Google search ranking update volatility on May 3rd and 4th

I’m slow to report this, but thought I’d document it in case some of you notice volatility and ranking fluctuations on or around May 3rd and 4th. This is not a confirmed Google Search ranking update, but there are signs of an update that happened last Friday.

I actually almost missed reporting on this until I saw Glenn Gabe share some data he’s been tracking. I dug deeper and noticed an increase in chatter from the SEO community around May 3rd and 4th.

Most tools are also relatively quiet around May 3rd and 4th.

SEO Network

Here is Glenn’s post X where it said “Affected by the March Core Update? You might want to check your stats again today. After seeing a site drop on 5/3 after going up with the March Core Update, I checked several sites affected. And yes, I’m seeing some big changes there as of 5/3.”

Here are the full posts with images:

I just heard that another site owner saw big changes after taking a big hit in March. See viewability trends below. Also, I looked at his GSC stats for Discover, and he spiked like crazy with this shake (after flattening out with the March core update). So again, something happened… pic.twitter.com/NYuirdsONe

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 6, 2024

More at WebmasterWorld chatter picked up a bit on May 4th, but there was also some chatter on May 3rd:

Something is happening again. Traffic went down and sales stopped completely with Google traffic. I can confirm this for Germany, I spoke to a few shops earlier and they are dead today. I think something is wrong, my traffic has dropped by 80% in the last 24 hours with no change or change. There is something very strange going on right now. I also see some strange metrics. A huge and disastrous drop from this morning…zero traffic so far from 8:00am to 10:30am and a sudden loss of ranking keywords. US and Canada traffic has been abysmal since these “updates” finished, while UK, Germany, UAE and most of the rest of the world is much higher. Google has decided that US traffic monetizes much better and is the most valuable, so that’s what’s going away. I’m coming to terms with rebuilding with other platforms, but it’s going to be a very long, slow, and painful process. Traffic looks very weekly here as well, based on the unreliable GA. All traffic from my converting keywords, including brand terms, were successfully replaced. out with zombies! Horrible this weekend…my home page is -66% this morning at 1pm. Traffic ended up dropping across the board yesterday. Today just as bad if not worse. Graduation is this weekend, so some of it has to do with finishing school, but certainly not all of it. Impressions have trended down for three months in a row (solid line) compared to the same three month period in 2023. Google has destroyed my traffic in the last 72 hours

Hi Glenn, my site also went down on May 3rd after going up with the March core update 🤯 , well that’s how things go in Google Land.

— Ruben (@rubentalks) May 6, 2024

So the chatter is there, but it spread more over the weekend.

Google tracking tools

Most of the tools are pretty quiet and no, there are no official updates from Google that happened on May 3rd. But Google does an unconfirmed update all the time.

Here’s what the tools show:

SimilarWeb: