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There are some SEOs that are asking Google to reverse the December 2020 Google core update. Truth is, it is very common to see this reaction after every single core update. Google's John Mueller first response was "nah, sorry" when he was asked about reversing it. But then he went into a thoughtful response on why not to reverse it.
Here is the funny response:
Nah, sorry :)
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) December 22, 2020
Now for the thoughtful part...
John says nowadays there are tons of really excellent sites who want the top positions in Google search:
I suspect there are very few real spammers, a bunch of lazy and/or completely lost folks, and a lot of well-meaning folks. The problem is there are significantly more than 10 reasonable sites/folks per topic, so even without awesome sites, they're never all on page 1. ...
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) December 22, 2020
This was not the case 10 years ago on the web. Searchers expect more and there are more web sites that are doing better things every day:
This is quite different than 5-10 years ago, when the big names weren't all online, and when users were happy to find anything that has the words on the page. Expectations, and competition, are much higher now, and they continue to evolve.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) December 22, 2020
Google's recommendations are not only truthful, he says, but it remains valid from algorithm update to algorithm update:
When we bring our general recommendations it's not that we're too lazy/scared to tell people the truth, it's just that those recommendations remain valid regardless of the current algorithm, and we guide future changes with similar thoughts. And changes will continue over time ..
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) December 22, 2020
Searcher expectations are higher now then it was years ago and Google keeps improving.
... because our users, and your users, have high expectations. They wouldn't be happy with simple word matches, they expect to be able to "speak to the machine" and get something reasonable & trustworthy back. We're still far from perfect. It's a challenging problem.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) December 22, 2020
So Google continues to make changes to tweak out improvements. Some of those changes are clear, like HTTPS, site speed, core web vitals, mobile-friendly, etc. But not all changes are so clear and direct.
... and while we can improve our part, websites also need to evolve to meet user expectations & needs. Sometimes we can be explicit (speed/Core Web Vitals goes in that direction), often there's just no simple change, no meta tag, that makes a site significantly better.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) December 22, 2020
Yes, when a site gets hit it can be frustrating but often it is not one thing but many small things that site needs to do to improve:
I realize it's super-frustrating when a site is reasonable and sees strong negative changes in search (I see these in my office-hours regularly), and we spend a lot of time to make changes understandable, but often it's not something specific, but rather many small things.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) December 22, 2020
Then they spoke about jarring vs subtle changes over time, which I covered before but here:
I'm torn on subtle vs sudden; I've suggested we spread out effects over months in the past to make it less jarring. That also makes it harder to learn from others though, and if our quality team is convinced of changes being good, why should we not show them to everyone sooner?
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) December 22, 2020
Forum discussion at Twitter.
