On Thursday, June 18th, we reported about a possible Google search ranking and algorithm update. But it seems a couple of days later things began to heat up even more. The chatter in the ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has spiked a lot and the tools are showing more movement.
In addition, a lot of folks are talking about Google Discover traffic changes. Now, Google Discover does change a lot and can either send you a ton of traffic or no traffic at all. It is very volatile and often does work along Google core updates and other updates. So it does make sense that when there is a Google update, confirmed or unconfirmed, that big changes to your Google Discover traffic can happen. It can also make sense that your stories are not hitting Google Discover on a specific set of days for completely other reasons.
Here is some of the chatter around the update we have seen over the weekend:
Today is very volatile for us again.Sheesh, Google is like a chameleon on a skittles packet.
It is very clear to me. Something big happened on the 18th.Usually Saturday is my best day of the week. Today the situation is terrible ... Traffic and conversion extremely low.
I have noticed another update to the SERP. The few major high ranking keywords I have just dropped again today. Anyone else seeing SERP movement today?
Yep gator...all down.20 years of great fathers day traffic...1 conversion on a trickle today. Something did move in the past 24 hours...lost one Pintetest spam listing...so that's good but it's pretty clear the AI is still hard at work filling Googles coffers.
Some very slight SERP movement - but total opposite in US vs UK rankings.I give up.
Here is some of the chatter specific to Google Discover changes:
Something strange is going on with the Discover algorithms for sure.On one of the sites we manage, we haven't lost much in terms of position for our KWs, but Discover appearance has fallen off a cliff since 10 June - even for topics we'd gotten traction on quite regularly before. And not as someone mentioned with the referral of it changing, as in, dead as a doornail in Search Console's metrics.
My discover traffic dropped this week too. From 5 digits to 3 digits a day
So there are three of us who have seen the Discover anomaly on 10 June.
Like a switch, our site is now showing up in Google Discover again by the looks of it and back to normal traffic levels.
There was a minor upswing in the discover traffic yesterday night but it's gone now.
Here is a tweet:
@rustybrick Barry, a lot of people are reporting severe drop in Discover traffic since around June 10. This appears to be a bug at Google's end and it would be great if you can reach out to them and write about it https://t.co/g3gvOVHV2Z
— Divyanka (@TechThinkers) June 21, 2020
Again, a lot of Google Discover traffic by definition is come and go. But it can also be that with a Google update, your Google Discover traffic can go away in a big way. These reports say around June 10th that Google Discover traffic changed in a big way. Now, we did report on some update around June 10th so maybe it was related to that?
Back to the weekend changes, which impact rankings and seems to also be impacting some Google Discover. Here are the charts from the tracking tools.
What are you all seeing?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
