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July 4th Weekend Google Search Ranking Volatility
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:
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.
