On Thursday, November 10th, I saw some random chatter in the ongoing WebmasterWorld thread about zombie traffic and potential algorithmic updates to Google - but the chatter was pretty weak.
Well, it seems like Mozcast, Accuranker and Algoroo picked up on an update around that date but SERP Metrics, Advanced Web Rankings, RankRanger and others did not. So it seems like a mix bag.
Pete Meyers said it was a legit change and there was no bug with Mozcast:
Hmmm... something happen on Google yesterday? 106° temps, checking soon -- https://t.co/VzCp4Q29Ls
— Dr. Pete Meyers (@dr_pete) November 11, 2016
There are/were threads about this at WebmasterWorld, Google Webmaster Help, Moz and other places. Here are some quotes from those threads:
I noticed lots of our pages dropped in ranking today.
I saw a massive spike from Googlebot in my log files. I thought it was a little odd.
I am seeing the same for both US ecomm sites I monitor--traffic is down 10-15% and has yet to bounce back since Tuesday
Most of the discussion though is around low conversions and this Google search snippet date bug.
Did you notice a Google update? Did your rankings or traffic change on Thursday? It seems small and not 100 degree weather from my opinion.
Forum discussion at Twitter, WebmasterWorld, Google Webmaster Help and Moz.