Google's December 2024 Core and Spam algorithm updates

On 12 December last year, Google started the rollout of its latest Core algorithm update, which finished on 18 December and was immediately followed by an update to Google’s Spam detection algorithm on 19 December. The core algorithm update caused noticeable shifts in rankings across various industries, but many website owners are reporting seismic changes from the spam update.

What Are Google Core Algorithm Updates?

Google’s core algorithm updates are broad changes designed to improve the relevance and quality of search results. Unlike specific updates targeting particular issues—like the Helpful Content Update or the Spam Update—core updates refine how Google assesses and ranks content overall. These changes can influence visibility in search results significantly, as it essentially moves the goalposts for judging successful content. Sometimes they move more than others, which is why it’s entirely possible that your site may have been through previous updates without being affected. 

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Who has been negatively affected by the December 2024 algorithm update?

Reports from the Core update indicate these kinds of site have been affected:

  1. E-commerce Websites: Some online retailers have reported a decline in search visibility. This may reflect Google’s increased focus on distinguishing high-quality, authoritative product pages from thin or repetitive content. Sites with poorly optimized product descriptions or lacking user reviews may be particularly vulnerable.
  2. Informational Websites: Informational content publishers, especially smaller niche sites, have faced challenges. Larger generalist platforms with diverse, authoritative content have seen gains at their expense. This shift suggests Google is prioritizing sites that offer comprehensive, multi-faceted coverage over narrowly focused expertise.
  3. Affiliate and Ad-Heavy Sites: Websites relying heavily on affiliate links or ads without providing unique value to users appear to have been negatively impacted. Google’s guidelines emphasize content that serves user needs rather than solely commercial interests.

For the Spam update, we know that it was a general update rather than being aimed at a particular kind of spam, but we don’t know if the criteria have changed. There’s been no change to Google’s list of the kind of content and behaviour to avoid, but many affected sites are adamant that they aren’t using spam-adjacent tactics, which would at least have gone some way to explain things for the sites where traffic has almost completely disappeared post-update.

Why does Google update their Core algorithm?

As with all tech, changes outside the Google ecosystem will mean there is searchable content which they need updates to correctly interpret. As a very top-level overview, they will be looking for:

  • Quality Over Quantity: Thin or duplicate content has become a target, with Google rewarding sites that offer depth and originality.
  • Authority and Expertise: Sites demonstrating experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T, Google’s own recipe for search success) continue to perform better.
  • User Experience: Pages with excessive ads, poor mobile usability, or slow load times may face penalties.

Google’s Spam criteria

If you want to read Google’s full policies you can click here. If you’d rather read my interpretation, which is admittedly much shorter, here it is:

  • Cloaking - showing a different page to search engines than the one seen by website visitors
  • Doorway abuse - pages that just exist to send people to other pages on the website
  • Expired domain abuse - buying the expired address for a legitimate website to send people to a junk sales site
  • Hacked content - having pages on your site that have been hacked and not repaired
  • Hidden links and link abuse - hiding links on a page that are just there to affect search results
  • Keyword stuffing - too many of the same keywords in your site content
  • Link spam - buying links from an online service. These are usually spammy sites so easy for Google to recognise.
  • Machine generated traffic - traffic from bots, which are programs created to pretend to be people
  • Malware - linking to malware downloads
  • Misleading functionality - telling people you’ve got a feature, but the feature doesn’t work
  • Scaled content abuse - adding loads of pages which have AI-generated content and don’t actually help your users
  • Scraping - copying content from elsewhere
  • Sneaky redirects - using something called a redirect to send people from Page A to Page B automatically
  • Site reputation abuse - pretending to be someone else
  • Thin affiliation - publishing content from a shop site so it looks like you are the shop owner
  • User-generated spam - having rubbish in reviews or forum comments, (you’ll often see this promoting pharmaceuticals)

Can your website recover from an algorithm update?

Yes, but it might take some hard work and an undefined amount of time. Sometimes a subsequent update will undo the damage, but generally speaking if you’ve come a cropper, there’s something about the site you could be doing better, and that means identifying it, actioning improvements, and continuing to build back using the age-old technique of creating high-quality, relevant content. 

Our guide to Search Engine Optimisation basics will get you started, but we’re also here to help in a hands-on way - there’s definitely correlation between maintaining, or even improving your search rankings, and having a well-optimised site. Drop us a line if you want to discuss the options.

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