Solis & Gabe: Google Core Update 12/2025

Key Takeaways:

• Google officially carried out the December 2025 Core Update from 11th to 29th of December - while especially one week later volatility spiked

• Solis found movements across multiple verticals such as Publications, eCommerce, SaaS:

  This is yet another iteration to reward specialization, expertise and showcase more commercially oriented content from brands or specialized retailers, rather than generic ecommerce platforms or publications. 

• Gabe:

  • The December 2025 Broad Core Update Was Huge.

  • Impact on AI Overviews: In addition, it was interesting to see sites that were ranking in AIOs drop from the AIOs either completely out of the SERPs or still ranking in the top 10 but in the 10-blue links only

  • YMYL Finance: I saw massive volatility right away with many sites focused on finance

  • YMYL Health: authoritative health and medical sites dropping heavily with the update.

  • Forums: Some highly visible forums across verticals were dropping heavily. And in particular, health and medical forums saw a ton of movement

  • Publisher networks: I saw big problems across several publishers that own a network of sites. And these were some of the biggest sites in their niche.

  • Also Spam pages were surging that Google seemed to have missed to address

Sources:

• https://app.sistrix.com/en/google-update-radar

• https://status.search.google.com/incidents/DsirqJ1gpPRgVQeccPRv

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aleyda_seofomo-activity-7413529901149995008-jqP8/

• https://x.com/glenngabe/status/2008192889348608206

• https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/google-december-2025-broad-core-update-analysis-findings/