Matthew Finch | 10th January 2025 | News
We’ve compiled the essential updates from Google and the broader world of search from December —keeping you up to date with everything you need to know!
Covering:
- The latest stats on Google Search
- Tripadvisor review pages grow 2x after adding AI summaries
- Algorithm updates, updates, updates
- Learning from a Google data exploit
- Google Search Console’s new 24-hour view
- What happens if you stop doing SEO?
- Forbes lays off freelance writers over Google’s updated site reputation policy
- Looking ahead to 2025…
The latest stats on Google Search
Fresh insights from a recent dataset of one million Google search queries compiled by SparkToro reveal key trends in user behaviour that marketers should pay attention to:
- 59% of searches are performed only once – this surprised me, especially as Google has always mooted the 15% figure here.
- Despite this, these unique queries account for just 2.2% of total monthly search volume, suggesting their overall contribution to traffic is small.
- It does, though, demonstrate the vast variety of searches happening online, driven by trends, breaking news, or emerging topics.
Whilst predicting the future is not easy, there is a huge benefit to having content ranking for things that haven’t yet come to pass (future legislation changes, fashion trends, etc.). If you can get ranking before more powerful rivals muscle in, you have a chance of solidifying your position as an authority on a given topic.
This is where alignment between sales/product teams and content strategy is so key, as well as the importance of not always following the search volumes when producing website content.
- 53% of all Google searches are informational
Over half of all Google searches fall into the informational intent category, where users are seeking answers to questions or general knowledge.
In a previous post, we discussed how few searches end up on the ‘open web’ from Google and how many end up as zero-clicks (60% in the EU), so hearing that 53% of all searches are informational follows that narrative.
I don’t think this data necessarily matters much to SEOs – we know where/how our clients and websites pick up their traffic and are probably seeing trending declines in informational queries already – but it does provide some useful background to general search behaviour.
Tripadvisor review pages grow 2x after adding AI summaries
I find AI review summaries to be an excellent user experience when browsing Amazon. It’s no surprise that many other sites, especially those handling large quantities of public reviews, have started to adopt similar approaches.
- Reviews are no longer optional. They’ve become table stakes for any website, moving beyond a ‘nice to have’ to a critical element for success.
- AI summaries are invaluable. People often just want a quick flavour of what others think, and AI-generated summaries deliver this in a concise and user-friendly way.
What’s particularly intriguing is the correlation between improved UX and organic traffic growth on review pages. Could UX improvements alone drive such a noticeable impact? This data seems to say so.
And even if UX upgrades don’t directly influence traffic metrics, they’re still invaluable. Enhancing user experience always leaves your site in a stronger position than before.
We often leverage AI to summarise reviews for our clients, identifying what customers love most about their experiences. These insights act as ‘marketing trophies’—key strengths we amplify across campaigns to maximise their reach. If many people highlight a particular positive aspect, it’s a clear signal that others will want to hear about it too.
For e-commerce sites, AI-powered review summaries are becoming increasingly popular. You will see numerous apps or plugins now available that extract, summarise and showcase valuable customer feedback—provided there’s a high enough volume of reviews to work with. If this isn’t something on your radar it certainly should be.
Data and chart from Kevin Indig’s Growth Memo newsletter:
Algorithm updates, updates, updates
Google had a busy year-end with three key updates rolling out over November and December. Here’s a simple breakdown of what happened and what it likely means:
November 2024 Core Update
- Timeline: Initiated on 11th November and concluded on 5th December 2024.
- Focus: Nothing out of the ordinary here. All core updates aim to ‘enhance the quality of search results by promoting content that is genuinely useful to users and demoting content designed primarily to perform well in search rankings without providing substantial value’.
December 2024 Core Update
- Timeline: Rolled out from 12th to 18th December, completing in record time for a core update.
- Focus: Like the November update, this was a standard update, aimed at refining systems and processes.
- Notable observations: This was a period of significant volatility due to the rapid rollout.
Google says it has ‘different core systems’ that are always being enhanced and improved. In total, there were 4 core updates in 2024.
This graph is a good way of visualising the volatile nature of these updates from a recent Search Norwich talk by Mark Williams-Cook.
If you imagine the dotted line is a set of perfect Google search results, often these updates go too far one way or the other before rolling back again.
Once Google nails it, people learn how to manipulate the results and the merry dance continues.
December 2024 Spam Update
- Timeline: Ran from 19th to 26th December, immediately following the December Core Update.
- Focus: This targeted websites using manipulative practices like keyword stuffing, cloaking, and deceptive redirects.
- Impact: Sites employing spammy tactics faced penalties or lost visibility.
- Key takeaway: Avoid outdated SEO techniques and focus on ethical, user-first practices to stay on Google’s good side.
Learning from a Google data exploit
Last month, Mark Williams-Cook shared fascinating insights from a rare glimpse behind the Google curtain and you can see the talk he gave on this in the section above, with follow-up conversation here.
A lot of information was shared, but the things that interested me most were:
Google’s ‘General Consensus’ Scores
- Google evaluates content against the general consensus on a topic and assigns consensus scores.
- This impacts whether your content can rank for specific queries.
- Interestingly, even if your page ticks all of Google’s other ranking boxes, its placement may depend on how it aligns with or diverges from the general consensus.
- For example, if Google has ranked several consensus-aligned pages highly, it may want to include divergent opinions in the next batch of results to provide diversity in the SERPs.
- In such cases, the highest you might rank could be just after these “anti-consensus” results.
Query Classification
- Google classifies all queries into eight categories.
- The majority of queries analysed fell into two:
- ‘Short fact’: Queries seeking brief answers.
- ‘Boolean’: Yes/No-type questions.
