I am seeing signs of a possible Google search ranking update today, May 9th, between a spike in early chatter this morning within the SEO industry and many of the tools showing a significant lift in ranking volatility in the Google Search results.
As a reminder, the March 2024 core update started on March 5th and ended on April 19th, 45 days later. We then reported on ranking fluctuations both before April 25th (thinking it was the core update still) and also on May 3rd. And now we are seeing more ranking volatility on May 9th.
Update: I have made updates to the story at the end, with a comment from Google’s Search Liaison and I also posted some volatility we have seen after May 9th, through the weekend, through May 12th.
Google Tracking Tools
Let’s start with the tools, many of them are showing a spike in volatility this morning.
SEO Chatter
It is still early in the day but I am seeing a spike in chatter about Google Search ranking volatility and fluctuations this morning. Here are some quotes from WebmasterWorld, this site and social media:
What are you all seeing?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Update: Danny Sullivan from Google, the Google Search Liaison, replied to questions about this, if this can be confirmed as an update. He said on X, saying they do lots of updates. He wrote:
Here are those posts:
Update 2 On May 12th: I am seeing a lot of chatter through the weekend still, this update seems heated.
Here are some examples:
Update 3: May 13th, still pretty volatile:
Update 4: May 14th still seeing huge volatility based on the third party rank tracking tools and chatter within the industry:
