Google began rolling out its December 2025 core update to Search on December 11, 2025, at 9:25 a.m. Pacific Time. The company listed the change as an incident affecting rankings on its public Search Status Dashboard. Google says the rollout may take up to three weeks.
Key details: December 2025 core update
This update is a broad change to Google's Search ranking systems rather than a product-specific feature change. Google labels it a core update, the same category used for its major ranking releases in previous years.
- Start of rollout: December 11, 2025, at 9:25 a.m. Pacific Time, as recorded on the Search Status Dashboard.
- Affected service: Google Search, with the incident classified under the Ranking component.
- Estimated duration: Google states the rollout may take up to three weeks to complete.
- Position in 2025 timeline: Third announced core update of the year, following the March and June releases.
Google directs site owners to its public core updates documentation for information on how these changes work. In that guidance, Google notes there are no specific actions to take to recover from a core update.
Google says it will update the Search Status Dashboard once the December 2025 core update rollout is complete. The dashboard lists both the start and end times for recent core updates, including those in March and June 2025.
Background context on 2025 Google core updates
Earlier in 2025, Google released core updates in March and June. According to the Search Status Dashboard, the March 2025 core update ran from March 13 to March 27, 2025. The June 2025 core update ran from June 30 to July 17, 2025.
Google has issued core updates several times each year since it began naming them in 2019. According to its public explanations, core updates adjust how Search systems evaluate relevance and overall content quality. These changes can cause noticeable shifts in how pages rank for many queries.
On December 9, 2025, Google published updated documentation that clarifies ranking changes can also result from smaller, continuously deployed core updates.
In the updated document, Google states:
"However, you don't necessarily have to wait for a major core update to see the effect of your improvements. We're continually making updates to our search algorithms, including smaller core updates."
Source citations
The following official Google resources document the December 2025 core update and related guidance. All links point to Google maintained properties.
- Google Search Status Dashboard entry for the December 2025 core update, listed under Google Search - Ranking.
- Google Search Central documentation: "Core updates" guide explaining how broad core updates work and how they are communicated.
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