SEARCHENGINES

Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update Volatility & Chatter On January 3rd & 4th

Published

1 year ago

January 4, 2023

Google Search Ranking Update January 14th & 15th

As the Google December 2022 helpful content update and link spam update continue to roll out, I am now seeing more signs of volatility and chatter within the SEO industry in the past 24 hours. It seems like there is another Google algorithm update, or maybe a continuation from the previous ones, taking place on January 3rd and 4th.

I am not sure if the volatility and fluctuations in the Google search results are related to the helpful content update, the link spam update or something completely different but there is renewed volatility and fluctuations over the past 24 hours.

Google Tracking Tools

Let’s start with the tracking tools:

Semrush:

Cognitive SEO:

SERPmetrics:

Advanced Web Rankings:

Accuranker:

RankRanger:

Mozcast:

The rest are not yet picking up on the changes but I suspect later on today they will update and show the volatility.

SERPstat:

Algoroo:

SERPwoo:

SEO Chatter

And yes, I am seeing some early chatter from within the SEO community. The chatter is now at WebmasterWorld and in the comments section here, here is some quotes from those sources:

Sharp traffic drop since around 13:00 GMT. USA Semrush sensor rising.

Traffic is still very wobbly, but nothing out of the ordinary, especially in e-shop space. January is always notoriously slow, both traffic and customer-wise. Anyone who thinks it receives zombie traffic or whatever needs to realize that unless their website is niche enough to not be in sync with the general population’s behavior, it is seeing a general seasonality affecting the vast majority of websites. What I can comment, however, is that during the holidays, there was a big shift from long tail to general keyword searches, causing many keywords to appear as they are losing SERP positions, where the reality is that many people’s search results are in their “personal search bubble” and when they stop searching for what you rank good for _to them_ it seems as if positions took a nose dive.

Keywords Ranking Going down from 1st page to 4th page

Massive drop today. Semrush on high range… here we go again 😐

My organic traffic also relatively increased yesterday, however, it was useless traffic, the majority is coming from irrelevant countries.

Same here. Although only up from 50% to now about 65% percent of where it wss just prior to this update that throttled traffic exactly in half.
Hopefully, that trajectory holds for everyone who arbitrarily took a hit with this total BS update, even if very slow.

Am I the only one that saw a big boost in organic traffic yesterday (Jan 2)?

A new fluctuation has started in the past 24 hours, however, waves have become much bigger at the moment.

What are you all seeing and do you think this is related to the helpful content update, link spam update or something new?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Source: www.seroundtable.com

Share on Facebook

Post on X

Save

Up Next

Daily Search Forum Recap: January 4, 2023

Don't Miss

Google On Giving Start & End Dates To Algorithm Updates

Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

SEARCHENGINES

Daily Search Forum Recap: April 25, 2024

Published

1 day ago

April 25, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

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.

The Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out and the SEO chatter is super heated despite the tools calming. Google Ads API version 16.1 is now out. Google’s John Mueller says splitting and merging sites takes longer than normal site moves for Google to process. Google updated its favicon documentation. And a scathing report on how Google executive Prabhakar Raghavan killed Google Search.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google March Core Update Stilling Rolling Out & Heated SEO Chatter Continue

Over the past few days, while I was offline, the SEO chatter around the Google search ranking volatility continued to be super heated. The Google tracking tools seemed to calm down a bit, but the chatter is still very heated. This is all while the Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out 51 days later.

Report: How Prabhakar Raghavan Killed Google Search

Ed Zitron wrote a piece named The Man Who Killed Google Search. It goes through in detail how Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s former head of ads – led a coup so that he could run Google Search, and how an email chain from 2019 began a cascade of events that would lead to him running it into the ground, he said.

Google Favicon Documentation Adds Rel Attribute Value Definitions

Google has updated its favicon documentation for Google Search to add definitions for each supported rel attribute value in the Google Search favicon documentation.

Google Ads API Version 16.1 Now Available

Google released version 16.1 of the Google Ads API yesterday. The update includes query assets for Demand Gen, more location service details, more support warnings, Target ROAS bid simulation and more.

