There is so much confusion and mixed signals right now, mostly because of a Google Analytics bug happening while there may be another Google search ranking algorithm update taking place. Some in the SEO community are adamant that there is a ranking update going on, despite what is going on with Google Analytics.
The forum chatter at both WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World is significant. But much of that chatter is around the Google Analytics issues. But I am also picking up on some tools showing fluctuations as well.
Here is the isolated chatter specific to an update, not the Google Analytics issues:
In my case definitively not GA bug, got same traffic drop in Adsense and in user generated content in my website. Down 40% in all those.I think a huge update is going on.
Seems to be the way for me too, but I will give it a couple of days to see what is going on, read feedback here etc. But it's not looking good at my end. But right now analytics is telling me I'm 55% down on the same day last week.
My traffic drop was not GA related...my side by side Matomo data shows the same anomaly...as well as many others. Totally dead this week...but that fits with same period last year. Funny how that is repeatable so nearly by the day and year after year. You'd think traffic would be MUCH more random and naturally distributed. Looks more like an artificial pattern of throttling than that of natural behavior.
From Ranking1 > 55 5 > 44 6 > No where
2 of my sites got hit somehow, I have no idea what the issue is. Some of the rankings are still there, some are vanished and some dropped over 50 spots or more.
I got to say that the Black Hat community seems more engaged in this update.
Here is a tweet from someone who thinks this is not a GA issue:
Probably not. We're talking about position loss on keywords, fresh data out of GSC, etc
— Clément Chaal (@Clement_SEO) December 18, 2019
Here are screen shots from the tracking tools:
I should note that I believe SEM Rush takes into account industry chatter when measuring if there was a Google update or not?
In any event, do not check your Google Analytics traffic but look at your rankings in your own tools and your own conversions and maybe Google Search Console data?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World.
