Core update chaos, AI search shifts & Google's scraper war | HighDegree* - Issue 13
December's volatility explained + what small businesses are doing about traffic, Google's take on AI search, and what you searched in 2025?
Hi friends,
Welcome to the new issue of HighDegree*: Cutting Through the Noise in SEO & Digital Marketing.
December brought significant changes to search and if your rankings have been bouncing around, you're not alone. Google rolled out its third major core update of 2025, and the volatility has been intense, especially over the past two weekends. Meanwhile, small businesses are adapting to a fractured search landscape where social media now rivals SEO for traffic.
This week, we're breaking down what happened with the December update, how SMBs are diversifying their traffic sources, what Google revealed about AI and shopping optimization, the year's top searches, and why Google just sued a major scraping company.
Let’s jump in.
➞ In this Week
December Core Update Hits Hard: What the Volatility Tells Us
Small Businesses Choose Social Over SEO, Here’s Why
Google’s Take on AI Search: Focus on Users, Not Hacks
What the World Searched in 2025: Gemini, Cricket, and Chaos
Google Sues SerpApi: Why This Scraping Battle Matters to You
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➞ December Core Update Hits Hard: What the Volatility Tells Us
Google's December 2025 core update launched on December 11 and has been shaking up rankings for nearly three weeks. While the initial rollout showed moderate movement, SEO tracking tools registered massive spikes on December 20, suggesting this might be the final major wave before completion. Site owners are reporting dramatic traffic drops (some down 40-85%), particularly affecting small niche sites, while AI-generated content and financial sites seem to be gaining ground.
The pattern is familiar: first wave shortly after announcement, a bigger shift about a week in, then ongoing adjustments. Google updated its documentation just before this rollout to clarify that smaller, unannounced core updates happen continuously, meaning your content improvements can impact rankings anytime, not just during major updates. If you've seen ranking changes since early December, document when they occurred and compare them to your content quality and user engagement metrics.
Read the full report from searchenginejournal.com ➞
Now let's look at how small businesses are responding to these ongoing search challenges.
➞ Small Businesses Choose Social Over SEO, Here’s Why
A survey of over 300 small businesses reveals a surprising shift: 64% now cite social media as a main traffic source, compared to just 52% for SEO. Despite 40% of SMBs losing traffic to Google's algorithm updates and AI search engines, 72% still rate their SEO as effective, they've simply accepted the new reality and diversified.
The biggest challenge isn't algorithm changes; it's driving and converting traffic in the first place. Interestingly, 94% of businesses with websites say it's important to their growth, yet nearly a third of surveyed businesses don't have one at all, relying instead on social platforms and directory listings.
For those optimizing for generative AI search (GEO), 48% are already familiar with it, though most agree there's "no GEO without SEO", the fundamentals still matter. The takeaway? Social media isn't replacing SEO; it's complementing it as part of a necessary multi-channel strategy.
Read the full report from wordstream.com ➞
Speaking of AI and algorithm fundamentals, Google shared critical insights at a recent event.
➞ Google’s Take on AI Search: Focus on Users, Not Hacks
At the Search Central Zurich 2025 event, Google clarified its stance on AI Overviews and generative search optimization. The key message: you're still optimizing for Google's core ranking systems, not some separate "GEO" algorithm. Google emphasized that 15% of all searches are new every day, a number that will grow with AI, making it harder to identify patterns.
For structured data, it remains critical for shopping and authoritative information like prices. Google also warned against using client-side JavaScript for shopping-related schema, as their shopping crawlers don't fully render JS to maintain speed and freshness. They confirmed that LLM.txt files "don't matter as much" and that Search Console data already includes AI Overview performance (though dedicated AI tracking isn't coming soon).
The bottom line from Google: avoid hyper-fixating on AI-specific tactics, done is better than perfect, and building a brand with diverse traffic sources matters more than chasing the latest trend.
Read the full report from aleydasolis.com ➞
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➞ What the World Searched in 2025: Gemini, Cricket, and Chaos
Google's Year in Search data reveals that its own AI assistant, Gemini, topped global trending searches in 2025, a clear signal of widespread AI adoption. Sports dominated the rest of the top 10 globally (India vs England cricket, Club World Cup, Asia Cup), while US searches leaned toward political figures like Charlie Kirk and entertainment properties like KPop Demon Hunters. Natural disasters (LA Fires, Hurricane Melissa) and political events (TikTok ban, government shutdown) drove news searches. The entertainment landscape showed Mikey Madison and Pedro Pascal leading actor searches after breakthrough performances, while "Anora" topped global movie searches.
