The December 2021 Google Product Opinions replace is sizzling

As you all know, on December 1st, Google released a new algorithm update called. released Product reviews updated from December 2021. Since then, the tracking tools have gone off the charts showing insane volatility, and that volatility has continued all weekend. The chatter isn’t that crazy when you compare what we see to the tools.

If you want to learn more about this update and its goals, how to restore it, etc. then read on this story. This story is all about the volatility we’ve been seeing since the update.

Let’s start by telling us what the Google automated search tracking tools are picking up, and a lot.

Semrush is at the core update level for a few days in a row:

RankRanger as:

Accuranker – You see this:

Cognitive SEO:

SERPmetrics:

Algoroo:

Mozcast:

It honestly seems a lot more impactful than the original Update of product reviews for April – but it’s hard to say.

The chatter is more limited with this core update, at least when it comes to SEO forums. I found that WebmasterWorld and there are dozens of sporadic threads on BlackHatWorld – so it’s difficult to consolidate all of these threads:

It’s Friday and we’re seeing another big drop (-45% so far). And as of yesterday, Google started sending emails with the option for Google Ads to find new customers. Ha, good joke. Big drop in average position as of Monday No noticeable SERPs changes seen however global site averaged -25% in PVs this week, some local UK sites -50%, even pub / hotel site down even though we did have live music tonight and tomorrow … this will be interesting. Again … -50% or more … My traffic is higher again today … it has been higher for maybe 10 days. However, my ranking remains neutral and does not improve much and no new inquiries since Monday … zero. So despite significantly better traffic, no sale.

Google briefly returned my ranking for my major “place name” searches from the 26th to the 28th, and my traffic was increasing and I saw a large influx of customer inquiries. Then every now and then and no request for the whole week, let alone a changeover.

25% less UK traffic today, down 53% … for the first time in the UK in a while. Traffic in the UK tends to decrease on Saturdays, but not by 53%. Does anyone else see that? Huge traffic drop today … USA -50%, UK -41%, AU -50% and almost no traffic from Western Europe. Instead, mostly visits from Eastern European countries. Has anyone seen that today?

Glenn Gabe has followed sites affected by the original product reviews update and sees big changes. Here are some of his tweets showing this off:

And here are some examples of visibility losses based on the December product rating update. Note that these are sites that had an impact (either rising or falling) during the April Product Rating Update. I will keep posting on this thread as I have more data to show. Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/QTpDTmugLB

– Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 3, 2021

More from the December product review update. If you’re a big publisher and have a reviews section, Google can find it. Only the review content for a major publisher is trending here, along with specific query garbage. And note the bump with the Nov core update for the section … pic.twitter.com/fFyLydOO7U

– Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 3, 2021

Here are some ranking changes for these websites. Some rankings jump from page 5+ to page 1. When Google re-evaluates the quality of a website as a whole or certain sections of its content, it can do so (again like general core updates). The Christmas season has just gotten brighter for the winners. pic.twitter.com/YN4TtaFsEl

– Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 5, 2021

And to see what this looks like at the URL level for sites that have been positively impacted, here are some graphs from GSC. Big spikes when the December Product Rating Update is released. It’s early days, but this is clearly a great sign for this site (which is on the rise overall …) pic.twitter.com/T1hn7bKYol

– Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 5, 2021

Semrush’s Mordy Oberstein shared some early analysis, we’ll have more later, but here:

Again, keep in mind that this is very early and difficult to determine, as even within an industry some keywords are more or less relevant to this particular update.

– Mordy Oberstein (@MordyOberstein) December 3, 2021

I’ll be honest, I’m surprised the tools are so tall. Is it all related to this product review update? Difficult to say, but this is the update that Google confirmed and it’s rare for Google to confirm updates these days.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.