Hello Ed, here I've pitted the emergency podcast button because Google announced just yesterday that the new November 2024 core update is rolling out, and they announced this about 10 hours ago, so I think it was about nearly 2pm Pacific Standard Time, so here in the UK that was nearly 11 o'clock at night now. They said this update is designed to continue our work to improve the quality of our search results by showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on search, and in their search status dashboard they have flagged it as saying that they think it's going to take around about two weeks to roll out. So this is actually about half the amount of time they've done for the. They're going to take their last two core updates, so the august update and the march update were both ones that they said they expect to take a month. March one actually took about 45 days and the august one took just under 20 days.

So this one seems sounds like it's a bit of a smaller update in terms of time. That's not necessarily so. It's going to be small in terms of effect. We don't know yet, I suspect, the main reason they want to get it done in two weeks is because it's black friday, on friday, the 29th november, just over two weeks away, and they generally don't like to run core updates into the holiday season, into christmas time, um, because of you know how it can affect um people who have got e-commerce sites, that kind of thing. They tend to be quiet around about that time. So this is probably why they're trying to fit it in, and I suspect they possibly didn't want to do it before or during the us election as well, in case they got accused of manipulating results around that. So, yeah, this is probably why it was like their one window for doing this and that's why it's two weeks. So the fact it's short isn't necessarily going to suggest it's small, okay, um.

So I just wanted to reiterate the advice I give at every core update, which is one don't panic. Um, you know, I've seen core updates come where it's made sites traffic fluctuate wildly for a for a few days and sometimes it settles back down to exactly where it was before. Sometimes it's less, sometimes it's more, but you're never going to know until they announce that it has been completely rolled out. And when they do announce it's rolled out, I will do a podcast to let you know that it's rolled out and to share any findings that I and all the people have been seeing from it. So but in the meantime, if it's quite likely you might see fluctuations, just sort of sit tight, bear with it, don't panic, don't make any rash decisions, don't do anything at all. Really is generally my advice during core updates.

If you're planning on doing anything major like a new site design or a massive piece of content change, then it's one of the things I would say possibly hold off, because but while we have a core update going on, it's really hard to know, um, what say possibly hold off, because while we have a core update going on, it's really hard to know what's working and what isn't. I would still be doing standard content updates, small updates, small tweaks, that kind of thing. It's kind of your day-to-day stuff. But if you've got anything big you're planning on launching, it might be worth waiting until the core update's rolled out, especially that kind of thing. If you're about to do a big site migration or something like that, you know, just be cautious, but you'll be. You know, be guided by your own judgment, but just be.

You have to factor in anything around happening around a core update time, that. Is it the change I've made that's had a positive or negative effect, or is it just a function of the fact a core update is going on and things can fluctuate wildly without having any changes made at all? And yes, just don't panic, don't make any changes, don't try and fix things until after the complete core update is rolled out. If you have been hit, don't try and do drastic fixes until it's completely rolled through. It's been announced, it's finished and that's the time to start looking at where changes have happened and what you might need to do. So don't do any hasty actions. So, with that said, all I can say is good luck. I hope it goes well for you. Um, if you have anything you want to share, you've got any questions, do get in touch with me. All the details are in the show notes and I'll just leave you with a quote from one of my favourite films um, may the odds be ever in your favour. Good luck.