There has been a heck of a lot of chatter from the SEO industry over the weekend, starting late Friday, June 10th, and then heating up June 11th and June 12th. Google has been doing this weekend updates for a couple of months now, all going unconfirmed, outside of the product reviews update and the June 2021 core update. Just check out the Google search algorithm updates section, you'll see all those weekend updates listed there and no, Google did not confirm most of them.
Not only is there a lot of chatter from the SEO industry, honestly, more than from the core update we had a couple of weeks ago, but most (not all) of the tools show fluctuations in the Google search results above the norm.
This might be the last bits of the June 2021 core update or maybe it is just more of the same from Google? But generally we would not see such huge chatter at the end of a core update cycle, this Tuesday will be the two weeks since it first began rolling out.
SEO Chatter Around The Update
First, let me quote some of the chatter from WebmasterWorld that started Friday afternoon, June 10th:
Wow... 2pm exactly G cut my traffic. It hasn't happened in a few weeks. The cut today was disgraceful. Here we go again :-|
I am seeing a 50% drop in visits to my home page between June 1 and today...a straight line downward. That coincides with higher apparent views of interior pages and landing pages of lesser importance, so the overall drop isn't as severe as the drop in traffic to my home page.
I was having a nice steady day until 20.00 UK time and then G simply switched off the traffic, again ... it is so obvious and deliberate YET they get away with it again and again ... it's 12.00-15.00 US time, let's stop the traffic to the "foreigners'" sites!
Next big hit yesterday. Another 50% cut off.And it seems that all we lost from google is now coming via amazon.
Something started churning in the background yesterday. In my humble opinion, a new ranking factor was introduced or an existing signal was upped a few notches.
Many of us are seeing the exact same thing...strong start to the morning then traffic goes down to nothing all day until the evening. One day direct traffic vanishes, the next day search traffic is low. English language traffic is way off, especially USA. Also, my most important landing pages have been blitzed, some down 70% today.
It happened again. My top affiliate has been removed from the first page (I cant even see him in the first 5 pages). Does anyone have a suggestion why the top spot for certain keywords change at certain hours? It can't be a penalty or random.
It's like all the top positions change in specific hours. I think it's a test, I dont see it happening in all keywords. Obviously my traffic from that affiliate is being screwed every time it happens. It might also explains the sudden drop in traffic others are experiencing. I will make an educated guess that it's related to authority.
Today's traffic is at an almost standstill, after 18 hours of my Googleday I'm at 33%, heading for my lowest day of the year.
My traffic has plummeted 30,000 page views in one week, but my number of ad clicks and revenue have remained consistent. Very strange numbers indeed.
That is just a sampling of the chatter at WebmasterWorld, like I said, the chatter is much higher than what we saw with this past core update.
Tool Provider Data Around The Update
Here are what the tracking tools are showing, note, not all are showing huge changes but some are showing changes. None of the tools are showing changes as high as they did with the core update. So the chatter is not in sync with the tool providers this time but you will see:
So check your rankings and Google organic traffic from this weekend over a hot cup of coffee and let me know if you are seeing anything unusual in the comments below.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Update: Looks like Google confirmed the last bits of the core update ended on June 12th:
The June 2021 Core Update rollout is complete as of June 12, 2021.
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 15, 2021
