Answer
Jan 07, 2026 - 04:05 PM
It's still early after the update...but we've seen activity that is consistent with the previous Google Core Updates that caused the Q&A content to explode. We've once again observed Q&A content having massive shifts into the higher positions.....see here:
You'll see what happened is similar to what we've seen before...is a couple months before Google shifted a ton of content from being in the 11-50 positions into the top 10 (see middle chart). Then what we see in the latest data that there is a huge shift into the top 3 positions.
We suspect that Google continues to weed out all of the "copy cat" competitor chasing garbage that is being created by writers who have no new value to add to the world (other than copying or aggregating what the world already know)....and continuing to reward content that is actually adding value to searchers.
We've seen a similar shift in impressions and traffic.....see this notable spike here after the December 2025 core update:
With that above customer after that new threshold of traffic.....we're now 18% of their overall traffic with over $560K worth of revenue that Q&A content has assisted in.
On the Flip Side - Bad Content Marketing Practices Continues to Get Crushed
On the other side of things, as with previous updates....Google continues to recognize and judge the sites that are simply creating "content marketing" that adds no value to the planet....and they're getting crushed. See an example here of a customer's blog section of their site and what happened in December:
In this instance....the merchant had of course hired somebody to "create blogs for SEO" but the game is up on that....Google doesn't care about the content unless you've added value to the Internet. Also, Google has clearly communicated that this content is "living on borrowed time"....and for the above site, time is up. Stop spending a ton of money on content that is going to hurt your SEO....and get in touch with Answerbase.
All of these observations are completely consistent with what we've seen in previous Google Core Updates (see those results here)....and we expect it to continue with our understanding of how things are shifting given Google's updates and the advent of AI. It's important that your ecommerce store is prepared for these changes (now and into the future), so please schedule a free ecommerce SEO audit and we'll make sure you're up to date with what is going on and why....and many times can point out.
You'll see what happened is similar to what we've seen before...is a couple months before Google shifted a ton of content from being in the 11-50 positions into the top 10 (see middle chart). Then what we see in the latest data that there is a huge shift into the top 3 positions.
We suspect that Google continues to weed out all of the "copy cat" competitor chasing garbage that is being created by writers who have no new value to add to the world (other than copying or aggregating what the world already know)....and continuing to reward content that is actually adding value to searchers.
We've seen a similar shift in impressions and traffic.....see this notable spike here after the December 2025 core update:
With that above customer after that new threshold of traffic.....we're now 18% of their overall traffic with over $560K worth of revenue that Q&A content has assisted in.
On the Flip Side - Bad Content Marketing Practices Continues to Get Crushed
On the other side of things, as with previous updates....Google continues to recognize and judge the sites that are simply creating "content marketing" that adds no value to the planet....and they're getting crushed. See an example here of a customer's blog section of their site and what happened in December:
In this instance....the merchant had of course hired somebody to "create blogs for SEO" but the game is up on that....Google doesn't care about the content unless you've added value to the Internet. Also, Google has clearly communicated that this content is "living on borrowed time"....and for the above site, time is up. Stop spending a ton of money on content that is going to hurt your SEO....and get in touch with Answerbase.
All of these observations are completely consistent with what we've seen in previous Google Core Updates (see those results here)....and we expect it to continue with our understanding of how things are shifting given Google's updates and the advent of AI. It's important that your ecommerce store is prepared for these changes (now and into the future), so please schedule a free ecommerce SEO audit and we'll make sure you're up to date with what is going on and why....and many times can point out.
