We were all expecting Google to post that the helpful content update started to roll out earlier this week but it is Thursday and Google has not posted it yet. I did see some chatter start yesterday, Wednesday, August 24th. But Google has not confirmed the rollout has started and the chatter, to me at least, does not seem large enough, to be related to the helpful content update.
I am sure now that I wrote this, Google will confirm the update any minute now.
Update: And Google did, the Google helpful content update is now officially rolling out, more here.
But as of right now, at the time I am writing this, which is at 3:30 am ET (I am traveling), Google has not posted or updated its updates page with any news on the helpful content update. I even emailed Google yesterday to get an ETA on this helpful content update, and I have not heard back yet.
SEO Chatter
But the ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has some new chatter as of yesterday with some noticing big swings in their rankings. Here is what I see:
I can confirm it started! Location NY , spammy travel pages that were kings for over 15 years disappeared from top 10 to oblivion,. My dedicated website ( hotel niche ) to a popular destination at Top 4 over Hotelscombined, Kayak etc, another popular travel destination page since I made a small update a month ago ranks on #12....from #45..
Siince UK midnight I have seen a definite increase in consistent hourly traffic from Japan, Oz, NZ, China and Indonesia. At the moment my Indian and Middle East traffic looks about its normal, traffic from those regions have not dropped a lot for me ... This could be an interesting day.
I think something is cooking...UK traffic has vanished this morning, down 69% so far. USA is sluggish since yesterday afternoon and starting the day at -43%.
Well its good to see something very positive on here for a change! However I've experienced big surges and dips during updates in the past before it all settles down. Not seen any noticeable changes myself yet.
I am pretty sure they would be tweeting it shortly. Started seeing a downward trend already for a couple of hours now. Good luck to all of you!
Also saw a drop off in the later half of the day but nothing major. My UK traffic was down 50+% today though, and from the beginning of the day...
Our traffic is hit badly. The drop comes around 50+ per cent. Today it's worse across our domains.
I am just not sure if this chatter would be helpful content update levels of chatter.
Google Tracking Tools
The automated tracking tools are showing mostly calmness, but some showed spikes:
Are you noticing anything big from yesterday?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
