Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update Chatter Signals - July 26

I am seeing a significant increase in chatter from within the SEO community around a possible Google Search ranking algorithm update. While most of the tracking tools have calmed, except for Semrush and Mozcast, I am seeing a big spike in SEO chatter yesterday and into today.

We all know how intense and volatile the Google search results and Google rankings have been over the past few months. But I have not seen the chatter at this level in a while. And some of the tools showing more calmer weather is throwing me off a bit.

Now, while we are all expecting a confirmed update soon, right now, we have not received one - yet.

We've had very heated volatility since the last confirmed update, which was the April 2023 reviews update. The last core update was the March 2023 core update. So we are due some updates, and many suspect we will see the helpful content update, which we didn't have since the December 2022 helpful content update.

Just to catch you up, we last reported about an unconfirmed Google update this weekend and then again July 12th/13th, then around July 6th or 8th and then on June 28th and 29th and then again June 23rd then on June 19th we reported about ongoing heated volatility with Google Search. We also reported on an update on June 14th, one around June 14th and ongoing, then June 6th then around May 22/23rd, then around May 17t, then on May 10th and the other around early May.

SEO Chatter

So as I said, the SEO chatter is spiking. When I say "SEO chatter," I mean the level of SEOs commenting in the forums or online about noticing big ranking changes for their sites and client sites. I am seeing a big spike in that chatter at WebmasterWorld, on social and also in the comments here.

I will quote some of that chatter from the past day or so here:

My traffic seems to be down over the last 12 hours. I am suspicious of a new update.

Anyone else with very low traffic or traffic stopped today?

Slow today, very slow. Finance UK.

Been dead all day, then all of a sudden — at 4pm — it started again. Let's hope it stays like this; I need to put the leccy on this evening.

We're back to extremely spammy results in our niche. The sites we've seen mid-late last year are starting to appear again.

If it was cooling, it's heating back up now.

Definitely. Been a tough day traffic wise. Can Google just not put their heads down and sort the issue out and restore the good old days. Is it too much to ask?

Still seeing swings in rankings in the legal space. Some days are good some days are meh. Might just end up were we started at the end of this.

Anyone experiencing a loss in traffic today?

Yeah, it's been terrible so far today.

Traffic is high for two of my main sites and continues. I am highly suspicious, because someone must be losing, and I'm not sure who it is...

Low traffic levels across my global sites, localised hotel venue doing fine.

Massive drops here starting overnight. It's the USA traffic that has vanished again, -47% at 11:30am. Traffic to my home page and all of my most competitive landing pages is down up to 81% today. Non-USA traffic is mostly hitting a lot of lower-level pages, aka one hit and out. Is anyone else seeing this today?

I'm seeing a lot of single-page views today at 78.5%, which is way higher than this year's average of 47.1%.

I notice again my traffic is filtering at 10 clicks per minute. It's been very similar to what happened this past week. Then came a huge amount of traffic afterwards.

That is, yes, I have a big reduction in traffic today.

Looks like yet another update, traffic is coming back with a hyper-low bounce rate. We see this EVERY time they do something! Obviously, these days that is pretty much weekly.

So that is just a sampling of the chatter from the past day or so... It is a lot, as you can tell.

Google Tracking Tools

Here is what the tracking tools are now showing:

Semrush:

SERPmetrics:

RankRanger:

Advanced Web Rankings:

Accuranker:

Mozcast:

Cognitive SEO:

Algoroo:

SERPstat:

Wincher:

The outside temperature isn't the only heat wave this summer...

This is the @seoClarity Rank Fluctuation track for June to July 2023. Ours is based on our entire set of millions of US keywords, updated daily.

You can see the huge leap beginning mid July. pic.twitter.com/vmNFgJr3SH

— Mark Traphagen 🏳️‍🌈 (they/them) (@marktraphagen) July 27, 2023

Some of the tools have yet to update today, so I will come back later and refresh these charts.

What are you all seeing?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.