Ho! Ho! Ho! Hello peeps and welcome to another episode of our weekly SEO news update. There isn’t much happening this week, which can be good or bad depending on how you wanna look at it, but there’s still something worth sharing with all you lovely readers.

So read on!

23/12/2020 – The Request Indexing Function Is Back In Search Console

The Request Indexing feature of the URL Inspection Tool was disabled by Google on Oct 15th and after many requests from the SEO community, the tool is now back online –  with 2 reminders from Google.

1. If you have large numbers of URLs, you should submit a sitemap instead of requesting indexing via Search Console.

2. Requesting indexing does not guarantee inclusion to the Google index – our systems prioritize the fast inclusion of high quality, useful content.

December 2020 Core Update Analysis

Now that the December 2020 Core Update is fully rolled out, we are getting a good number of analysis from the SEO industry, we’ll be listing and linking you to some of the analysis that are absolutely worth reading.

If you have come across other spectacular analysis, feel free to drop a link at the comment section, sharing is caring 🙂

Kevin Indig

In the December core algo update, I observed that authority and UX seem to be a common theme between winners and losers. My story is that Google shows more authoritative brands at the top of the search results and tries to push domains with poor UX further down.

– Kevin Indig

David McSweeney

But there are still some HUGE loopholes that spammers are taking advantage of to rank. And the latest Core update doesn’t seem to have improved Google’s ability to detect and filter out these particular tactics.

– Repurposed domains are still riding high

– Cloaked redirects still litter the SERPs (and can be dangerous for users)

– Doorway pages (or parasite pages) rank for numerous YMYL queries

David McSweene

Mordy Oberstein

Practically speaking, I think the era of broadly reaching pages is quickly coming to an end. I think that has been the case for a while. However, seeing Google pull pages off page one of the SERP because they deal with multiple subtopics is a new level, at least for me. It shows that you have to create content that talks about one topic and one topic only (unless the keyword reflects a specific desire for a broader survey of a topic).

Mordy Oberstein

Glenn Gabe

If you are impacted by a broad core update, you will typically need to wait for another broad core update to see recovery. So don’t roll out changes for a few weeks and then roll them back (after not seeing recovery). That’s not how it works. Google is on record explaining you (typically) will not see recovery until another broad core update rolls out, and only if you have significantly improved the site.

Glenn Gabe

Updated: 28 December 2024

About Lo Jia Thong

A polyglot plummeted into the deep blue world of SEO and inbound marketing armed with a burning passion on letters and a fascination on how thing rolls in the world wide web.

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