Are you a travel blogger who’s recently noticed more fluctuations in traffic on their website? It might be due to the December Core update, which finished rolling out this week. This update was the fourth one this year, which came as a surprise to many.

On December 12, just a week after the November core update, another one was announced. It finished rolling out on December 18, which is earlier than it was announced— originally, it was supposed to take two weeks to complete.

Could this be a trend for 2025? Google held its Google Search Central Live event just when the update was announced, and the answer seems to be ‘’yes’’.
How did we collect this data?

We previously covered the November core update and its effects on travel bloggers, and now we will dive into how the December update affected the bloggers in this niche.

To conduct the analysis, we used a combination of Ahrefs for evaluating organic traffic performance and our own on-page analysis to review the overall SEO health of travel blogging websites in English before and after the December 2024 core algorithm update.

We compared previous top winners to how they were affected now, and it turns out that 80% of them now actually lost traffic. Fortunately, in most cases, their numbers are still much higher than what they started with before the November update.
While this update didn't seem to benefit most of the travel bloggers we analyzed (more details below), there were also cases of traffic increases of up to 40%.

This is a good sign as it suggests that there are opportunities for growth and improvement despite algorithm changes. However, it also highlights the ongoing need to stay flexible and responsive to the ever-changing trends.

Compared to the last update, where we saw an overall increase, Google was much less rewarding towards travel bloggers this time around with an overall 9% decrease in traffic.

Another conclusion is that increases with the November update went as high up as +700%, whereas with the December update the top winner’s increases didn’t go above +40%. The good thing is that the decrease generally didn’t go below -40% either.

However, it is hard not to notice that 70% of all bloggers analyzed lost traffic to some extent. We believe this highlights the importance of focusing on the overall quality of your website, including SEO, now more than ever.

As with previous updates, there is a clear trend towards rewarding factors that align with Google's E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) guidelines. However, we also noticed some specific shifts in focus.

While ads were a focus with previous updates, they didn’t seem to matter so much with the November 2024 update. It does seem as though they’re back in focus with the December update. We discovered that all of the losing websites display ads, while only 30% of the top winners do.

How can you check if Google is penalizing you for ads?

Did you know that Google actually provides an ad experience report within its web tools? In order to know if Google is penalizing you for ads:

• Go to Google Web Tools.
• Select Desktop or Mobile to view your performance for both environments
• If your status is "failing," Google will highlight the issue and may even show an image or video of the problematic ad experience
• After fixing the issues and having your site recrawled, any search ranking penalties should be lifted
• However, even if you do meet the ads standards, they could still affect your user experience. We also recommend keeping track of metrics such as bounce rate and average time on page in Google Analytics.

While we did notice a focus on UGC even with the last update, this seems to be even more prominent with the latest one. We noticed that, for some winners, comments take up as much as 50% of the entire page (on desktop) for certain posts. Additionally, the number of comments is displayed next to each article and again in the byline next to the author’s name and date.

How can you make sure comments on your website are contributing to your SEO?

• Check if Google can see your comments by doing a site search. What you should do is copy a sentence from one of the comments, paste it in a Google search in double quotes, and add the site:[example.com].
• If the article the sentence belongs to pops up in search results, then yes, Google is indexing your comments.
• Make sure the comments add value. If your comment section features language that may be interpreted as harmful, you will need to moderate it.

It is interesting to see that social media is still in focus with the December update, which serves as a reminder that Google is continuing its shift towards visual and interactive media, but also that social signals play a significant role.

Some of the top winners after this update even display the number of shares next to their articles. In our analysis of the November 2024 update, we noticed that YouTube videos were favored, and this trend still holds. However, we've also seen an increased prominence of Instagram, particularly Instagram Reels.

How can you improve social signals for SEO?

• Always start with high-quality content—users are more likely to share and engage with insightful posts.
• Encourage easy sharing by including clearly visible social sharing buttons.
• Post consistently on your social media (at least a few times per week).
• Partner with influencers/other creators to extend your content’s reach.

It’s important to remember that even with all the recent algorithm changes, producing content that is user-focused and well-researched is still key. Although the last update of the year wasn’t particularly beneficial for most blogs, we believe that Google will continue to refine its algorithm in ways that will reward these efforts. We’re here to help you navigate the changes and ensure that you’re well-prepared for the future. Here’s to a successful 2025 with even more organic traffic and visibility!

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