Google started a core update on 10 November, its first since May. It applies globally and in all languages, and may take up to 2 weeks, so it should finish around 24 November.
Dominic Coutts
Rankings will move about for a fortnight and some of that movement will not stick. Hold your nerve, make no big changes mid rollout, and read nothing into the first week of numbers.
What happened
On 10 November Google began rolling out the November 2026 core update, a broad change to how it decides which pages to show. Google says it applies globally and in every language, and may take up to 2 weeks to finish, which puts the end around 24 November, 3 days before Black Friday. It is Google's first core update since May, a gap of 173 days and the longest this year. Google gave no detail beyond calling it a regular update to better surface relevant, satisfying content.
What it means for you
If your rankings and traffic jump about over the next fortnight, this is the likely cause rather than anything you or your agency did. Movement during a rollout often reverses before it ends, so early rises and early drops are both unreliable. The awkward part is the timing. If you sell to consumers, the update settles just as your busiest fortnight begins, and the first clean week of comparison data will not exist until December. Rank tracking tools have also been returning faulty results since September, so treat any list of winners and losers with suspicion.
What to do
- Hold off on big changes to pages, URLs or site structure until Google says the rollout has finished.
- Save your Search Console clicks and impressions for the week to 9 November, so you have a clean baseline to compare against later.
- Wait a full week after the rollout ends before judging the effect, and compare like for like rather than a Black Friday week against a normal one.
Google Search Status Dashboard
Worth doing something about this week.
Rankings aren't results.
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