it is still not algorithmic.”
This indicates that the recent visibility changes are not due to Google’s site reputation abuse policy. Instead, they are likely caused by a different algorithm that evaluates how closely content aligns with a site’s primary focus.
Google recently updated its official documentation on Core Web Vitals metrics thresholds, providing deeper insights into the Interaction to Next Paint (INP) metric, which became part of the Core Web Vitals in 2024.
To recap, INP measures the time it takes for a website to respond to user interactions such as clicks, taps, or keyboard inputs. Unlike the retired First Input Delay (FID), which only measured the delay of the first user interaction, INP tracks the response time of all interactions, giving a more accurate representation of the overall user experience.
Put simply, a low INP score indicates that a site responds quickly to most user interactions, while a higher score means slower responsiveness.
What’s been updated?
The updated documentation explains the rationale behind the INP performance thresholds.
Chrome chose a single set of thresholds for both mobile and desktop devices, despite the fact that mobile devices generally have more constraints (e.g., slower network speeds and less powerful hardware). This decision was made because user expectations for good or poor experiences are consistent across devices, and using a single threshold simplifies understanding. The thresholds are set as follows:
- Good: INP under 200 ms
- Needs Improvement: INP between 200 ms and 500 ms
- Poor: INP over 500 ms
When deciding these thresholds, the team considered real-world conditions, such as the performance of lower-end mobile devices, which account for a significant portion of web traffic. To accommodate these devices, the 200 ms threshold for “good” experiences was chosen which was based on mobile devices.
Chrome’s team also analysed data from the top 10,000 websites, which make up a large proportion of internet traffic, and found that most sites struggled to achieve INP scores below 300 ms. As a result, 500 ms was set as the “poor” threshold, ensuring that the scoring system was achievable for the majority of popular websites.
The update provides a more nuanced understanding of INP scoring and aims to ensure that the metrics are both realistic and meaningful for website performance, especially for mobile users.
You can read more about Google’s INP metric and how to measure it in our guide.
Google Search Central has published a new guide on Google Trends, offering a comprehensive introduction to using the tool for search marketing.
Useful for experienced marketers and those new to the industry, the guide contains six sections that explain how you can use Google Trends for various aspects of content strategy and competitor analysis.
The six sections include:
About Google Trends: The introduction provides a general overview of the tool, explaining how it can be used to identify popular topics and rising trends.
Monitoring trends using the Trending Now and Explore pages: The second section discusses how users can explore recent trends and rising trends through the Explore tool and Trending now tool. These allow you to view the latest global trends or narrow down to specific countries, time periods, categories, and types of searches (e.g., web, image, YouTube) to help you identify what’s gaining popularity.
Keyword research: This section covers how to use the Explore tool for keyword research to identify terms that your audience is interested in
Content prioritisation: The “Content Calendar” section advises using Google Trends data to prioritise content topics according to seasonal trends. Here they emphasise the importance of having content ready and published before search interest peaks to ensure maximum visibility and engagement.
Competitor research and industry benchmarking: Google Trends can also be a tool for competitor research, allowing you to benchmark your website’s performance against industry trends and competitors.
Analysing brand awareness and sentiment: The final section explains how Google Trends can be used to measure brand awareness and sentiment by understanding how the public gauges your brand compared to your competitors. Trends in search interest can indicate shifts in brand perception, offering valuable insights that can guide you in creating content that addresses these changes.
You can read the full Google Trends documentation on Google Search Central.
