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Google’s Helpful Content & Link Spam Updates Completed Rolling Out On January 12, 2023

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Google algorithm notebook

After a long slow, and paused rollout, Google has said that both the December 2022 helpful content update and December 2022 link spam update are now both done rolling out. Google said both completed rolling out on Thursday, January 12, 2023.

The December 2022 helpful content update started on December 5, 2022, and was completed rolling out about 38 days afterward.

While the December 2022 link spam update started on December 14, 2022, and was completed 29 days later.

Both these updates should have been done rolling out after 14 days, so it took a lot longer.

The two updates were delayed in its finish date because they ran into the holidays. Google said there was a security issue with completing them on the holidays, so they took a pause. We saw movement from these updates around December 18th and 19th and then some big turbulence days before Christmas, and then things calmed down a lot. We then also saw some fluctuations on December 26th, again on January 3rd to 5th, and then again on January 10th and 11th.

December 2022 Google Helpful Content Update Quick Facts

Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:

  • Name: Google helpful content update
  • Launch Date: It began to rollout on December 5th but not so noticeable until December 6th
  • Completion Date: January 12, 2023, 38 days later
  • Rollout: It will take about two weeks to fully roll out (it took much longer)
  • Targets: It looks at content that was created to rank well in search over help humans
  • Search Only: This currently only impacts Google Search, not Google Discover or other Google surfaces. But Google may expand this to Discover and more in the future.
  • Penalty: Google did not mention penalty but this update does seem to feel like a penalty for sites that will be hit by it
  • Sitewide: This is a sitewide algorithm, so the whole site will be impacted by this update
  • Not a core update: Many are going to say this is a core update, it is not.
  • Global and all languages: This is no longer just for English-language content, it is now all languages and global.
  • Impact: Google would not tell me what percentage of queries or searches were impacted by this update but Google did tell me it would be “meaningful.” Also, Google said this will be felt more for online-educational materials, entertainment, shopping, and tech-related content.
  • Recover: If you were hit by this, then you will need to look at your content and see if you can do better with Google’s advice below
  • Refreshes: Google updates the scores constantly here but there is a timeout period, and a validation period and it can take several months to recover from this update.

December 2022 Google Link Spam Update Quick Facts

Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:

  • Name: Google December 2022 Link Spam Update
  • Launch Date: It began to roll out on December 14th
  • Completion Date: January 12, 2023, 29 days later
  • Rollout: It will take about two weeks to fully roll out (it took much longer)
  • Targets: It targets both sites buying links, and sites used for the purpose of passing outgoing links.
  • Penalty: This will “neutralize” links that it detects as being spam and thus links that are detected won’t be counted and may show a decline in rankings.
  • Not a manual action: This is not a manual action, so you won’t be notified in Search Console if you are hit.
  • Global and all languages: This is a global launch and affects all languages.
  • SpamBrain: This is the first time Google is using its AI-based spam detection, i.e., SpamBrain, for link spam purposes.

Here is that infographic I made showing the 2022 Google updates and now when they are all completed:

2022 Google algorithm updates graphic - click for full size

So let’s stick a fork in it – or maybe two forks?

Forum discussion at Twitter.



Source: www.seroundtable.com

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Google Search Console Was Down Today

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Google Robot Hurt Tired

Google Search Console seems to be down right now. If you try to access it, you will get a 500 server error. I suspect Search Console will be back up shortly but right now, if it is down for you, you are not alone.

Update: At 8:52 am ET Google Search Console is back, the tool was offline for about 50 minutes.

Google’s Daniel Waisberg is 100% aware of the issue. He responded to some posts about the issue, saying, “we’re working on it.” John Mueller from Google is also reposting Daniel’s posts on X.

Here is what it looked like when you tried to access it while it was down:

Gsc 500 Error Down

Search Console went down at about 8 am ET and returned at 8:52 am ET.

Here are the posts on X from Daniel Waisberg of Google on this issue:

Who knows, maybe we will have a new Search Console feature when it returns?

Here are some of the complaints:

Update: At 8:52 am ET Google Search Console is back, the tool was offline for about 50 minutes.



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Google Testing New Flight Prices Rich Result?

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Woman Booking Flight Airport Google Logo

Google may be testing a new type of rich result for flight prices. This test shows a section under the flight search snippet that contains the dates, trip details and price.

This was spotted by Antoine Eripret who was able to trigger this numerous times, over numerous days, while in Spain. Here is his screenshot he posted on X:

Google Flight Prices Rich Result Test

He also posted this video of this in action for me:

Google Flight Prices Rich Result Test

Recently Google told us not to put flight prices in titles because those prices change too quickly. Maybe Google is testing updating those prices in more real time through the use of structured data and is thus more confident to show them as rich results and not title elements?

I don’t think Google officially supports flight schema but maybe they will soon?

Forum discussion at X.



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Google Merchant Center Automatically Creating Promotions

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Google Robot Clothing Store

Google Merchant Center has been automatically creating and applying promotions to some of your products over the Black Friday holiday season. The truth is, Google has been doing this for some time, but more are noticing this now because there are a lot of discounts going around this season.

In fact, the new Merchant Center does a lot of things for you, automatically.

Rachel Lowell posted about this on X and shared this screenshot that shows “Your promotions are live on Google.” “Google found promotions on your website. You can remove this connection at any time,” Google added.

Google Merchant Center Auto Promotions

Greg Finn suggested, “If you’ve got BFCM sales setup – double, triple check those promos.”

Forum discussion at X.



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