Last week we reported on the early signs of big Google Search ranking volatility, fluctuations, chatter within the search results. We just don't know if that was related to the ongoing November 2023 reviews update, tremors from the recently completed November 2023 core update or something new and unrelated to those two updates.
Over the weekend, I've been seeing a winter blast of SEO chatter, and many of the tools are still very volatile, some more than they were previously.
The chatter and the signals I track are even more heated than when I first reported about it. It seems like there was this really big shift in the past few days with the Google Search results.
Google Search Volatility Tracking Tools
Cognitive SEO (seems stalled):
SEO Chatter
Here is the chatter I see within the SEO community from this site and WebmasterWorld:
After three very good weeks we see a 50% drop for all sites we manage started right at midnight. Seems Google started Xmas shopping revenue season.
I had one day which resembled normal traffic and whammo! another huge drop in traffic today starting at 11am. USA and UK traffic is down 28% by 4pm, Canada is down 58%. WTF is going on with Google? This has killed my business off completely for a month now. I suspect it's perfectly timed to do just that, siphon off any kind of real customer shopping for the holidays.
After an upward trend the past couple of weeks, traffic has been concerningly low the past couple of days. They're up to shenanigans for sure. WTF GOOGLE. Work too hard to get screwed like this.
-22% today
Looks like another update rolling out. Traffic suddenly lower
It's clear that Google intends to starve everyone of traffic all of the time now...the gaps are becoming almost constant. For example I had almost no new inquiries for 10 days from November 7th-18th. Now again from Nov. 27th - today. What I did receive I deleted immediately as the inquiries are not even viable.
Google is clearly imposing a much more intensive (or kleptocratic?) ad strategy on the US/Canada market, as has been the case for a while now. My USA traffic today remains stuck at exactly -45% all day...
When the month of December started, SERPs sensors detected massive volatility.Since that day, traffic fell by 50% and conversions just died. Flatlined.
Checked my SERPs and they are all the same.
the drops we are all seeing are from the features and sponsored stuff. I’ve never seen it this bad. It seems they’re trying to phase out links and websites.
Lost more traffic today. This is very disheartening.
Looks like another drop in traffic started 3-4 days ago.
What the hell is going on with Google? Today my home page is -83%. Most of my highest traffic landing pages are also down hugely ...-48%, -66%, -71%, -80% etc.
I spoke to a few other German website owners today and they are all seeing the same thing. Since Thursday, the numbers have dropped dramatically and you can clearly see this drop in all the performance reports in Search Console. In some cases between 70 and 90pc. Those who run news sites can also see that the impressions in Google News have increased, but at the same time there are always no clicks on the website. It is completely incomprehensible what this crap is all about. Even Amazon has lost a lot of ground in the visibility index. Is Google about to drive its search engine completely into the wall.
I have increased in visibility for the last two days and I have no traffic from Google news, never did. This seems like a huge shakeup lasting almost two days now. Traffic to category/landing pages has vanished, while all the traffic is being pushed to the lowest level pages. Hopefully it will settle down and revert quickly, but I have rarely seen these types of shifts in traffic and I have been at this for 20 years.
Our german sites are nearly without traffic today after devastating losses over the last few day. Todays traffic is down nearly 90 % whilst sundays are usually our best days. This is crazy.
Yesterday was extremely slow in the UK. Weekends are always a step down over weekday traffic but Sunday was about 35% of Saturday's traffic for comparison. Something was definitely going on.
We are now 75% down since HCU. In the past two-three days, we have lost 15% more traffic.
Dude, same. Very close to shut down my site. Already fired all writers. Now me and one other guy left. Lol. 2024 will be a nightmare for me.
Last 48 hours has turned into a tragic show. Its all downhill again. Something very big changed over the weekend. Its all gone to total hell.
That is just a sampling of some of the chatter within the industry since my last story on this Google search ranking volatility.
What are you all seeing?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
