Some of the automated tracking tools for detecting shifts in Google's search results and thus showing evidence of a Google update went haywire on Thursday, November 14th.
Mozcast reported 102 degrees, which means a major change in the search results. SERPs.com also showed higher than normal changes, as did SERP Metrics. But Algoroo and DigitalPoints ranking (see right side bar) show very little changes in the changes.
I normally see a large spike in chatter (as you know I like to call it) in the online discussion forums and social media areas when Google makes major ranking changes. But I honestly saw very little chatter.
The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has maybe one or two people asking if there was an update around November 15th. The other forums are pretty dead around that date. In fact, the Google Webmaster Help forums has even less chatter than normal on those dates. If there was a major update, I would have seen tons of threads and complaints but I did not, nor did I see any delayed complaints over the weekend.
So what is going on? I am not sure. Moz posted more details on Google+ saying:
On 11/14, the top 10 domains held 15.4% of the page 1 positions we track - on 11/15, it jumped to 15.9%. Wikipedia, Amazon, and eBay all gained in the 3-5% range.
Dr. Pete, who analyzes this stuff wrote at the end:
Unfortunately, there's no clear pattern, and webmaster chatter has been relatively normal. I'm waiting on some of the other 3rd-party weather station to see if they confirm. If anyone saw unusual changes to their rankings, please leave a comment.
The truth is, normally the chatter and analytics tools do match - here they do not, for some reason.
Did you notice changes last Thursday, if so let us know in the comments.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google+.
