I am slow to report on this but figured I’d document it just in case some of you noticed ranking volatility and fluctuations on or around May 3rd and May 4th. This is not a confirmed Google Search ranking update but there are signs of an update that touched down this past Friday.
In fact, I almost missed reporting on this until I saw Glenn Gabe shared some data he is tracking. I dug in and noticed a spike in chatter from within the SEO community around May 3rd and 4th.
Most of the tools are relatively calm around May 3rd and 4th as well.
SEO Chatter
Here is Glenn’s post on X where he said, “Impacted by the March core update? You might want to check your stats again today. After seeing a site drop on 5/3 after surging with the March core update, I checked a number of sites impacted. And yep, I’m seeing some big changes there starting on 5/3.”
Here are the full posts with images:
Over at WebmasterWorld the chatter spiked a bit on the 4th of May but there was some chatter on May 3rd as well:
So the chatter is there but it was more spread out over the weekend.
Google Tracking Tools
Most of the tools are pretty calm and no, there are no official Google updates that would have taken place on May 3rd. But Google does push out unconfirmed update all the time.
Here are what the tools are showing:
So did any of you notice ranking volatility around May 3rd and 4th?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and X.
