Google search ranking algorithm update on February 7th and 8th

I’m seeing signs of a new update to Google’s search ranking algorithm. It started yesterday, Wednesday, February 7th, and ends today, Thursday, February 8th. There is an increase in chatter in the SEO industry and also some, but not all, of the tools are showing spikes in volatility.

All this while we expect a huge improvement in search quality in the near future and have been waiting for it since last November. That said, the last unconfirmed update we reported on was on January 23-24. We haven’t covered an update since then, and there were times when I reported an update every weekend.

So what are we seeing?

SEO Network

Let’s start with the SEO talk, what the SEO community is saying, a WebmasterWorld. The chatter picked up yesterday, here are some select quotes:

This is my third day of “normal” US traffic for February so far with +35.7%!.!.!Very high traffic here for three days too. Traffic mostly out of the United States, the United States is at breakeven. No new sales though, just spam. Our UVs and pageviews have been gradually increasing over the past few weeks (using week-to-week and year-to-year comparisons on a daily basis), but yesterday it was down a bit from last week and today looks about the same.

After averaging about 50 percent below last year, we had several days where pavement views were only down 38 or 39 percent from last year. Talk about an era of diminished expectations!

Something has changed because I’ve already received more genuine business inquiries this week than in all of January, none from the US, which is not unusual, but more encouraging than in recent months. What is significant is that all inquiries are for widgets for which we are very strong and well-known. We are hitting record highs today! I hope this momentum continues! I’m glad for some people here that the traffic is increasing again. My google traffic has been since 5pm. … Well, it disappeared. Massive keyword drop yesterday and today according to my Semrush and Ahrefs. Highest I’ve seen since at least early November. One of my posts, which used to be in the top five, has now dropped to the third page. Low quality LinkedIn Pulse posts and forum posts seem to rank higher than my quality content. Is it just me or is anyone else noticing massive moves on their own site today? Nothing dramatic yet, but hopefully it stays on track. At least it’s better than the nothing it’s been for months.

This is a sample, there are also tons of comments on my latest story.

Google Tracking Tools:

Here’s what the tracking tools are showing, some haven’t updated for the day yet, so I can come back later today and update some of these charts. Some are trending up, but some are already showing volatility. (I updated some of these charts at 1pm ET…)

Semrush: