Over the past couple of days, I have been seeing signs of a possible Google search ranking algorithm update. It may have started on May 1st, with the chatter within the SEO community growing throughout yesterday, May 2nd. I don’t think this is the residue from the April 2023 reviews update that officially completed on April 25 – but who really knows?
Some are reporting drops in Google organic traffic by as much as two-thirds of their normal traffic. Those types of drops are massive and can happen when a site gets hit by a massive algorithm update, and it can happen if the site has a huge technical issue or some sort of manual serious action.
SEO Chatter
I saw some of the early chatter in the comments area on this site and also on WebmasterWorld regarding sites seeing big traffic and ranking changes within Google Search. Here are some examples of the SEO chatter over the past day or so:
Google Tracking Tools
Some of the tracking tools have started to pick up the volatility within the Google Search results. The first to spot it, I believe, was Rank Ranger and the others I will update when I land. But here is what I see with the charts so far:
Are you noticing big ranking fluctuations and volatility over the past day or two?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
