December was a fairly busy month in the world of SEO with many trying to finish last minute task for projects before the holidays.
During the month there was much discussion and feedback from various webmasters regarding some sort of update on December 15th. We saw a similar trend, although based on our SMB ranking data it appears to have started around the 13th of December.
Our most dramatic spike was around December 14, and a few days of constant fluctuation. With no confirmation from Google around a specific update, there is a lot of speculation as to what this movement could be.
I personally side with many experts in saying that it could have been mass fluctuation due to traffic surges. These surges would align with possible last-minute shopping or planning before the holidays. It is also good to note that according to our data around December 20-21st there was a definite change in ranking volatility which supports the traffic fluctuation theory.
Outside of the ranking volatility in the middle of the month, December was a regular month for SEO. Overall we saw a positive gain for the majority of our tracked keywords. We are looking to seeing how January will impact rankings and what changes will happen with the New Year.
