Google released the December 2025 Core Update on December 11, 2025 and completed it on December 29, 2025. The update ran for 18 days, which is well within the three weeks timeline announced by Google.
Google’s Official Announcement
Google announced the release of the December 2025 Core Update on its LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter) pages.
Today we released the December 2025 core update. We'll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete: https://t.co/7dmc4qr2hX
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 11, 2025
What Are People Saying?
While some SEOs had speculated the December 2025 Core Update was coming, many were still surprised by its release. However, unlike previous core updates, it release drew less criticism and generated unusually less chatter.
Early Volatiles Observed by SEOs
On December 12, 2025, Glenn Gabe shared some reports showing the search engine reports pages were still calm. However, he speculated we may start seeing movements and volatilities in the following days.
Good Morning Google Land! This is the 12/12 edition of "Core Update Notes". We are less than one day into the December 2025 broad core update and it typically takes 24-48 hours for the update to land, so I was not expecting to see much this morning. And that's the case so far. I… pic.twitter.com/mAiWHkUMCe
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 12, 2025
On December 15, 2025, four days after the core update was released, Glenn Gabe reported significant volatility in Google search results. The impact affected sites across various verticals, including the Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) niche, where many sites experienced substantial gains or losses in traffic.
Good Morning Google Land! This is the 12/15 edition of "Core Update Notes". I shared yesterday how the December 2025 broad core update started to land, and in a big way. As expected, there is a lot of volatility so far based on the update (with some very big surges and drops).… pic.twitter.com/MJt7fnaSLo
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 15, 2025
On the same December 15, 2025, Glenn shared additional reports of sites with listicle-style content losing traffic due to the update. These sites published lists with their own site or product in the number one position. They also sometimes made use of doorway pages.
The affected sites created these listicles to exploit the query fan-out technique used by Google AI systems. However, their content were low-quality and unhelpful, which caused them to lose rankings.
Google Land (cont'd). I've also been checking the spammy listicle situation and I just started seeing some of those sites drop heavily… I don't believe it would be just for the listicle situation, but for quality overall… For example, one of the sites heavily deploys doorway… pic.twitter.com/NiKIm1c3Mw
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 15, 2025
Later Volatiles Observed by SEOs
On December 20, 2025, Glenn Gabe confirmed that some sites affected by the ongoing December 2025 Core Update had begun to recover, while others continued to lose traffic.
Good Morning Google Land! This is the 12/20 edition of "Core Update Notes", and it's a special one. It looks like we might be seeing the first tremor with the December 2025 broad core update. The tools are spiking again and I'm seeing movement across a number of sites that have… pic.twitter.com/dol6VKDwWu
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 20, 2025
On December 22, 2025, Lily Ray shared reports of four medical sites that had lost traffic due to the update. Notably, these sites are in the Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) niche.
There's something you don't see every day… these 4 medical sites have generally grown over the last several years but are being hit hard by this current core update pic.twitter.com/nkf2LYfjrE
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) December 22, 2025
The same day, December 22, 2025, Lily Ray shared reports showing that Quora was losing traffic due to the update. In another post, she suggested this may have been caused by creators publishing low-quality content on Quora to appear in generative AI answers.
Quora is also dropping fast with the core update (so far) pic.twitter.com/StpYCVvTII
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) December 22, 2025
On December 23, 2025, Lily Ray reported on a site that published 787 blog posts in a single month. The site initially earned traffic from these posts, but then lost some after a few months, followed by further declines due to the core update.
This is the blog folder on a pretty well known b2b company's site. They launched 787 blog posts within the span of one month. 🤔
Blog traffic spiked for a couple months, then dropped off and now the traffic is falling fast with the December core update.
Worth it?
Not sure,… pic.twitter.com/YBBXOdVeQC
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) December 23, 2025
On December 23, 2025, Glenn reported that the December 2025 Core Update caused many news sites to lose much of the traffic they had previously received from Google Discover. This led to a significant decline in their overall site traffic.
I've spoken with several news publishers that got hit hard with the December broad core update and lost a ton of Discover visibility/traffic. I know it's hard to hear, but relying on Discover is super risky. Google has explained that, I've seen that many times when publishers… https://t.co/s9wouICtGv
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 23, 2025
On December 29, 2025, Glenn mentioned that the volatility was still ongoing across various verticals in Google search results. He added that this affected multiple forums that appear for the “Discussions and forums” and “What people are saying” rich results features.
Good Morning Google Land! This is the 12/29 edition of "Core Update Notes". The update is nearing completion and it wouldn't shock me to see Google officially say it's done early this week. Other than the 12/20 tremor, most sites are still moving in the same direction impact-wise… pic.twitter.com/tiTaURezjE
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 29, 2025
Top Winners of the December 2025 Core Update
We monitored multiple sites to see how they were impacted by the December 2025 Core Update. Here are the ones that gained the most traffic.
1 jurist.org
The legal news service, jurist.org, was a major beneficiary of the December 2025 Core Update, which saw its traffic spike from 8,061 visitors to 174,367. This marks a 2063% increase, making it the topmost winner.
2 theintercept.com
The news site, theintercept.com, also saw its traffic triple from 56,303 to 233,784 visitors. This is a 305% increase, making it the second topmost winner.
3 motherjones.com
Another news and media site, motherjones.com, saw its traffic improve by 291% during this update. Specifically, it went from 105,995 visitors to 413,945. This is a huge improvement, considering it lost traffic to the June 2025 Core Update when its traffic fell by 36% to 132,665.
4 zacks.com
Zacks.com saw its traffic go from 746,394 pre-update to 1,503,754 once the update was completed. This is a 101% increase, which is huge for the finance and investing niche. Other sites in the niche saw gains below 32%.
