Monthly SEO Insights: December 2025

As search continues to evolve at pace, December brought a series of updates that reinforce a familiar theme: Google is increasingly focused on brand signals, real-world relevance, and AI-driven experiences.

From a new core update to expanded visibility of social performance in Search Console, and Gemini’s growing role in serving local results, these changes offer useful signals about where search is heading in 2026. Below, we break down what’s changed, what we’re seeing so far, and what it means in practical terms for SMEs navigating an increasingly complex search world.

December’s Core Update

In December, Google rolled out its third core update of 2025, beginning on 11th December. As with previous core updates, this was global in nature and applied across all content types, with many businesses reporting ranking fluctuations across the sector.

So far, we’ve seen minimal disruption across our client base, which is encouraging. That said, core updates often take several weeks to fully settle, so early stability doesn’t always tell the full story. We’ll continue to monitor performance closely and respond proactively should any notable changes emerge.

The takeaway: consistency, quality, and long-term optimisation continue to outperform reactive tactics, particularly during broad algorithm updates.

Metrics on Social Channels in Google

Additionally, Google has announced the upcoming introduction of ‘social channels’ within the Insights report on Google Search Console. This feature allows website owners to directly review the search performance of their associated social channels (including YouTube), from within Search Console itself. As Google states, the new view will display familiar performance insights for each channel, including:

• Total reach: total clicks and impressions driving traffic from Google to your social channel.
• Content performance: top social channel pages, as well as those trending up or down.
• Search queries: top and trending queries leading users to your social profiles.
• Audience location: top countries where users are clicking on your social channel in search results.
• Additional traffic sources: total clicks your site receives from additional sources such as Image Search, Video Search, News Search, and Discover.

Currently being rolled out to a limited number of websites, Google plans to expand this feature to all Search Console properties in the future. This update underscores the increasing importance of ‘Brand’ across all channels, as brands are expected to leverage a variety of digital touchpoints to meet the evolving, AI-driven demands of modern search and support long-term SEO success.

Gemini serving up local results

Google has also announced that Gemini will now display local results in a “rich, visual format,” featuring photos, ratings, and real-world information directly sourced from Google Maps. This information will be drawn from Google Business Profiles and will appear in response to local queries, seamlessly integrated into the search results.

Starting today, Gemini can serve up local results in a rich, visual format. See photos, ratings, and real-world info from @GoogleMaps, right where you need them.

— G3mini (@GeminiApp) December 13, 2025

As we’ve mentioned previously, this is another indication of how crucial “Brand” is in the context of search and AI tools. It’s more important than ever to ensure that your Google Business Profile is kept up to date with the latest information and offerings, as it now has the potential to appear directly within Gemini, whether through user interfaces or the app.