Surprise, surprise, it was another weekend and we again see some more than usual Google search ranking volatility/updates. Again, this reminds me of the weekend ranking bug Google had late last year into early this year. But who knows, maybe it is just a ranking system that shuffles things up for weekend searchers?

Or maybe we are all crazy – that might be just as likely.

I am seeing a spike in chatter after the July 4th date, so again, starting the Friday before the weekend and going through the weekend, like the past several unconfirmed updates I covered. This one seemed to kick off on July 5, 2024.

There as a spike in SEO chatter across the various forums and some, not all, of the tools picked up on the Google Search volatility over the past couple of days.

Here is what I am seeing.

Google Rank Tracking Volatility Tools

Here is what the tools are showing – notice around the July 5th date on many of these tools:

Advanced Web Rankings:

Cognitive SEO:

Algoroo:

SERPmetrics:

Mozcast:

SERPstat:

Semrush:

SimilarWeb:

Accuranker:

Mangools:

Wincher:

So many of the tools are heated around July 4th, 5th and 6th.

SEO Chatter

Now, it is normal to see a drop in traffic for many sites around the July 4th holiday and the weekend that follows. So keep that in mind, but many of these SEOs know it is July 4th and can compare it to previous July 4th holiday weekends.

Here is some of the chatter from WebmasterWorld and then from comments throughout several blog posts here on this topic:

I am seeing enormous drops of ~60% in traffic to some of my most important category pages this week. Upon further inspection it’s happening on the pages where Google has added one huge AI snippit result at top, then sometimes a huge image block, a People Also Ask and Things to Know block, and sponsored ads. Even though I am ranking #1-#3 the traffic is dropping off completely.

In one case, an article I wrote went to #1 and has been pulling in so much traffic that it passed my home page some days. Suddenly in the last day the traffic had dropped 81%! The reason being that my article is now being used for the AI snippit at top of results, and not just the first result. The link to my site is there, but apparently nobody clicks on it despite the huge top placement. Is this what others are seeing when their articles are being used for AI snippits at top?

Yesterday there was a 50% drop and today there are practically no visitors to my site. It’s like being kicked out of the index. I can’t explain it.

I also noticed a traffic drop yesterday (July 5th) especially towards the evening (Germany) and today is pretty sh*t so far

I agree, yesterday was a big drop in google traffic. now it’s starting to rise again

Yesterday, our pageviews were up 23 percent and UVs were up 16 percent. Our top pages were the usual batch (no unusual spikes).

I can’t thank Google for the increase, though–yesterday’s Google traffic was only 29 percent of the UV total, compared to 35 percent for the last 30 days.

Completely normal drops for me Thursday at 50% and 75% Friday, my explanation is the US long holiday weekend.

Clearly there’s something going on this weekend. The holiday slump doesn’t end.

The search results after July 4 were pretty much trash.

Has anyone else experienced a traffic drop like me on 4th July? I’ve experienced a 100-daily traffic drop.

Something seems to have happened in the past few hours, right after 4th of July ended.

Massive shuffling for my keywords and drops.

Yep, same here. Traffic died a death in the days before, and now it’s back again. I’m in UK, so shouldn’t be affected US hols (but we did get a new Prime Minister 🙂

And then a lot more of the same. But I saw both comments about negative ranking changes and also positive ranking changes. Sometimes it is hard to weed out holiday traffic drops, which can be normal versus ranking changes that are associated with traffic improvements or declines.

I am just wondering if we are seeing this Google weekend ranking bug again or if this is just normal patterns.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

This week, I posted the monthly Google Webmaster report and we had more search ranking volatility over the weekend. Google Search Console had huge delays, which started to be fixed on July 3rd and seems to have caught up late last night. Google also said these delays have nothing to do with core updates and they are not documented on its Search Status Dashboard. Rand Fishkin posted an updated zero-click data study on Google. Reddit is not blocking Google Search, despite what you see in its robots.txt file. Gary Illyes from Google explained why soft 404s are bad. Microsoft added prompt injection to its Bing Webmaster Guidelines. Google is testing “current styles” search carousel. Google Merchant Center may use your conversion data. Google Local Service Ads now show in the mobile local business finder. Google Ads’s new brand controls won’t prevent your ads from showing random firms. Google Ads gained a new checkbox to specify if it has altered or synthetic content. Google Ads will allow fantasy sports and lottery courier ads in many states. Microsoft Advertising has a new Property Center and expanded lodging campaigns. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

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Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Google Search Console reports seem to be back to normal again. Reddit did not block Google from crawling or indexing. Google says request indexing does not change canonicalization. Google says if you are using a CDN and want to maintain one robots.txt file, you can redirect one to the other. Google updated its image SEO best practices. Google is testing a longer search bar for longer queries. And I posted the SEO video recap – subscribe!

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• 
  Google Search Console Performance Reports All Caught Up
  
  
  Google seems to have fixed the Google Search Console Performance Reports last night at about 7:45pm ET. I posted a short update in my story yesterday, but waited until this morning to post a new story that it is fixed because sometimes I’ve seen it recover and then slip back. But it still seems to be showing recent and fresh data even the next morning.
• 
  Google Search Console Performance Reports Catching Up But It’s Not Done Yet
  
  
  As you know, Google Search Console’s performance reports were significantly delayed this week. But as of this morning, the reports are beginning to catch up. Google said last night it would take them “at least 2-3 days to fully catch up” and reprocess the data. So if you are seeing weird data, look away and come back on Monday.





• 
  No – Reddit Is Not Blocking Google Search
  
  
  Today being July 4th, I normally would avoid writing stories here but there are a lot of rumors out there that Reddit is blocking Google Search from crawling and indexing its content. It is not true – Reddit is not blocking Google Search.




• 
  Google: Request Indexing Does Not Change Canonicalization
  
  
  Google’s John Mueller said on that using the request indexing feature in Google Search Console’s URL Inspection Tool does not change canonicalization. The question that was asked is if it can help speed up URL removal for a 301 redirected URL.





• 
  Google: Using A CDN & Want One Robots.txt File, Redirect Yours To The CDN
  
  
  Do you use a CDN for some or all of your website and you want to manage just one robots.txt file, instead of both the CDN’s robots.txt file and your main site’s robots.txt file? Gary Illyes from Google said that all you need to do is redirect your main robots.txt to the CDN and control it on the CDN.





• 
  Google Updated Image SEO Best Practices For Embedded Images
  
  
  Google has made a small update to its image SEO best practices documentation, specific to the “Use HTML image elements to embed images” section. The update seems relatively minor but the changes to the wording was done for a reason.





• 
  Google Search Tests Long Search Bar Variations
  
  
  Google is testing a longer search bar, so I guess you can enter in a longer query into the search box. Google is also testing it in a gray color and other variations.





• 
  Italian Google Product Expert Code T-Shirts
  
  
  Here are some fun t-shirts a few Google Product Experts wore at the Google Product Expert Summit the other day. It says if product expert and Italian then do it better.





• 
  Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Search Console Difficulties, Google Ranking Volatility, Zero Click Study, Google Ads & More
  
  
  
  
  This week, I posted the monthly Google Webmaster report and we had more search ranking volatility over the weekend. Google Search Console had huge delays…

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