5 newrepublic.com
Newrepublic.com saw its traffic increase by 95% during the December 2025 Core Update, rising from 233,728 before the update to 456,546 after it concluded. This made it the third media site to significantly benefit from the update.
6 blackhatworld.com
The blackhatworld.com internet forum experienced a 91% traffic increase during the update when its traffic went from 67,740 to 129,295.
This improvement is considerable considering it lost traffic during the March and June 2025 core updates. Blackhatworld.com was even the topmost loser during the March 2025 Core Update when it lost 96% of its traffic, which fell from 2.5 million to 101,282.
Top Losers of the December 2025 Core Update
While some sites gained traffic during the December 2025 Core Update, many others lost theirs. Here are the top sites that lost the most traffic.
1 natlawreview.com
The legal news site, natlawreview.com, lost 95% of its traffic during the December 2025 Core Update. Its traffic dropped from 729,895 to 33,601, making it the top loser of this update.
2 yummlyrecipes.com
The food and recipe site, yummlyrecipes.com, lost 65% of its traffic, which dropped from 38,900 to 13,511 visitors. The total traffic it lost is meager (25,389) compared to other top losers. However, the loss is considerable for its publishers.
3 indiatoday.in
The news site, indiatoday.in, lost 64% of its traffic to his update. That amounts to over 8 million visitors when its traffic fell from 12,128,437 to 4,354,017.
4 propublica.org
Another news and media site, propublica.org, lost 59% of its traffic to the update. Specifically, its traffic went down from 928,771 pre-update to 380,751 post-update.
5 newsweek.com
Newsweek.com is the third news site in the top losers. It lost a little over half of its traffic (51%), which fell from 8,291,346 to 4,103,013.
How the December 2025 Core Update Impacted Various Websites
We monitored hundreds of sites across various verticals to see how they were impacted by the December 2025 Core Update. Here are the verticals we monitored along with the top winning and losing sites in each one:
- Affiliate sites
- Forum and discussion sites
- Food and recipe sites
- E-commerce sites
- Health and wellness sites
- Finance and investing sites
- Travel and hospitality sites
- Real estate sites
- Media and publishing sites
1 Affiliate Sites
The December 2025 Core Update largely benefited affiliate sites, with several seeing significant traffic gains in their traffic. Here are the affiliate sites that experienced the highest increases.
However, as expected, some affiliate sites also lost traffic to the update. Here they are:
2 Forum and Discussion Sites
The update had mixed effects on forums and discussion sites, with some gaining traffic while others experienced losses. Here are a few of the top winners.
Meanwhile, these forums and discussion sites lost the most traffic to the update.
3 Food and Recipe Sites
Multiple food and recipe sites were also impacted by the update. Some saw improvements while others saw declines. To get started, these are the top winners in the niche.
Meanwhile, these food and recipe sites experienced decreases in their traffic.
4 E-Commerce Sites
E-commerce sites generally benefitted from the update. Here are the top winners in the niche.
Despite the massive gains in the niche, some e-commerce sites also lost traffic to the update. However, these losses were minor compared to other verticals.
5 Health and Wellness Sites
Many health and wellness sites lost traffic to the December 2025 Core Update. Some did gain traffic, but there were more losses than gains. That said, these sites gained traffic during the update.
Meanwhile, these health and wellness sites lost traffic to the update.
6 Finance and Investing Sites
The December 2025 Core Update impacted finance and investment sites with mixed results. Some sites gained traffic, while others lost it. However, all gains and losses were under 33%, except for one site that saw its traffic increase by over 100%.
On the other hand, these finance and investment sites lost traffic to the update.
7 Travel and Hospitality Sites
Travel and hospitality sites generally gained traffic during the update, with only a few experiencing losses. The sites below earned traffic.
On the other hand, a few traffic and hospitality sites lost traffic to the update. However, the losses were all below 15%.
8 Real Estate Sites
Some real estate sites experienced minor losses during the update, while most saw traffic increase or just remained within their pre-update range. Overall, these sites gained traffic during the update.
On the other hand, some real estate sites lost traffic. The top two losers were small sites with relatively low traffic.
9 Media and Publishing Sites
Multiple media and publishing sites gained and lost traffic during the update. The gains were considerable in many cases and so were the losses. With that said, these media and publishing sites gained traffic.
Meanwhile, these media and publishing sites lost significant traffic.
Previous Core Updates
The December 2025 Core Update is Google’s third core update of 2025 and one of the many core updates we have documented so far. The others are:
- June 2025 Core Update: June 30 – July 17, 2025
- March 2025 Core Update: March 13 – March 27, 2025
- December 2024 Core Update: December 12 – December 18, 2024
- November 2024 Core Update: November 11 – December 5, 2024
- August 2024 Core Update: August 15 – September 3, 2024
- March 2024 Core Update: March 5 – April 19, 2024
- November 2023 Core Update: November 2 – November 28, 2023
- October 2023 Core Update: October 5 – October 19, 2023
- August 2023 Core Update: August 22 – September 7, 2023
- March 2023 Core Update: March 15 – March 28, 2023
- September 2022 Core Update: September 12 – September 26, 2022
- May 2022 Core Update: May 25 – June 9, 2022
- November 2021 Core Update: November 17 – November 30, 2021
- July 2021 Core Update: July 1 – July 12, 2021
- June 2021 Core Update: June 3 – June 12, 2021
What’s Next – Dealing with This Update
The December 2025 Core Update caused significant volatility and affected many sites, including those that rank on Discover and appear as rich results. Many sites gained rankings and many more lost it. Some that lost traffic also regained it while the update was still rolling out.
With that said, you should monitor your traffic with Rank Math Analytics to see how the update affects your site. If you notice a drop in traffic by the time it is complete, refer to this video on recovering from a Google algorithm update.
