A lot of site owners believe that if Google does not announce an update, nothing important happened. December 2017 is a good reason to doubt that. Between December 12 and 14, 2017, many sites saw sharp drops, forums lit up, and rank trackers showed big swings. Google's answer was modest: "several minor improvements."
The SEO industry named it the Maccabees update. It became one of the clearest examples of a pattern we still see today: a cluster of small changes that Google treats as routine, but that can feel anything but routine if your site is on the wrong side of it.
Let me walk you through the timeline, how it got its name, exactly what Google said, what kinds of pages seemed to lose, and which theories did not hold up. To see what came before and after, our Google algorithm updates timeline lists every update in order.
The Maccabees update at a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Main dates | December 12 to 14, 2017 |
| Type | Cluster of core algorithm changes |
| Confirmed by Google? | Partly: "several minor improvements," but "no single update" |
| Named by | Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable |
| What it seemed to target | Not stated by Google; reports pointed to sites with many keyword-permutation landing pages |
| Who reported losses | Many affiliate sites, some ecommerce and travel sites, some local service sites |
| Next confirmed core update | March 2018 ("Brackets") |
How December 12 to 14, 2017 unfolded
Barry Schwartz reported on Search Engine Roundtable that the update "touched down on Tuesday, December 12, 2017." Chatter on the WebmasterWorld forum spiked late on December 13 and carried on through December 14.
The forum posts he collected were the usual mix you see during a real update. One site owner said their site had:
“dropped 30% of it's traffic yesterday Dec 12”
— A WebmasterWorld member, as quoted by Search Engine Roundtable, Google Maccabees update
Another wrote: "A page that has ranked #1 for years went down to #9." Others said nothing changed, and some saw gains. That is normal. When Google re-weighs things, someone has to move up for someone else to move down.
The rank-tracking tools mostly agreed something happened. Schwartz said many, but not all, showed "big swings," naming trackers such as Mozcast, SEMrush, Advanced Web Rankings, SERPMetrics, Accuranker, RankRanger, Algoroo and CognitiveSEO.
Here is the sequence in one place:
- December 12: ranking changes begin.
- December 13 to 14: forum reports and tracker volatility peak.
- December 15: Search Engine Roundtable publishes its report and proposes the Maccabees name.
- December 20: Google's statement is reported, and Search Engine Journal publishes its analysis.
- Late December to January: analysts dig into affected sites; Moz publishes a single-site investigation on January 22, 2018.
Why it was named after Hanukkah
Google stopped naming most updates after Panda and Penguin, so the industry often names them itself. Schwartz proposed "Google Maccabees update" because the changes arrived during Hanukkah (Chanukah), and the Maccabees are central to the Hanukkah story.
The name stuck, partly because it was memorable and partly because people needed a handle for "the mid-December thing." Search Engine Journal noted at the time that core updates were also informally called "Fred," a running joke started by Google's Gary Illyes earlier that year. We explain that story in our post on the Fred update of 2017.
What Google actually confirmed, word by word
This part matters, because the wording shaped how people reacted. Google gave this statement, reported by both Search Engine Roundtable and Search Engine Journal:
“We released several minor improvements during this timeframe, part of our regular and routine efforts to improve relevancy.”
— Google spokesperson, as reported by Search Engine Journal, Maccabees Update: Google Confirms New Core Algorithm Changes
Danny Sullivan, Google's public liaison for search, then pushed back on the idea that this was one event. Search Engine Journal reported his tweets, including: "There was no single update." He described it as several minor changes "as they routinely do in any particular week."
So how should you read that? Here is how I break it down:
| What Google said | What it means in plain words | What it does not mean |
|---|---|---|
| "Several minor improvements" | More than one change went live in the window | That the impact on every site was minor |
| "Regular and routine" | This is normal weekly work, not a special project | That nobody was affected |
| "Improve relevancy" | The goal was better matching of results to queries | That losing sites broke a rule |
| "No single update" | Do not look for one cause or one target | That the ranking changes were imaginary |
"Minor" is relative. A change that moves 0.1% of all queries is minor for Google. If all of that 0.1% belongs to your niche, it is not minor for you. That is the gap between Google's view and a site owner's view, and Maccabees showed it clearly.
The pages that seemed to lose: keyword permutations
Google never said what the changes targeted, so everything here is analysis by SEOs, not confirmed fact. But one pattern came up again and again.
Barry Schwartz looked at the sites people shared with him and saw that most of the hit sites had built huge numbers of landing pages for keyword permutations: the same template repeated for every combination of place and service, or place and activity. His analysis was quoted on the Local Search Forum:
“the biggest bulk of sites that I saw got hit all had tons and tons of landing pages.”
— Barry Schwartz (Search Engine Roundtable), as quoted on Local Search Forum, An investigation into Google's Maccabees update
He described examples such as a travel site with a page for each destination plus each activity, and service businesses targeting "[city name] + [service A] and then [city name] + [service B] and so on." The HOTH later summarized his work as the "most widely accepted" theory about the update.
Here is a hypothetical example of the kind of site that fits the pattern:
- A roofing company serves 30 towns and offers 8 services.
- It publishes one page per town and service: 30 × 8 = 240 pages.
- Each page uses the same 400-word template, swapping only the town and service names.
- None of the pages includes anything genuinely local: no projects, no photos, no local reviews or details.
To a searcher, these pages add nothing beyond the main service page. It is easy to see why changes aimed at "relevancy" might stop rewarding 240 near-identical pages. Local SEO Linda Buquet raised exactly this concern on the forum, saying the pattern "could affect all the local SAB sites that tend to create lots of similar landing pages."
