Google seems to be starting the New Year with a lot of energy and tackling it mightily. Since the new layout for the desktop web search is currently being rolled out, a major core update is now also taking place. This changes a lot and site owners will surely keep a closer eye on their statistics in the near future in order to recognize possible effects and make corrections if necessary.

Since the core update in early summer 2019, the updates of this scope have no longer been rolled out without words, but there is at least an announcement that an update will be fed. This was also the case with the January 2020 Core Update and the rollout finally started on January 13. Google does not reveal exactly what will be changed. However, reports of fluctuations in the SERPs can already be read on the first SEO blogs, so the first effects of the update can already be seen.

When Google imports major updates, it always takes a few days until all data centers are equipped with them and the changes can also be seen and analyzed. It is the same this time and the first fluctuations in the SERPs are being closely monitored, but cannot really be used for analysis until the update is complete. So far, however, many website operators have not been very enthusiastic. The first of them report that they have dropped massively in the ranking for many keywords and some even report that there are massive changes in the rich snippets that cannot be rated positively. No one has yet been able to say whether this will remain the case. As with any update, there are winners and losers.

As always, Google points out that at this point webmasters should above all be patient and wait until everything has leveled off. Even then, blind activism is the wrong strategy. The best way is still to optimize cleanly and work continuously to make the website more attractive to visitors – in the best case this will also reward the search engine.