Google Search Ranking Volatility Remains High: Recent Signs of Movement and Updates

Google’s search results are experiencing ongoing volatility, showing no signs of stabilizing anytime soon. Starting around Friday, September 27th, and continuing throughout the weekend, notable changes and fluctuations have been observed in search rankings.

While discussions in the WebmasterWorld forums have remained somewhat subdued, our comments section saw a surge in activity over the weekend, and monitoring tools confirmed heightened volatility.

The question arises whether we’re witnessing another unconfirmed update or adjustment from Google. To recapitulate, the Google August 2024 core update began on August 15th and officially concluded on September 3rd. Despite concluding, significant fluctuations persisted immediately afterward and have not yet subsided.

Significant movements were noted around September 6th, September 10th, and September 14th, with additional shifts occurring on September 18th, last weekend, and again on September 25th. Fresh activity has been recorded this past weekend, continuing the trend.

SEO Community Discussions

Here are some remarks from our community comments:

• "Something significant seems to have happened again in the past 24 hours."
• "We might anticipate more intense volatility in the last two days of Q3."
• "Just three more days and this period of shuffling/volatility will be the longest on record."
• "I’ve noticed this too, and it raises my hopes since I’ve seen increases and positive indicators over the past 30 hours. I know it’s irrational to expect anything permanently good from Google, but I can’t help it. I guess I’m a glutton for punishment … and Google is a glutton for punishing!"
• "My posts aren’t appearing even when I search for the keyword along with my site’s name. Also, I’ve lost my favicon."
• "Since the initial boost from the August core update, traffic has been consistently declining. Not good."
• "Yesterday, I mentioned my traffic increased by about 15% over 48 hours, but the weekend turned terrible as I expected. My traffic dropped over 50% starting at 2 PM (CET) on Saturday."
• "Two days of growth were completely erased today. Make up your mind, Google!"
• "I’m experiencing a big decline today; the traffic is now as low as it was before the August update. What really annoyed me: I published an article first on an important topic, others copied it, and now my article isn’t found."
• "Sharp drop in traffic on September 27th at 7 PM GMT, mostly in US traffic. The drop starts on Friday and is fully evident by Saturday. It’s like Google’s monetary team works from Monday to Friday, and when they have a new idea or feature ready, they launch it on Friday to roll out over the weekend."

Glenn Gabe documented that several sites had considerable fluctuations over the weekend, beginning on Friday.

Google Monitoring Tools

Monitoring tools reflect these fluctuations, though some have adjusted their thresholds for volatility, indicating calmer results.

Images from various SEO monitoring tools like SERPmetrics, Semrush, Advanced Web Rankings, and others portray these fluctuations graphically.

Discussion is ongoing at WebmasterWorld forums.