Google: Splitting & Merging Sites Takes Longer Than Normal Site Migrations

Want to scare an SEO? Just tell them they need to manage a site migration. Want to make an SEO faint? Tell them they need to manage to split a site into two or more sites while merging content on those sites. John Mueller from Google said it takes Google longer to process site splits and merges than normal site migrations.

Google Chefs In Dublin

Here is a photo I found on Instagram of a bunch of chefs at the Google office in Dublin. I am not sure if this was for some event or if Googlers were doing some sort of cooking class but it was a photo that caught my eye.

Other Great Search Threads:

Interested in AI assistants within YouTube? -> The new experimental “Ask AI” feature in YouTube is pretty cool. Just tap the button and ask any question about the video you’re watching. Note, AI can’t control the video player as of n, Glenn Gabe on X

What skeleton do you have in your closet?, WebmasterWorld

Googlebot will crawl from one location (often the US), and if you redirect it based on its location, Googlebot would only see (and index) that country version. It’s better to use something like a banner., John Mueller on X

I don’t know your sites, but even if the content’s the same, they’re essentially different sites (especially with ccTLDs), so it would be normal for a migration to affect them differently (and this seems to be quite a way back in the meantime)., John Mueller on X

Search engines recrawl URLs at different rates, sometimes it’s multiple times a day, sometimes it’s once every few months. The verified removal tool is fastest, the public removal tool takes a few days because it needs to verify the URL properly., John Mueller on X

You are now a Google Search Engineer. How do you fix organic search?, Gareth Boyd on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

Feedback:

Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.

SEARCHENGINES

Google Won’t Change The 301 Signals For Ranking & SEO

Published

2 days ago

April 24, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Gary Illyes from Google said on stage at the SERP conference last week that there is no way that Google would change how the 301 redirect signal works for SEO or search rankings. Gary added that it’s a very reliable signal.

Nikola Minkov quoted Gary Illyes as saying, “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal,” when asked if a 301 redirect not working is a myth. Honestly, I am not sure the context of this question, as it is not clear from the post on X, but here it is:

More from @methode:
– 301 redirect not working is a myth. “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal”.#SERPConf2024 #SERPConf2024International
— Nikola Minkov (@n_minkov) April 19, 2024

We’ve covered 301 redirects here countless times – but I never saw a myth that Google does not use 301 redirects as a signal for canonicalization or for passing signals from an old URL to the redirected URL.

Forum discussion at X.

Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.

SEARCHENGINES

Google Again Says Ignore Link Spam Especially To 404 Pages

Published

3 days ago

April 23, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

I am not sure how many times Google has said that you do not need to disavow spammy links, that you can ignore link spam attacks and that links pointing to pages that 404/410 are links that do not count – but John Mueller from Google said it again.

In a thread on X, John Mueller from Google wrote, “if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped.” “They do nothing,” he added, “If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link.”

John then added, “I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.”

Asking if it would hurt to disavow, after responding with the messages above, John wrote:

It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).

Earlier this year we had tons of SEOs notice spammy links to 404 error pages, John said ignore them. In 2021, Google said links to 404 pages do not count, Google also said that in 2012 and many other times.

Plus, outside of links to 404 pages, Google has said to ignore spammy links, time and time again – even the toxic links – ignore them. The messaging around this changed in 2016 when Penguin 4.0 was released and Google began devaluing links over demoting them.

Here are those new posts in context:

I’d say add both. Lol
— Jeremy Rivera (@JeremyRiveraSEO) April 11, 2024

Sure. But also, save yourself the work completely :-).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024

Re-reading your initial post – if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped. They do nothing. If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link. I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024

… but still… is this a dumb idea?
— Rebekah Edwards (@rebekah_creates) April 11, 2024
Advertisement

It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024

And in general, Google says it ignores spammy links, so you should too (not new) but this post from John Mueller is:

I would just ignore them, Google ignores them too. Sometimes they’re just more visible in tools, but that doesn’t mean they’re a problem.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 18, 2024

And then also on Mastodon wrote about a similar situation, “Google has 2 decades of practice of ignoring spammy links. There’s no need to do anything for those links.”

Forum discussion at X.

Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.