- These categories are most prone to zero-click searches, where Google or other AI models provide instant answers directly with no further searches needed.
- This aligns with Sparktoro’s data, which shows that over half of analysed queries have informational intent.
Click Probability Metric
- Google uses a click probability metric to judge your click-through rate against its predicted performance for your page or site.
- Your ranking is influenced by how well you perform compared to this predicted baseline.
Site Quality Score
- Google assigns every website a site quality score ranging from 0 to 1.
- This is hugely interesting as it’s something that hasn’t been discussed by Google in real detail before, albeit there is a publicly accessible ‘site quality’ patent.
- This score is based on three main criteria:
- Search interest: How often users specifically search for your website.
- CTR beyond position: How often users select your site even when it’s not ranked first.
- Anchor text mentions: How frequently your website/brand appears in anchor text across the web.
What’s particularly interesting is the finding that if your site’s site quality score is below 0.4, it becomes ineligible for Rich Results (such as Featured Snippets). So again, you could be doing everything else right, but you won’t qualify for these valuable SERP features unless you achieve the minimum score of 0.4.
Not specifically mentioned in the exploit, but also discussed is the importance of brand when trying to rank well on Google. Tom Capper covers this in a write up for Moz here, regarding his findings post-Helpful Content Update from last summer.
- Loosely: stronger brand signals = a better chance of ranking highly, reinforcing the idea that building and maintaining a strong, recognisable brand is a key factor in SEO success.
Google Search Console’s new 24-hour view
- In December, Google released an update to Search Console giving us more ‘real time’ data than ever before. Previously, there was a delay of several days before performance data became available. With this update, users can now access data that is less than 24 hours old with an hour-by-hour breakdown, enabling more timely insights into website performance.
- The more data that becomes available in GSC the better, as it is head and shoulders above GA4 regarding the UI and UX.
What happens if you stop doing SEO?
I found this to be a really interesting webinar from Will Critchlow at Search Pilot last month about making SEO a performance channel. One section of interest looked into the question: What happens if you stop doing SEO?
This topic led to further tweets and charts as Will shared some insights.
This is a tough thing to find data on as it’s hard to know 100% whether a website has invested in SEO then stopped, and then being able to track that over time.
Will provided the below graphs from two examples known to him and provided guestimated YoY traffic drops which came out at 12% and 13% yearly, which feels a little light at first glance but these drops do compound.
While these figures shouldn’t be taken as absolute, they provide valuable insight and serve as a conversation starter when discussing the long-term importance of investing in SEO.
Forbes lays off freelance writers over Google’s updated site reputation policy
Site reputation abuse, also known as parasite SEO, has become a significant issue in search — and Forbes Marketplace has been a notable example of this practice in recent years. Forbes has drawn substantial criticism from the SEO industry for its ability to rank prominently across a wide array of topics, even when it lacks genuine expertise or authority in those areas.
This dominance stems from the inherent power of Forbes’ domain and Google’s tendency to favour established entities over smaller, niche brands. While this imbalance isn’t necessarily Forbes’ fault, the platform has benefited from this algorithmic bias.
In response to growing scrutiny, Forbes has reportedly fired several freelance writers contributing to its Forbes Vetted product review section, citing Google’s “site reputation abuse” policy as the reason for the change.
Google has recently started penalising Forbes for these practices, leading to declines in search visibility and likely impacting its advertising and affiliate revenues.
This continues to be one of the most interesting SEO case studies of recent times.
Looking ahead at 2025…
1. Increasing Rollout of AI-Generated Overviews (AIOs)
- As of now, AIOs appear in ~10% of queries.
- With AI technology improving and users becoming more accustomed to these summaries, Google is likely to continue expanding their usage.
- The push for AIO adoption will accelerate as competing LLMs (like ChatGPT and Bing AI) gain further traction and we will surely see sponsored results appearing before long as Google looks to monetise the space.
- We can be sure a SERP in January 2026 is going to look vastly different to how it does today.
2. Google Launching a Standalone LLM?
By this time next year, Google’s AI model could overtake ChatGPT as the top choice for users. Their new Gemini models show impressive capabilities, including:
- Massive context size of 2 million tokens (far beyond GPT-4’s 128K).
- Faster processing speeds and highly affordable pricing.
- Independence from external GPUs, thanks to Google’s in-house chip production, which lowers costs and removes reliance on third-party hardware.
Google’s real strength lies in its ability to integrate AI into its existing ecosystem:
- Search, Chrome, YouTube, Maps, Android, Gmail—they already dominate the tools people use daily.
- As these platforms connect more seamlessly with Gemini, it could become the go-to AI for billions of users.
With AI development reaching a point where speed, price, and distribution matter more than raw intelligence, Google is uniquely positioned to lead.
3) The Potential TikTok Ban in the US
- A decision on TikTok’s status in the US is expected soon. While Trump opposes a ban, the final ruling remains uncertain.
- If TikTok is banned, millions of users will shift to other platforms, creating a unique opportunity for brands to capture attention during this migration.
- Smart marketers will be ready to adapt their strategies, focusing on platforms like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Snapchat Spotlight to absorb these displaced audiences.
4) Regulatory Pressure on Google and YouTube Spinout
With increasing scrutiny over monopolistic practices, Google may be forced to spin out parts of its business.
YouTube, as one of its most lucrative and self-contained assets, is the most likely candidate if this happens.
YouTube’s user base and ad revenue continue to grow at double digit YoY rates, with more people than ever watching YouTube on TV screens and big media has taken note.
For smaller businesses, building strong YouTube channels and leveraging video as part of your brand strategy feels essential, especially in sectors where visual engagement drives conversions.
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