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Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update & Volatility July 12th

Published

1 year ago

July 14, 2023

Hey there – it is me again – reporting about another unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update. This one seemed to start yesterday, July 12th. I am seeing a lot of chatter amongst the SEO community, and the automated Google tracking tools are also showing heated volatility.

I use those two signals, the community chatter and the automated tools spiking, to say that a possible Google update is going on.

Also, the “official” Google ranking updates page, expecting to see Google announce a new update but now, nothing since the April 2023 reviews update has been announced – yet.

I should also note there was a confirmed Google News indexing bug that was resolved but that would only impacts Google News results.

Previous Recent Unconfirmed Updates

Just to catch you up, we last reported about an unconfirmed Google update 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.

But again, the past couple of months have been of the charts. Let me share those charts.

Google Tracking Tools

Here is what those tracking tools are showing over the past month or so, especially with today’s volatility:

Semrush:

SERPmetrics:

RankRanger:

Advanced Web Rankings:

SEO Chatter

There has been a spike in chatter also amongst the SEO community both at WebmasterWorld and the comments here.

Big drop today. Started the day with -50% again and it didn´t get better so far.

I see my traffic fully manipulated since yesterday. There are exactly 10 clicks per minute. Yesterday’s total pageviews were identical to the day before yesterday.
Today will be the third day with identical traffic. You can shamelessly notice a limit filter installed on my site. It’s pathetic or some traffic limiter while some update is happening.

My global sites are keeping steady their new lower levels of traffic which is a small bonus, the big bonus at the moment is my reduction in email spam and especially so French email spam.

Yesterday was the big drop for me…today USA and UK are both down but not as much, so perhaps a recovery is in play. Heavy traffic from India though…I really hate blocking such a big country but these visitors are simply not going to become customers, and they steal a lot of my images to use for free. I have young ‘fans’ from India and also have gotten press there, but it’s been years. Is there any reason why I should not block India at this point.

19.00 UK time today and my last 12 hours, similar to last Wednesday, have been what I would describe “as expected” by historical traffi levels.. These huge ups and downs are perplexing, traffic used to be smooth, I could predict within low percentages my daily levels, these days it is haphazard to say the least.