Sunday night I reported about a big, and still unconfirmed, Google search ranking algorithm update. Well, we are now going on day five (maybe six) and the chatter and rank checking tools are still at insane levels. This is not typical of Google updates, even core updates, to be at this level for this long.
And no - Google has said nothing, absolutely nothing, about this update. At least not yet and I did, as did many people in the SEO community, ask Google about this update. We have zero information back from Google on this. Not even, sorry, cannot comment about this.
Let's start with screen shots of the tracking tools on Wednesday, February 12th:
Mozcast is off the charts:
SERP Metrics is also incredibly high for the past several days:
Algoroo - again, off the charts and not showing any signs of weakening:
Advanced Web Rankings is showing an insane several days as well:
Accuranker past several days are super grumpy:
RankRanger in the deep red for the past several days:
Cognitive SEO also off the charts for the past several days:
SEMRush is almost off the charts for the past several days:
The chatter has not slowed much either at WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World or on social media.
Here are some interesting tweets:
And just to be clear what you're seeing there, hourly trending shows the site dropping heavily at very specific times, only to return completely after about 22-24 hours. Rankings dropped heavily, only to return. Again, looks like Google was testing something. Crazy. :) https://t.co/HZgcopeOpX
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) February 11, 2020
February 7 was a very strange Google update. We have several clients with nice improvements in rankings for important keywords, but so far, it's harder than usual to explain why.
— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) February 11, 2020
I'll be sharing my early thoughts in newsletter tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/Ap9Gr5dKeP
I have a website having a similar pattern pic.twitter.com/Zi90AOjNes
— john wieber (@johnwieber) February 11, 2020
The tool trackers are saying this is real, not UI related:
Not sure what's going on, but fourth day of high temps on MozCast, according to early data. Three days at 110°F. So far, this appears to be real volatility.
— Dr. Pete Meyers (@dr_pete) February 11, 2020
And the comments on my original post share real stories of big drops.
What are you noticing? What are your theories?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World.
Update February 13th: Google has some what responded, saying "We do updates all the time."