AI-generated content made its mark with AI Barbie, AI action figures, and Ghibli-style AI art trending heavily in the US. Travel searches favored Boston, Seattle, Prague, and Edinburgh, while bookstore searches pointed to iconic spots like Livraria Lello in Portugal and Powell's in Portland. These trends don't just show curiosity, they reveal opportunities for content creators to align with what audiences are actively seeking.
Read the full report from searchenginejournal.com ➞
Finally, Google took legal action that affects everyone who creates content online.
➞ Google Sues SerpApi: Why This Scraping Battle Matters to You
Google filed a lawsuit against SerpApi, a scraping company that bypasses security measures to extract copyrighted content from search results and resell it. SerpApi uses deceptive tactics like cloaking, massive bot networks, and constantly changing crawler names to circumvent protections that website owners put in place.
This isn't just about Google, it's about respecting the choices of content creators and rightsholders who decide who should access their work. SerpApi takes licensed content that appears in Google's Knowledge Panels and Search features, then sells it without permission. While Google follows industry-standard crawling protocols and honors robots.txt directives, stealthy scrapers override these choices entirely.
This lawsuit follows similar legal action other websites have taken against scraping companies. For website owners, this case reinforces the importance of proper technical protections and highlights that even large platforms must sometimes resort to legal action when technical measures fail.
Read the full report from blog.google ➞
➞ From Google
Everything from Google search this week —
→ Google is rolling out a new feature allowing users to change their Gmail address (cnbc.com)
→ Google Discover Notifications That Go AI Mode Responses (seroundtable.com)
→ Google Messages toning down how thirsty Nano Banana Remix is (9to5google.com)
→ Google Expands Ads In AI Overviews To More Countries But Not For Sensitive Verticals (seroundtable.com)
→ Google Search Console Page Indexing Report Now Up To Date (seroundtable.com)
→ Google Tests Very Long Expandable AI-Generated Search Result Snippets (seroundtable.com)
→ Google Search Testing New Sports Features (seroundtable.com)
→ Google Clarifies Business Owner Review Replies Expectations (seroundtable.com)
→ Google just revamped the verification-issue options inside GBP support forms (linkedin.com)
→ ‘Google News Audio Briefing’ rolling out with new Listen tab on Android (9to5google.com)
→ Google: Pre-Announcing Google Core Updates Isn’t Possible (seroundtable.com)
→ Google fixes weeks-long Search Console Performance report delay (searchenginejournal.com)
→ Google Search Console Average Position Dropping Back Down (seroundtable.com)
→ Google says don’t use JavaScript to generate a noindex tag in the original page code (searchenginejournal.com)
→ Google Removing Q&A Feature In Google Maps For AI-Powered Ask Button (seroundtable.com)
→ Google Rolling Out Read More Links Search Result Snippets (seroundtable.com)
→ Google Enters the Portal Wars (mikedp.com)
→ Google introducing social channels in Search Console (developers.google.com)
→ Google introducing weekly and monthly views in Search Console (developers.google.com)
→ Google supporting the web with new features and partnerships (blog.google)
→ Google Expands Preferred Sources & Publisher AI Partnerships (searchenginejournal.com)
→ Google hit with EU antitrust investigation over use of online content for AI (cnbc.com)
→ Google Updates Search Live With Gemini Model Upgrade (searchenginejournal.com)
→ Streamline your Search Console analysis with the new AI-powered configuration (developers.google.com)
→ Google home page search bar upload feature goes directly to AI Mode results (searchenginejournal.com)
→ Look back on your 2025 with Google Photos Recap (blog.google)
→ Google is experimentally replacing news headlines with AI clickbait nonsense (theverge.com)
➞ AI + Social
Find out what’s happening in the social media and artificial intelligence world —
→ CEO of Cursor, the company behind one of the world’s most-popular coding agents, warns businesses: Things will eventually start to crumble if you… (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
→ Manus Joins Meta: Accelerating AI Innovation for Businesses (facebook.com)
→ Your Year with ChatGPT (openai.com) - ChatGPT rolled out Your Year with ChatGPT, an optional, personalized end-of-year experience that reflects on how you interacted with ChatGPT in 2025..
