We have had intense Google search ranking update volatility over the past few weeks over the weekends. That weekend trend kind of stopped when we had a mid-week Google update around January 9th/10th. And for the past couple of weekends, including this one, the volatility with the Google search results has been relatively calm.
That is not to say there has not been ranking update chatter within the SEO community. There is always, always, chatter about rankings going up or down, every day, in the SEO community. But the level of chatter is normal and not levels that I would use to say there was a Google update. The levels of chatter are nowhere near as high enough to warrant a post about an update.
Plus, the Google tracking tools are mostly all showing calm weather. They are all showing normal or lower-than-normal ranking volatility.
Here are the past weekend Google updates we covered in the past few months:
So today, I am covering how there was no Google ranking update over the past couple of weeks. Yeah, normally, I cover when there are updates, but now I am covering when there was no update.
Google Tracking Tools
Let’s start to show how calm the tools have been recently:
Algoroo is the only one showing recent volatility…
SEO Chatter
Like I said above, the chatter within the SEO community related to Google ranking fluctuations are relatively calm. There will always be chatter about rankings going up and down in Google search but the level of chatter is nothing like when I typically cover an update.
So I will share some of the chatter from the past several days from WebmasterWorld and comments here:
Oh well, today is another one of those days when you wonder whether Google still lists your website at all. G’s traffic almost came to a standstill from yesterday to today, and I’m still losing keywords.
So it’s business as usual, it goes up for a few days, then it goes down again and so on. Overall, however, the number of visitors remains at a constant level, albeit significantly lower than in January 2023.
Can confirm. Yesterday and today so far are really bad. Just like last week.
Yep another big drop in traffic…you could see it kick in yesterday eve as European traffic dropped first, then today USA traffic is -33% from an average Wednesday…and it has stayed at exactly -33% since 11am, so seven hours in a row. That is statistically impossible, so it’s all just complete manipulation. It looks like a new pattern of one day on, one day off is becoming the norm.
Dropping ever since October and no sign of slowing down.
I’ve never seen the results as bad as they are now. A complete mess and some Indian newspaper is just ripping my content and ranking about me within hours of publishing.
Helpless.
Past few days, we’ve seen a slight increase of traffic. No increase in conversions, in fact, conversions have dwindled down.
Looked into this and saw that our Google Discovery has seen a rather large increase. Our blogs have been performing well as of late, but our CTA’s must not be so compelling because they will read the article (I’m assuming for their answer) and then leave our site without performing any other actions. Been keeping an eye on Microsoft Clarity.
Nearly half of our traffic now comes from our blogs now.
Our traffic has been up noticeably (and sometimes significantly) on most days recently, using week-over-week comparisons. I’d credit most of that to our normal seasonal upward curve, but we’ve also been creeping up in year-over-year comparisons. We’re still nearly 50 percent below this time last year, however.
Today there has been a 15% drop in the little traffic remaining on my site. The road from 1.5 million hits to almost 0 continues.
Huge drop today…
Thursday was our best day for months, Friday the worst.
It seems that Google is running experiments to maximise earnings whilst still staying within the new EU rules – at least in their own eyes. Turbulent times ahead.
I have a feeling, today will be a new low for me, followed after yesterdays low, despite the weekend and winter time (usually my peak time)
yep, traffic has taken a hit today for me as well
Hits the weekend, views completely drop. Is Google just trolling everyone over the weekend or something? Absolute madness at how unstable the traffic has been for this long. It used to be solid and steady, but over the past couple of years, it’s been so manic. Don’t know when these guys will get this sorted and restore some normality to the rankings.
All traffic and ranking down now, what the hell going here
ALL TIME LOW for yesterday and today. The new norm.
Today is probably my all time low too.
Yep, lowest conversion day in weeks. Really bad.
This is chatter over the past several days, not a day or two of chatter like I normally cover when I do these posts.
I know many of you still see a lot of ranking fluctuations, some for the better, most not. But things seem calmer over the weekends with Google compared to a few weeks ago.
Anyway, what do you think is going on? Why do you think the updates over the weekend slowed? Is something big coming? Should we buckle up?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.