We are now a few days into the two October Google Search algorithm updates, the October 2023 spam update and the October 2023 core update and the Google search results are getting heated. The tracking tools are finally all showing large volatility and the chatter has been heated with both of these updates.
Update: We are still seeing immense volatility, even through and including Thursday, October 12th.
Yesterday we reported that the October spam update was starting to work and I suspect a lot of what we are seeing is part of that. But I also suspect we are starting to see the core update get its grips on the search results.
Yes, we have two different search ranking algorithm updates rolling out the same time and it will cause confusion despite what Google may say.
So what are we seeing?
Google Tracking Tools:
The tracking tools are now mostly all showing a lot of volatility compared to what it has been recently showing. Here are what the tools are showing this morning:
So things are very heated right now, as you might expect during a core update and maybe more so with an overlapping spam update.
SEO Chatter
There is a lot, a lot, of chatter, both here in our comments areas, on Black Hat World and WebmasterWorld. Here is a sampling of some of those more recent comments from the industry. I will say, there are a lot of complaints about pages dropping out of the index since these updates were released. And it might not be a bug, it might be a feature of these updates.
Glenn also posted about some movement this morning:
That is just a sampling of the comments from the various SEO communities.
What are you all seeing?
Forum discussion at Black Hat World and WebmasterWorld.
Update: The volatility and chatter is still superheated, I posted a bit of an update on X:
