SEARCHENGINES
Google Search Ranking Fluctuations Continue Through Weekend

Since the Google February 2023 product reviews update on February 21st, we’ve been seeing some pretty big swings in the search results – a lot of volatility, more than the norm. And that continued through the past weekend.
As a reminder, we reported on very big fluctuations on March 1st, spikes on February 25th and now again this weekend.
It just seems weird that we are seeing so much volatility from this single update. There is a lot of folks who said they got hit initially, saw a recovery during one of these tremors, then again. So it may be that Google is tweaking this update, or another unconfirmed update was also rolled out at the same time. It is hard to know for sure but there is a lot of volatility over the past couple weeks. I suspect this confirmed product reviews update will be done soon.
Google Tracking Tools
Here is what these tools are showing for the weekend – a lot of them were pretty heated over the weekend:
SEO Chatter
Here is some of the SEO chatter from over the weekend from WebmasterWorld and here:
I had same results for last updates, big traffic Increase then conversion down. Since last “update” lost around 25% traffic but converted more and having more leads for sales.
Seems like I’ve recovered from the 24th Feb drop. I lost 30% of traffic on the Google update day and then it slowly came back, and today I’m 100% back to where I was before.
Seeing the same as Dalnoon – I am recovering. It’s hard to say some exact numbers, but something is happening just right now.
Rankings and traffic (especially rankings) continue to go down every day for all of my sites, none of which have anything to do with reviews. The review update thing didn’t make much change to this trajectory, maybe it accelerated it a bit.
Results in the UK are completely irrelevant over the last few days. Yesterday/today I’m seeing ‘top stories’ for ‘…. services’ searches. Imagine looking for a mechanic or another professional service and seeing ‘top stories’ taking most of your screen, it’s almost like a bad comedy. Whatever they’re doing they are so lost this time it’s laughable.
There is massive shuffling since yesterday night. I think that is the last stage of the update and things settle down in a few days.
I saw the biggest drop in ranking in months yesterday…it looks like a big shakeup. I dropped like a stone from #1 to #3 while the former top two regained their spots. It seems that Google is favoring huge sites again. I checked today and it seems that I am still where I was, albeit in 2nd spot…so looks like it might have been temporary.
Ranking and comparison websites in the apparel sector definitely saw a bump. EU Markets here. Maybe the only exception being Germany and France where there is so much over optimisation that there is wiggle room. Eastern Europe saw some shifts 100% .
Today’s traffic is equal to zero, for my niche as compared to the previous analysis Monday I used to have heavy traffic and many leads but today it is nothing.
Have you noticed much over the weekend?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Search Showing More Featured Snippets On Desktop

Google Search is now rolling out more featured snippets, this is not the new perspectives that it said would be coming at its Google I/O event, despite what I wrote in the original story. It is basically where Google shows more than one featured snippet, often two or three.
We saw this on mobile but now it is rolling out on desktop.
This is not the two featured snippets we saw or the multifaceted featured snippets but rather, this is an enhancement to featured snippets.
Rajan Patel from Google corrected me on Twitter saying “Perspectives will have its own filter and is rolling out now on mobile in the US. These screenshots are previously launched improvements to featured snippets.”
As you can see, he said the perspectives are rolling out on mobile but I don’t see those style perspectives yet on mobile.
Perspectives will have its own filter and is rolling out now on mobile in the US. These screenshots are previously launched improvements to featured snippets.
— Rajan Patel (@rajanpatel) June 2, 2023
Here is an example I was able to trigger myself for a query on [core web vitals details] on desktop:
When I try that on mobile, I get the perspectives UI we originally saw a while back:
Here are screenshots with other examples:
is this a new update? or Google just testing things out @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/5I9w50oBNx
— Vikrant (@seo_vikrant) June 2, 2023
A triple featured snippet! Google is now testing some significant changes to featured snippets (normally showing a single site) on the back of the SGE beta.
We’ve seen a similar format to this in the past under the name of ‘perspectives’, which is different to the recently… pic.twitter.com/NhPtcidgU7
— Brodie Clark (@brodieseo) June 2, 2023
SEARCHENGINES
Google Ads Updates Prescription Animal Medications Policy

Google has updated its Google Ads healthcare and medicines policy, specifically around animal medications. Google said it clarified the restrictions around prescription animal medications that are not prone to human abuse or other misuses.
Google explained that advertisers could currently use a small set of pre-approved prescription animal drug terms in ads targeting personalized advertising audience segments, like remarketing lists. Now, advertisers will soon be able to use prescription animal drug terms where the drugs and listed ingredients are intended for animal use and are not prone to human abuse or other misuses.
For restricted animal drug terms, you need to apply over here for some sort of certification.
Why did I cover this? Well, maybe a few of you advertise for animal medications but the truth is, I really wanted to have AI make an image of a dog pharmacist.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
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