Why it was not really an "affiliate update"
Many early reports came from affiliate sites, so some people called Maccabees an affiliate update. Roger Montti at Search Engine Journal disagreed. He noted that many affiliate sites were still ranking fine and that some ecommerce sites were hit too, though they were a minority.
He also quoted SEO consultant Casey Markee, who had looked at affected sites and said: "Their content and overall user experience though had some holes." That is the kind of finding we see after almost every core change. The business model is rarely the issue. Thin, repetitive or unhelpful pages are.
If you run an affiliate site, our history of how Google updates have affected affiliate sites puts Maccabees alongside later changes like the reviews updates and helpful content.
Theories that did not hold up
Every update produces theories. Here are the main ones from December 2017 and how they stood up:
- Mobile-first indexing. Google was testing mobile-first indexing at the time, so people suspected a link. SEJ dismissed it because some mobile-friendly sites were hit and others saw no rise in smartphone crawling.
- Desktop vs mobile split. Montti found it interesting but leaned toward ruling it out, since affected publishers reported both mobile and desktop declines.
- Shopping relevance. Many affected publishers were in shopping-related niches, but this stayed speculation.
- Links. Some worried about aggressive linking, but SEJ said the update was not necessarily link-related.
Moz's Dom Woodman later published (as shared on the Local Search Forum) a detailed investigation of one affected site. To his credit, he opened with a clear warning: "Full disclaimer: This is a relatively large investigation of a single site; it might not generalize out to your own site." I suggest you apply that same caution to any single case study after an update, including ones you read today.
How to read a Maccabees-style week today
Maccabees is now almost a template for the "Google says it was nothing" update. Since 2018, Google has announced its big core updates, but smaller changes still happen every week without notice. If your rankings move and Google is silent, here is a sensible process:
- Confirm the dates. In Search Console, compare the seven days after the change with the seven days before, on the same weekdays.
- Find the losing pages. Sort pages by click loss. Look for a pattern: one template, one section, one type of query.
- Check for templated pages. If most losses are on near-identical pages such as city-plus-service or product-variant pages, that is your first suspect.
- Check rank trackers and forums. If several trackers show volatility on the same day, you are probably seeing an algorithm change, not a site problem.
- Rule out technical causes. Check for indexing drops, redirects, robots.txt changes or a site release that week.
- Improve, then wait. Consolidate or upgrade weak pages, then give it time. Google's core updates guidance says some changes "could take several months" to be reflected.
Our guide on what to do when rankings move but Google confirmed nothing goes into each step, and cleaning up doorway-style location pages covers the specific fix for permutation pages. If you are new to this, our free lesson on algorithm updates explains the basics.
Where Maccabees sits in the 2017 to 2018 sequence
December 2017 sat at the end of a busy year of unnamed changes. Earlier that year came "Fred" in March and the Hawk local filter update in August. A few months later, Google started confirming broad core updates publicly, beginning with the March 2018 "Brackets" core update and then the April 2018 core update. In a sense, Maccabees was the last big core-style shake-up of the "deny it was one thing" era.
Questions site owners ask about the Maccabees update
Did Google confirm the Maccabees update?
Partly. A Google spokesperson confirmed that "several minor improvements" were released in that timeframe. Danny Sullivan added that there was no single update. So the ranking changes were real and confirmed; the idea of one named update was not.
Who named it Maccabees?
Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable. The changes landed during Hanukkah in December 2017, so he named them after the Maccabees from the Hanukkah story. The industry adopted the name.
Was Maccabees an affiliate update?
Not specifically. Many reports came from affiliate sites, but Search Engine Journal noted plenty of affiliate sites were still ranking fine, and some ecommerce sites were hit too. The more consistent pattern in reports was large sets of near-duplicate keyword-variation landing pages.
Was Maccabees related to mobile-first indexing?
Probably not. That theory was popular because mobile-first indexing was being tested at the time, but some mobile-friendly sites were hit and others saw no increase in smartphone crawling, so most analysts ruled it out.
Do city-plus-service pages still cause problems today?
They can. Large sets of near-identical pages that only swap a city or keyword are the kind of thing Google's doorway and scaled content policies describe. Location pages with genuinely local, useful content are fine.
What to do if your pages look like the ones Maccabees hit
Maccabees was never fully explained, and I would not pretend otherwise. But the pattern it exposed is still worth acting on in 2026: if a big share of your site is the same page with a different keyword swapped in, you are betting your traffic on Google not noticing. Merge the weakest variations, add real local or product detail to the ones you keep, and put your effort into fewer, better pages.
If you are not sure which pages to keep, merge or rewrite, our team can help with a content and site review. See our SEO services and content writing services, or ask us for a free quote.
Google updates around the same time
Before this update:
- The Hawk Update (August 2017): Google Loosens the Possum Local Filter (Aug 2017)
- The Fred Update (2017): What We Know About an Unconfirmed Update (Mar 2017)
After this update:
- The March 2018 'Brackets' Core Update and Google's 'No Fix' Message (Mar 2018)
- Mobile-First Indexing: The Rollout From 2018 Announcement to Default (Mar 2018)
Or browse every Google update on one timeline, newest first.
Sources for this Maccabees update article
- Search Engine Roundtable: Google Maccabees update (December 2017)
- Search Engine Journal: Maccabees Update: Google Confirms New Core Algorithm Changes
- Local Search Forum: An investigation into Google's Maccabees update (thread quoting Moz and Search Engine Roundtable)
- The HOTH: Google Maccabees update
- Google Search Central: Google Search's core updates