→ ChatGPT has a Sora-powered Holiday easter egg (9to5mac.com)
→ Your favorite ChatGPT chats may soon be much easier to access on Android (androidauthority.com)
→ DoorDash Launches Grocery Shopping App Within ChatGPT (doordash.com)
→ OpenAI continuously hardening ChatGPT Atlas against prompt injection attacks (openai.com)
→ Gemini 3 Flash comes to the Gemini app (blog.google)
→ Gemini 3 Flash is rolling out globally in Google Search (blog.google)
(sample.com) - OpenAI’s CEO joins Big Technology for a candid discussion covering OpenAI’s strategy, its product ambitions, its ability to pay for $1 trillion+ in infrastructure, going public, and much more.
→ The new ChatGPT Images is here (openai.com)
→ BREAKING: ChatGPT users can finally PIN CHATS on Web & mobile (reddit.com)
→ Addendum to GPT-5.2 System Card: GPT-5.2-Codex (openai.com)
→ The ChatGPT subpoena revolution: When your AI conversations become court evidence (yahoo.com)
→ Grok Voice Agent API (x.com)
→ TikTok Says It Signed Agreements for New US Joint Venture (bloomberg.com)
→ YouTube shut down two AI slop channels that pumped out fake movie trailers. (theverge.com)
→ Meta Is Developing a New AI Image and Video Model Code-Named ‘Mango’ (wsj.com)
→ OpenAI introduces GPT-5.2 (openai.com)
→ Google bringing state-of-the-art Gemini translation capabilities to Google Translate (blog.google)
→ Meta’s “Trusted Experts” helped me run scam ads on Facebook and Instagram (reuters.com) - A Reuters reporter created ads promising unrealistic investment returns and easily placed them on Meta’s social media platforms. .
→ Instagram’s new ‘Your Algorithm’ tool gives you more control over the Reels you seee (techcrunch.com)
→ TikTok Owner ByteDance on Track for $50 Billion Profit in 2025 (bloomberg.com) -
→ YouTube AI Enforcement Questioned As Channels Get Restored (searchengineland.com) - YouTube creators report sudden channel bans for spam policies, with some restored after public outcry. YouTube claims the vast majority of terminations are correct..
→ Cloudflare: 416 billion AI bot requests blocked since July (searchengineland.com)
→ Secure Messaging and AI Don’t Mix (aclu.org)
→ Meta pledge to use less personal data for ads gets EU nod, avoids daily fines (reuters.com)
→ Why Does Spotify Wrapped Say I’m 73?! Unpacking the ‘Listening Age’ Feature (pcmag.com)
→ Anti-immigrant material among AI-generated content getting billions of views on TikTok (theguardian.com)
→ Study finds poetry bypasses AI safety filters 62% of time (dataconomy.com)
➞ Worth Reading
These are the articles that will help you refine your marketing knowledge —
→ The ultimate guide to AEO: How to get ChatGPT to recommend your product | Ethan Smith (Graphite) (substack.com)
→ What Does Effective B2C Content Marketing Look Like in 2025? (intergrowth.com)
→ Are AI Overviews Worth Pursuing? — Next Level (mox.com)
→ Content and Community (stratechery.com)
→ Question the Data: Should we publish AI articles on our website? (reliableacorn.com)
→ Why Publishing More Content Is Killing Your SEO (And What to Do Instead) (ricketyroo.com)
→ Why Branded Queries Matter Now More Than Ever (sitebulb.com)
➞ What This All Means for Your Strategy
This month reminded us that search is no longer a single channel, it's a complex ecosystem where algorithm updates, AI tools, social platforms, and legal battles all intersect. The small businesses thriving right now aren't the ones trying to game one system; they're the ones building quality content, diversifying traffic sources, and staying informed about changes.
Whether you're recovering from the December core update or planning your 2026 strategy, focus on what you can control: creating valuable content, understanding your audience, and maintaining a presence across multiple channels. Stay adaptable, and you'll weather whatever changes come next.
Until next week,
Nishat from HighDegree*
P.S. Have a question about implementing these strategies? Hit reply – we read every email and often feature reader questions in future issues.
➞ Who is Nishat Shahriyar?
I am a Digital Marketing Strategist, having worked in this field since 2007. Now working as a Product Marketing Lead at Fluent Forms (The best lead generation tool for WordPress), previously at Fluent Support (The best WordPress Helpdesk Plugin).
Connect with me, if you are not connected through my LinkedIn or follow me on X/Twitter - @rednishat