Google unleashes another spam update that will take one week to complete, capping off a busy year targeting spam and other policy violations.
Google announces December 2024 spam update
The latest spam update comes one day after December`s core algorithm update finished rolling out and aligns with Google’s continued efforts to clean up search results throughout 2024, which saw a March core update aimed at improving search quality and a two-part June spam update targeting policy violations.
Google announced the December core update on X:
And on its Search Status Dashboard, saying:
- “Released the December 2024 spam update, which applies globally and to all languages. The rollout may take up to 1 week to complete.”
Google linked the announcement to its Search Central spam update page 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.”
Previous 2024 updates
Google has been busy in 2024, releasing four core algorithms and three spam updates in March, May, June, August, November, and December.
The March core update contained multiple spam updates. Elizabeth Tucker, Director of Product Search at Google, said the update was to help remove unhelpful content in Google Search by 40%.
Tucker wrote at the time:
- “We expect that the combination of this update and our previous efforts will collectively reduce low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 40%,”
The May Site Reputation Abuse update began Google’s targeting of “parasite SEO.” June`s spam update focused on policy-violating websites. The August core update targeted low-value SEO content.
Looking forward to 2025
December’s spam update is the seventh update in 2024; Google said it should finish within a week; you can track its progress on Google’s Search Status Dashboard.
While it’s still unclear what the latest spam update targets, site owners who experience ranking changes might be correct in contributing them to the update.And if seven updates in one year sounds like a lot, prepare for more in 2025 because, as Google said at its Central Live event in Zurich, “There will be more Core Algorithm updates throughout 2025.”
