Google Winners & Losers 2021: UK

It’s been a brainsick twelvemonth for SEO. This year’s investigation of Google winners and losers shows importantly greater fluctuations than successful erstwhile years. Which UK websites rode the Google question successfully successful 2021? And which sites splashed and crashed? Additionally, what interaction did the year’s 2 large Google Core Updates, the June/July Core Update and the November Core Update, person connected rankings connected Google.co.uk? Read connected for much info connected the analysis.

Google Update Rally: Many of 2020’s losers made the 2021 winners lists

Google giveth and Google taketh away. One of the antagonistic trends seen successful the past fewer years is clusters of websites being penalized by the updates. Then the algorithm is revised, and erstwhile losers are backmost connected top. We identified inclination among immoderate of the euphony and podcast sites we analyzed, for example. While discogs.com, last.fm, and spotify.com were among the biggest losers successful the May 2020 Core Update, the July 2021 Core Update gave these sites a boost close done till the extremity of the year. This meant they ended 2021 with a wide summation successful SEO visibility compared to pre-2020 levels.

Google Summer Party 2021: the June/July Core update had a large impact

The Google Core Update June/July 2021 caused adjacent grounds movements up and down the SERPs and was a existent summertime rollercoaster thrust for immoderate sites. Rarely has the SEO visibility for domains gone done the extortion similar this. The losses, connected the different hand, were comparatively moderate. And this is what the visibility histories of domains connected Google UK (Google.co.uk) look similar erstwhile Google’s algorithm is feeling really, truly generous:

Searchmetrics looked astatine developments implicit the summertime and came to the decision that this Google update was alternatively an antithetic one. Among the losers were galore sites with bully content, including immoderate from the YMYL and question sectors.

In contrast, the 2nd halfway update of the twelvemonth was comparatively moderate. Google’s Core Update November 2021 besides drew immoderate ire from the SEO assemblage arsenic it came close successful the mediate of the biggest income play of the twelvemonth — Black Friday connected November 26. The winners from this update were chiefly Wikis and dictionaries.

Google Social Network Award 2021: Instagram top, Pinterest flop

If Google were to person a societal web award, it would astir surely person gone to Instagram successful 2021. In implicit terms, Instagram achieved an unprecedented emergence successful SEO visibility successful our scale for Google.co.uk. For Pinterest, connected different hand, it was each downhill. Pinterest was 1 of the biggest losers successful 2021. This inclination is the aforesaid crossed each the countries we analyzed. Instagram seems to beryllium getting a batch right, portion Pinterest seems to person fallen retired of favour with Google.

The Top 100 Google Winners of 2021

Google’s 2021 winners came from a wide assortment of antithetic sectors. While erstwhile years saw immoderate ups and downs successful areas specified arsenic dictionaries, wellness and finance, the patterns successful 2021 are overmuch much diverse. The pursuing are examples from assorted sectors that precocious made the 2021 database of Google UK winners:

• Wikis: It was a bully twelvemonth for Wikis and dictionaries. These sectors had ups and downs successful caller years but they were astir each winners successful 2021.
  • Dictionaries: britannica.com, wiktionary.org, collindictionary.com, thesaurus.com
  • Films: imdb.com, tvtropes.org, rottentomatoes.com
  • Music: discogs.com, rateyourmusic.com
  • People: wiktionary.org, biography.com, thefamouspeople.com
• Entertainment: Most surely owed to the pandemic and accrued demand, galore portals from the video and euphony streaming sectors ended up Google winners successful 2021, specified arsenic spotify.com, tvguide.com, netflix.com, and last.fm. Games sites specified arsenic gameforge.com, crazygames.com, and xbox.com besides saw gains successful 2021.
• Publishers: Numerous publishers besides saw their numbers spell up importantly successful 2021. These include, e.g., mirror.co.uk, dailymail.co.uk, thetimes.co.uk, cnbc.com, and cnn.com.

All the Top 100 Google Winners successful 2021:

eCommerce 2021 – The Top 10 Google Winners:

The Biggest Google Losers of 2021

As always, determination are not lone Google winners successful immoderate fixed year. Here are immoderate of the losers from 2021:

• Jobs: Some occupation portals successful the UK scale went down successful 2021. These see reed.co.uk, simplyhired.co.uk, and jobsite.co.uk.
• E-A-T Websites: As successful erstwhile years, determination are immoderate sectors with greater ups and downs than others. These includes E-A-T contented astir wellness and finance. Examples of losers this twelvemonth see healthline.com and patient.info from the wellness assemblage and money.co.uk and moneysavingexpert.com from the concern sector. The algorithm seems to beryllium investigating domains astatine definite intervals. So, these sectors can’t spend to remainder connected their laurels.
• Pinterest: Both Pinterest domains dropped down the list: pinterest.com and pinterest.ca. Incidentally, this inclination not lone applies to the UK. It was besides a atrocious twelvemonth for Pinterest SEO visibility successful the Google SERPs successful some the U.S. and Germany.
• And what astir eBay and Amazon? The 2 U.S. e-commerce giants were astatine the apical of the losers list. While Amazon’s .com TLD fell successful our index, amazon.co.uk was 1 of the winners. After a beardown upward inclination successful 2020, things went downhill successful 2021 for selling level eBay.

Here is simply a enactment of the biggest Google losers successful 2021: