The December 2025 Core Update was announced on the 11th December 2025 with a roll-out planned for three weeks. This is the third core update of 2025. Helpful statistics and analysis will be provided below including tips and lists of affected domains across various countries.
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- Google’s status page for the Core Update Start date: 11th December 2025. End date: N/A (“Up to” three weeks planned duration)
- For detailed information and data on all previous Google updates, see the SISTRIX update tracking page
Google did not provide any additional information about which parts of the search algorithm will be improved with this core update.
Use the SISTRIX Google Update and Feature Update Radar
The daily view on SERP updates can always be viewed in our Google Update Radar which shows the current level of movement relative to the last 90 days. The radar graphics are an indicator of SERPs changes across 1 million SERPs every day.
SERP feature changes during the Core Update.
The feature update radar (below the main radar on the same page) gives you an overview of any major SERP format changes that might have occurred. Features changes will impact CTR and therefore click-rates.
What to expect
Core Updates can have major business-level impact for the digital commerce sector. In the June 2025 Core Update, for example, Nordstrom lost over 29% of their website visibility in US organic search and put the domain on trajectory to lose over 70% in three months. WhatCar (co.uk) lost 29.4% of Visibility in just 2 weeks in the UK.
Gains can be made, of course. Dunelm put on 17% during the same Core Update and nearly doubled their organic visibility in the following months. It was a good 2025 for their SEO team.
The sequence of events usually include early commentary from the SEO community but data is rarely available until the second or third day after the announcement. Be careful of reports of domains that are shifting – there are always large-scale domain movements happening and these can have an impact on closely related domains. For example, this week we have seen the following domains that are making major changes to their presence in the UK.
- mountsinai.org – content move
- visittheusa.co.uk – content move
- cats.org.uk – content move
- actionfraud.police.uk migration to reportfraud.police.uk
- thekennelclub.org migration to royalkennelclub.com
How to check for domain changes during a Google Core Update
Firstly, understanding the Visibility Index is going to help you. The VI is a transparent and well-defined KPI that can be used at any level of a domain. For example, you can monitor your informational content directory, or the eCommerce directory in your website. The domain overview tutorial will help you to access this information in the toolbox.
The SISTRIX change detection pins will show automatically if there have been significant changes near to the date of the pin. You can also set your own pins.
For agencies. Set up a live dashboard of your customer domains.
For company owners. Set a Visibility Index alert that reports to Slack or Email. You can also check a domain for free on our VI check tool.
For prospectors and stakeholders/investors. Watch the losers list. Data from 12th December is show in the image below. Click to access (free trial.)
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