Potential Algorithm Update Causes Days of Unusual Volatility

While Google updates its algorithms nearly every other week, even we didn’t see this one coming.

According to Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Round Table, it appears that yet another unconfirmed update is in the midst of rolling out, bringing a wave of unusual volatile activity with it.

Search Engine Round Table has reported that intense activity has been picked up by tracking tools since at least September 9. While it is common for a Google algorithm update to cause some activity, it is usually short-lived and cools off after a couple of days.

We often see this type of intensity with large core updates, however, it seems unlikely that a core update is currently rolling out.

Here’s what some SEOs had to say about this in the WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World forums:

“SEMrush high for the 2nd day in the UK. Yesterday was better than average for us on a Thurs, feels like something’s going on.”

“Seeing a drop this morning after some fairly steady incremental growth over the past few weeks.”

“UK looking messy in our vertical. Lots of irrelevant pages being ranked over relevant ones.”

“For me yesterday’s numbers ended-up at about 70%, weekend levels, across ALL sites including UK-focused ones.”

“Yes, a major update is being rolled out (no idea what). Check your rankings. To me it looks like a mini core update.”

Search Engine Round Table also posted screenshots of tracking tools which demonstrate just how volatile things are right now.

Check those out below:

Semrush:

RankRanger:

SERPmetrics:

That’s all we know so far. As always, Google has not confirmed nor denied anything. So, all we can do right now is ride this out and hope things cool off in the next couple of days.

#googlealgorithmupdate #SearchRankingAlgorithmUpdate #TrackingTools