I’m seeing signs of a possible Google search ranking update today, May 9th, between an increase in early chatter this morning in the SEO industry and many of the tools showing a significant increase in the volatility of ranking in Google Search results.
As a reminder, the March 2024 Core Update started on March 5th and ended on April 19th, 45 days later. We then reported ranking fluctuations before April 25th (thinking it was still the core update) and also on May 3rd. And now we’re seeing more volatility in the standings on May 9.
Update: I’ve updated the story at the end, with a comment from the Google Search Link, and I’ve also posted some volatility we’ve seen after May 9th, through the weekend, through May 12th .
Google tracking tools
Let’s start with the tools, many of them are showing increased volatility this morning.
SEO Network
It’s still early, but I’m seeing an increase in chatter about Google Search ranking volatility and fluctuations this morning. Here are some quotes from WebmasterWorldthis site and social networks:
I’m looking at my Matomo live stats and it looks like Google is throttling traffic, on and off. I don’t know about you, but in my niche, something has definitely changed since last night. It’s not your usual stir fry. It’s nothing major, but I’m seeing even more reddit pages, even finer discussions, and ranking expired auction pages. I don’t know if Google is doing this in anticipation of ChatGPT search, but they have changed something. Are you seeing something? In my niche, something definitely happened.
Without leaving aside my niche, I will give you an example: allamaa dot sa. I have never seen this site rank for anything in my niche. It is now in the top 4/5 positions for a bunch of keywords as of last night.
I’m noticing that after last night, Google seems to have gotten even worse at understanding intent. I’m looking for something very specific, it’s showing me pages with a word of what I searched for in the top 10 places. I am so done with this man. Yes, I’m 50% off again. yah (not that it matters, since 25 to 12 or 10 doesn’t matter to me)
SERPs are 0 intent. In most searches, I have no competition of intent (maybe 1 or 2), but Google drops me to page 4, 5, 6 and whatnot. Only unrelated trash is sorted.
Will Google announce an update? This is no ordinary mix. I feel a change. Hard to explain, but you can almost tell something is off even more than before. I really hate Google. I hate Google with a passion. Now I’m starting to hate their employees too. I know it’s not their fault, but what they’ve done to businesses like mine is unforgivable. All for what? They were already making a lot of money. All affected pages have continued to decline since March and are gradually disappearing completely from the top 30… Looks like it has a severe disease (HCU). I can no longer listen to this nonsense from Google about any site finally recovering from HCU.
Yes, maybe if you sold it, the contents were completely erased and not used for several years. Then it might qualify again…
I only work with a handful of sites at a time. Two saw significant increases today. The tools are still being updated.
Case in point: household name e-commerce store in UA that is a leader in its niche. It has been on a gradual decline over the past 2 years to a point where it barely… pic.twitter.com/wHtuhrgaja
— Brodie Clark (@brodieseo) May 9, 2024
What are you all watching?
Discussion forum a WebmasterWorld.
Update: Google’s Danny Sullivan, the Google search link, responded to questions about this, if it can be confirmed as an update. He said go ahead X, saying they do a lot of updates. He wrote:
This is covered our long-standing page on basic updates.
“We’re constantly updating our search algorithms, including smaller core updates. We don’t announce all of them because they’re generally not widely noticed. However, when they’re published, they can cause content to be recovered if the improvements warrant it.”
We have many different basic and other classification systems. They are updated regularly. They are also processing new information, because the web itself is constantly changing.
If we were to announce all the ranking system updates we make, it would look like this:
Hello. It’s 1:14 p.m.; we just updated the 112 system!
Hello. It is 14:26; we just updated system 34!
Hello. It is 17:02; we just updated system 76!
That’s because we make about 5,000 updates per year, like this covers.
In addition, we would also say:
Hello. It’s 12:45, the results have changed slightly because the website just changed!
Hello. it’s 12:46 p.m., the results have changed slightly because the website just changed!
Hello. it’s 12:47 p.m., the results have changed slightly because the website just changed!
Because already launched and existing systems are *not updated* in their operation, but *the information they are processing is not static but constantly changing*.
That kind of constant “hey, we’ve made an update” notifications probably isn’t that helpful for creators. There is nothing to “do” with these types of updates. That’s why we focus on those in which there is something to consider or we just think that they can be very remarkable. this previous blog post explain more about it.
Here are those posts:
This is covered in our long-standing page on core updates: https://t.co/Jsq1P236ff
“We’re constantly updating our search algorithms, including smaller core updates. We don’t announce all of them because they’re generally not widely noticed. However, when they are released,…
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 9, 2024
Yes. Wait, there’s another one. Wait, there’s another one. Wait, there’s another one. pic.twitter.com/ZLOKCrnab9
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 9, 2024
Update 2 May 12: I’m seeing a lot of chatter over the weekend still, this update looks hot.
Here are some examples:
one more chart to add pic.twitter.com/YZkhyuJCEz
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) May 12, 2024
Quite strange: seconds @sistrixsome sites are experiencing a massive increase in visibility in the last couple of days.
Similar to a core upgrade, but outside of a core upgrade.
Includes sites that were brought back to where they were before the March core update started ♀️🤦🏽 pic.twitter.com/x71JTwI8ng
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) May 12, 2024
And here are more screenshots of what I’m seeing on the sites. Again, there was a lot of volatility on 5/3 that seemed very tied to the March core update, and now a lot of movement on 5/8 and beyond. pic.twitter.com/6rZ6KG0gZY
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 12, 2024
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