Bridget Randolph

December’s most discussed SEO story was the Products Reviews Update for English language search results, which followed on from a previous update in April 2021. Google also rolled out a significant Local search update between Nov 30-Dec 8 and released their annual “Top Searches” recap.

November’s top SEO stories included another core update, announcements about the Page Experience update coming to desktop in early 2022, Google dropping the mobile-first indexing deadline, a list of official Googlebot and Bingbot IP addresses and an outage in Google search for websites hosted on SiteGround.

October’s top SEO stories included Google’s rollout of continuous scrolling on mobile search in the US and changes to Google’s advertising and monetization policies to reduce climate change denial content. There was also an update to Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines, with changes including an expansion of the YMYL (“Your Money, Your Life”) content categorization, definition of “lowest quality content” and more.

The big stories in September saw a focus on some items that are still in the works: an upcoming Search redesign integrating the MUM algorithm was announced at Google’s Search On event, and Google is apparently working on deals to allow them to index TikTok and Instagram content. Meanwhile, a new update to Lighthouse 8.4 helps improve reports and offers new audits, and the automotive industry saw some ruffled feathers this month with the addition of new data in car related SERPs.