Starting maybe late Thursday, into Friday, November 7th, I started to feel a Google Search ranking update and volatility brewing. Like I've been saying since the num=100 parameter change, it has been harder to validate those feelings, but based on the chatter I have been seeing in the SEO community and some of the third-party Google Search tracking tools, I think there was a Google update around November 7, 2025.
And why not name it the Movember - only because this weekend I saw a nice moustache, coinciding with this volatility.
The last time I reported on Google ranking volatility was what I called the Halloween update and then between October 15th to 17th and then on October 7/8th and to be honest, there has been a lot less chatter since Google turned off the ability to see 100 results per page and the tools began to recalibrate. But that being said, SEOs can tell, outside of these tools, when there is a ranking adjustment and it seems there was a significant one around October 16th.
So what am I seeing that makes me believe there was an update around November 7th?
SEO Chatter
Let's start with the chatter within the SEO community. Here are some quotes from the comments on this site, from WebmasterWorld and then me asking on X.
Yesterday, I somehow overcame long-term plateau.
I see I am 15% down yesterday, it is getting insane I have checked my server has something happened this week? SEMrush is saying my rankings stayed the same.
Yeah the last few days have been brutal, traffic is down about 40% from where it was last week and the same as someone else said. It started about three days ago.Rankings are the same though. Google is definitely doing something.
Things have been really bad lately, but the last three days have been truly incredible. Google traffic is dead. There are no visitors from search or Discover. And it doesn't matter how many articles you've written in a day. 1 or 20.
Lots of Google zombies yesterday and today. Low conversions. Maybe a core update soon.
Yeah something is going on.
Seeing exactly the same, Lots of zombie traffic yesterday and then today traffic just died completely.
My traffic took a prolonged dip in the second half of October due to the loss of a lot of aged links, especially the last week of October. It has now snapped back into place after working on it for weeks.
According to Semrush, there's a lot going on again, so no wonder the shop is at a standstill. The news site has been virtually dead since mid-October, and that doesn't seem to be changing for the time being. But hey, at least I can see my articles in Google's AI nonsense. Man, I could throw up right now.
Here are some of the responses to this question I posted on X yesterday:
Anyone seeing Google search ranking movement on their sites over the past couple of days?
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) November 7, 2025
Our restaurant chains have steady seasonal growth and no change in rankings on location or intent pages. However, one attorney with thin location pages lost 20% of search traffic on those pages. Likely because there are no physical addresses.
Yes, starting to rank above Reddit threads
There are a lot more responses on X, but you can click through to read them.
Tracking Tools
Here are what the tools are showing over the past couple of days:
Wiredboard's Aggregator of Tools - this report shows the aggregate of the tools above and plots them on one chart:
So what are you all seeing?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and X.
