I am seeing some very limited and niche chatter around a possible Google algorithm and search ranking update starting over the weekend. There is chatter at both WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World Forums with folks noticing ranking changes and traffic changes from Google organic search. It is extremely limited chatter but more than the norm and the tools that track Google changes really don't show much volatility. So either this was a small blip, something that is being tested, something that is about to touch down or just some random weirdness and a higher scale.
Here are some of the quotes from those threads:
This is the Black Hat World chatter:
As always google comes up with new updates. This time I have seen a lot of site getting hit, losing keyword visibility and traffic.
Three of my pages have dropped from the first page to page 4, 8 and 13. The long tails for them have tanked as well.
I did. Rankings weren't doing too bad, then hit #1 for a bunch and now they're on the second page.
Same here. Now I think they are climbing up litte by little. But very slowly.
Same as above. Everything has been dropping slowly until an hour ago when everything dropped out top 50 (2 weeks ago had 5 in top 10 and a further 20 in top 20
This is the WebmasterWorld chatter:
I don't know what is going on but I had 1/4 of my average daily traffic in the last hour. The traffic is all coming from Google to a diversity of pages (as is expected in my case). Is this just me?
Anyone else noticing a different filter on the SERPs this morning. In our sector, some of those competitors that got banged are returning. Although, it looks like we're about the same....
So there is more than normal black hat vs white hat chatter. The tools are not showing any significant changes:
Mozcast:
SERPmetrics:
Algoroo:
Advanced Web Ranking:
Accuranker:
RankRanger Desktop:
RankRanger Mobile shows changes:
SEMRush:
Have you noticed any changes over the weekend? Can you let us know more? Mobile, desktop, both? Niche? Spammier industry? Let us know.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World Forums.
