Google's AI Resolution, ChatGPT Search, and a Blizzard of Updates: SEMantics January 2025

Aimee Jones dives into a whirlwind of SEO developments to kick off 2025, from Google's December core and spam updates sparking SERP volatility to AI-driven innovations like Gemini 2.0 and new SERP labels.

The December 2024 Core Update started… and finished!

On 12th December, Google released the December core update, what we thought would be the last in a long list of 2024 algorithm updates.

An article by Search Engine Land stated that, according to data providers, the “December 2024 core update was more volatile and more widespread than the November 2024 core update, but less so than the August and March 2024 core updates.”

SimilarWeb’s SERP Seismometer showed large spikes in volatility with the December update. It took a couple of days after the December core update was announced but the volatility did kick in. “Although the December update was announced on December 12th, significant fluctuations were first observed starting on December 14th,” Shay Harel from Similarweb said. This volatility can be seen in the graph below:

Semrush also sent data to SEL that seemed to show that the December core update was more volatile than the November 2024 core update.?

But as Mordy Oberstein, a SEMrush spokesperson, said: “Between the number of updates and the level of volatility seen before updates, they are really making decoupling the volatility and creating accurate comparisons between updates very difficult.”

That being said, here is the chart from Semrush’s sensor that tracks volatility over the past 30 days or so that shows much higher volatility with the December core update compared to the November core update:

With lots of volatility occurring on the SERPs, it’s fun to announce that…

The December 2024 spam update began on the 19th December

Yes, another one! Now this one should be the last update on 2024, but you never know!

On 19th December, Google announced the rollout of the 2024 spam update, and this update was finalised on the 26th of December.

With all of the latest algorithm updates (November core, December core, and December spam) being right on top of each other, many SEOs have noted that it was increasingly hard to tell if volatility has been occurring from specific updates.

Google is testing a label on the SERPs to show which organic results are most popular with certain groups

As reported by Brodie Clark, Google is now testing a prominent label specifying who organic listings are most popular with.

In the screenshot below, Adidas is highlighted as being popular with shoppers more broadly, whereas Nike is popular with runners – both being likely to impact CTR when applied at scale.

Google has been testing out similar labels more recently that have been more broadly focused on pages that are trending or popular that week. This is the first time customer segments have been clearly outlined.

ChatGPT Search is now available to all free users

Another step towards AI being a permanent fixture in our lives, ChatGPT Search is now available to all free users. Individuals must have an account but the previously premium search is now available for free. It is also predicted by some to reach 1% search market share in 2025.

OpenAI launched ChatGPT Search at the end of October. Initially when it launched, it was only available to paid subscribers. Now that it’s free to all users, this opens it up to a much wider audience.

Google rolls out AI organised restaurant results

Google has officially rolled out AI-organised results for restaurant-related queries

“If you’re looking for something like ‘restaurants with a view Chicago,’ you’ll get a results page organised with AI, Robby Stein, VP of Product at Google announced on X. This seems to be primarily within the US for now, but it’s likely to be rolled out across other locations if successful.

The screenshot below from SE Roundtable shows a view of what this looks like. The AI result includes unique, AI-generated categories based on your search and helpful resources from the web, like articles, videos, forums, etc.

This is similar to some of the other AI results that Google has rolled out, like the recipe/meal planning AI-generated SERP results that we covered in the November newsletter. We can only expect Google to continue adapting the SERPs and integrating AI where it can.

Google is now testing an ‘Ask anything about a file’ blue paper clip in the search bar.

Another find from Brodie Clark is Google’s ‘Ask anything about a file’ paper clip in the search bar

As can be seen above, Brodie tested this and attached a file and asked ‘what does this show’. Google then generated a response like a regular SERP result. Another example can be seen below:

Here’s what that looks like on the Google homepage:

Google introduces Gemini 2.0

Announced in mid-December, Google has brought the "advanced reasoning capabilities of Gemini 2.0 to AI Overviews to tackle more complex topics and multi-step questions, including advanced math equations, multimodal queries and coding."

Google has said that they “started limited testing this week (December 11th) and will be rolling it out more broadly early next year.” And that they’ll “continue to bring AI Overviews to more countries and languages over the next year.”

Source

Google has updated its documentation for faceted navigation

Originally published as a blog post, Google has updated its documentation around faceted navigation. This document highlights common issues such as overcrawling, which is when search engines waste resources crawling URLs that arent valuable to users and that we don’t want to be discovered.

You can read the original blog post here.

There will be more frequent core updates moving forward

At Google Search Central live in Zurich in early December, it was reported from Kenichi Suzuki that Google has said it will be releasing more core updates more frequently, potentially moving towards daily or rolling updates, rather than the typical 3-4 annual updates.

Only time will tell if this comes true as we move into 2025.

Google Search Console now has a 24-hour view

To better help people monitor content's recent performance, Google has launched the 24-hour view to Search Console performance reports. This has been done to improve the freshness of the data and provide live insights into performance.

The new view includes data from the last available 24 hours and will appear with a delay of only a few hours.?

Like the other performance report views, the new view allows you to see the number of clicks, impressions, average CTR, and average position and break it down by different dimensions (for example, by query, page, country, etc.).

The 24-hour view includes hourly granularity in an overtime graph, which is available in all 3 performance reports: Search Results, Discover, and Google News.

You can read more about this in their announcement blog post.

So there you have it, another fabulously relevant newsletter full of SEO updates for you. I hope you've enjoyed the latest instalment, and keep your eyes peeled for the next!