Google Algorythm Update – 6th December 2021

Reported on the 6th of December 2021, Google has been rolling out a change to the way it displays top news for its search results. Typically, Google will start with the most searched for terms and work its way through other categories over time.

Changes can also vary depending on location, America have historically always been the first to see changes in the SERPs before they are rolled out to different locations.

The change targets desktop specifically, this is because we have already seen similar changes on mobiles from almost 2 years ago.

Google’s confirmation. – A Google spokesperson has confirmed that this new design is starting to be rolled out globally. “Google are always working to make it easier for people to dive into the most useful, timely news articles and guides available through Search. We have performed extensive testing with user feedback showing that they find it easier to process and digest content in the new format”. 

Google told us. “This newly launched feature is very similar to the mobile version of the Top stories experience you can already find,” the search company added.

It looks as though people who are specifically looking for news and guides will see more results in the results pages. Depending on your content strategy, it will of course mean there are winners and losers. The winners are those who post regular content and will benefit from Google promoting the most recent articles.

Losers in this case will be those who get clicks from articles that may have been around for some time. This ‘Evergreen’ content will be further down the page and will have less exposure.