October saw the Google Bert update which affected around 10% of the SERPs and got SEO experts thinking, it was actually a really major update from Google, one of the biggest updates in five years and was set to “help Search better understand the nuance and context of words in Searches and better match those queries with helpful results.”

Quite a big update which was followed by a quieter November.

Google updates - November

The first update of November for Google was:

4th November: Google Search Console Speed Report

The new speed report from Google assigns URLs into brackets under the Slow, Moderate and Fast category.

This handy little tool highlights what pages and how many of your pages have speed issues, highlighting to you that they need to be improved.

8th November – Google advice: Don’t block parameter URL’s from indexing

Google staff member John Mueller explained why blocking URLs in robots.txt or using noindex doesn’t always 100% work.

The advice from John Mueller is to use rel-canonical instead.

20th November – Products reporting in Google Search Console

If your products have the correct Schema Markup added to them, then Google now provides reporting on Impressions, Monthly Clicks, CTR and average position – This is found under Product Results.