There appears to be a large Google ranking or algorithm update happening right now in the core Google web search results. I was on the fence about covering it this morning and decided to wait for tomorrow until I heard more chatter, but the chatter is espesially hot right now and SEOs keep asking me about it this morning.

The Black Hat World forums and WebmasterWorld forums are the most active discussing it – it does seem to be focused more in the black hat space, since that thread is going insane right now. So this might be a link related Google algorithm shift, but Google has not confirmed anything and I doubt they will – I have already asked.

The first signs of this update were earlier this morning, March 8, 2017. Here are some of the comments from the threads:

I can’t quote all the posts, there are just too many. The tools are not on fire, yet – I suspect some of them may show these signals tomorrow morning. So I’ll probably report back tomorrow about what the tools are saying and what theories are out there regarding this update.

It seems some are saying that their rankings tanked this morning, some saw pages completely delisted, and some are reporting that around 1pm EST their rankings returned back to normal. Things are in massive flux right now.

It is hard to tell if this is solely focused on spammy links, low quality content, or something else. It could also be a Google bug for all I know.

Like I said, I am working on getting you all more details but for now, here are some more resources from the community where the discussion is actively happening now.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, Black Hat World, Google Webmaster Help and many on Twitter.

Update: After reviewing over 75 sites that got hit by this, I believe Google Fred targets ad heavy, low value content sites for the most part.