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Core Updates SEO Newsletter

The Core Updates newsletter is written by Mark Williams-Cook, a veteran SEO who is Digital Marketing Director at Candour, Founder of AlsoAsked and organiser of SearchNorwich. Over 40,000 SEOs follow Mark's 'Unsolicited #SEO tips' on LinkedIn, which has now been wrapped up into the Core Updates newsletter, along with an overview of weekly news and the current episode of the Search with Candour episode, hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward.

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πŸ›‘Core Updates: Google blocks SEO tools by requiring JavaScript [20 Jan]

SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know πŸ›‘ Google requiring JavaScript for Search causes major issues for SEO tools. Many rank tracking tools are experiencing blocks and, in the long-term, this may increase the cost of third-party tools as it increaes their operating cost. πŸ“‰ Google's global market share drops below 90% for the first time since 2015. This is according to data from Statcounter across all devices...

SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know 🎧 An AI-generated audio show based on your search history is rolling out to Discover users in the US. 'Daily Listen' can be enabled in Search Labs and will display at the top of the Google Discover page 24 hours after enabling. πŸ” Brands ranking on page 1 of Google are more likely to be mentioned ChatGPT Search. The study from Seer Interactive, also found that there was...

SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know 🍝 AI-organised search results have expanded to restaurant recommendations. This is the same format Google launched for recipes in October 2024. It includes AI-generated categories based on your specific search. 🏷️ Google has revived Tag Assistant and merged its two previous versions. Google has reversed its previous decision to remove the Google Tag Manager Chrome...

SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know βœ… The December 2024 core update completed its rollout on 18 December 2024. It lasted 6 days, the fastest official core update on record, and was quite volatile. And it's 100%, definitely the final Google update of 2024...right? πŸ”„ The December 2024 spam update began its rollout on 19 December 2024. Yes, the spam update launched just 24 hours after the December core update...

SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know πŸ”„ Google December 2024 core update started on 12 December. This update comes just 8 days after the conclusion of the previous November 2024 core update, it seems to be more impactful already than November's. πŸ“… Google announces that it will be releasing more core updates more frequently at Google Search Central live in Zurich, potentially moving towards daily or rolling...

SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know βœ… The November 2024 core update has completed its rollout. The rollout began on 11th November and completed 24 days later on 5th December. This is longer than a typical core update rollout. πŸ“Š Page Speed Insights results will likely improve over the next few weeks. After complaints of scores being "unrealistically slow", it was determined the PSI servers were underpowered...

SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know πŸ“‘ Google Search Console Recommendations are now live for everyone. Recommendations are categorised as Issues, Opportunities, and Configurations. However, Recommendations will only appear if relevant to you. πŸ–±οΈ Google Chrome is collecting your site engagement metrics. These metrics contribute to features such as your 'most-visited sites' and are not used in Search. You can...

SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know πŸ“‘ Google has updated its site reputation abuse policy. The update states that content that is "starkly different from the main content of the site" could be considered SRA and is taking serious action. See the next story below ⬇️ 🚨 Manual actions for 'Site reputation abuse' have been sent out in GSC. Google has applied manual actions to directories from sites including...

SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know πŸ” Google's November 2024 core update has started rolling out. This update had been already confirmed at the Google Web Creator summit. However, Google has reportedly said to "not expect a recovery from HCU any time soon." πŸ›οΈ Google Maps launches product search feature. This new feature includes real-time product availability and searching for specific products local to...

SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know πŸ” ChatGPT Search performs better than Google for time-sensitive queries. However, ChatGPT Search performed badly for most local search queries and still lacks many of the visual features of the established search engines. πŸ’¬ Conversational search is being tested in the Google app. This interface seems to be Google's reaction to ChatGPT's similar UI. Is this what people...