I am starting to see early signs of a possible Google search ranking algorithm update touching down this morning, April 3rd. The automated tracking tools are not picking it up yet, but I am seeing some chatter from SEOs who are up already checking their traffic.
The first place I spotted this chatter was in the comments area here where SEOs are noticing big ranking and traffic swings this morning. Some are saying they are seeing some reversals from the March 2023 broad core update and some are just seeing general volatility.
Here is some of that chatter:
Search is absolutely broken. We have some of our random pages ranking for incorrect search terms. Pages that vaguely mention the search term as apposed to be optimised for it. So for example, generic search terms around luxury are no longer returning the generic pages about luxury. Instead, G is ranking some random product within that collection. Its a total mess. Its like Googling "Luxury soap" and instead of getting a number of products tagged within a luxury soap category, you instead get a result "Brand X Soap" that in the first few sentences mentions "Luxury Lather". Poor UX.
Something very strange is happing with google. Today I was searching for IPL Schedule and I am seeing search results for 2BHK flats for sale.
am I the only one who sees a massive drop today, 3rd April? US&UK. Just for no reason.
Something strange happening today. I also see a drop in traffic.
Something really fishy is going on.Everyone, even my friends, have reported a sharp drop in conversions. One of my friends says she's still getting traffic but conversions (across all her platforms: website, etsy store, ebay, etc) have fallen VERY drastically and badly.
I'm also seeing the same... Absolutely appalling conversion rates.
Traffic doesn't make any sense too. All my sites would suddenly get 0 traffic for up to 6-10 HOURS then it resumes back to normal for a couple of hours before falling to 0 again. They seem to have push the throttling lever switch all the way down to the extreme.
Looks like they are going full mad-on milking their dying cash cow before it dies.
So I asked on Twitter and some SEOs responded that they too are seeing changes:
What I’m seeing, but I checked only one website, it’s some sort of small reversal with respect what seen during the core update
— Gianluca Fiorelli (@gfiorelli1) April 3, 2023
Maybe this will help with your findings! Today is going even stronger pic.twitter.com/E8qJ3eOgqw
— Conor (@ConorMc_1) April 3, 2023
+1 on that.
— Gerry White SEO geek (@dergal) April 3, 2023
Currently, the tools are not showing any big changes and the other forums are not chattering but it is early and maybe things will heat up later today?
Again, this is super early and I almost did not report on what I was seeing yet. I will continue to update this story if I see more signs of an update, so come back later and check the story.
Updates below this line.
So the WebmasterWorld is building some chatter now:
Seeing early signs of another ranking update on sites that we monitor travel and info sector.
Facing visitor issues on some industries!
Huge drop this morning...my USA traffic is -61% at 10am. CA is -62% and UK is -10%. Traffic to my home page and some of my landing pages is down between 66%-75%. Something is definitely cooking today.
Picking up momentum. Dropped to lowest lows for the March update and now we are back where we left of a few days after it finished rolling out. Seems to be holding close to similar levels pre update. Trying not to make a bunch of changes currently just to see where things settle down at.
Certainly something has changed / improved / altered for my global site. Yesterday, Monday, saw my busiest project enquiry day since pre-2020 even including one from the USA. Overall traffic visitor numbers and page views were up for March and seem to be continuing into April however what the Easter break will bring is altogether another guess.
Update: April 4th, things seem to have calmed down a lot.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
