Google Algorithm Updates - 2023 Ongoing Discussion

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illmasterj said:
Is anyone noticing something rolling out right now? June 7 onwards I'm seeing big traffic changes.

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Nothing last week, but I'm noticing movement starting yesterday (14th). 10% bump yesterday and it's increasing to like 30% HoH today. Something is definitely happening.
 
Semsensor going wild, having a few sites bounce up and down these past few days, google prepping for the sge rollout?
 
Same. My weekly sessions are up 61% from four weeks prior. It was a gradual increase until a few days ago. Then earlier today it went a bit down. Things seemed to change and now it’s higher again. I’m not ready, but here we goooo
 
Things have certainly been seeing an uptick in the last couple of months, in both site rankings and onboarding new link-building clients. Something is afoot!
 
Semrush's sensor is going crazy today at 7.5.

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Surely an update will be announced soon.

Friday is usually one of my worst days, but it's looking like it might be one of the best so far.
 
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yea we're seeing movement on one of our sites that got hit in the dec 14 update, been working on it since then seeing no movement until now, we will see
 
I was suspecting for a while that Google has some "indexing and index retention issues". Basically, it means that it fails to index some URLs or "drops" them from the index.

Things I've found:

1. Lately, I've been checking the fluctuations in my keywords a little bit more aggressively. Noticed multiple times really crazy dances, all across the board. Keywords drop from the index for a short period of time, even on really well-performing pages. Discovered that not only does the keyword drop but the entire page is also kicked from the index for a short period of time.

To what extent this happens, I don't know.

2. Even though GSC reports that only a few URLs are not indexed under "Page Indexing", the reality is that almost 30% of my pages are not indexed or dropped. I've encountered this on other sites also, the ratio is usually between 25-45%. I've inspected a few and noticed that they get dropped for some days, get picked up and dropped again, and so on. Even 6+ months posts. It's like a circle.

I've tested this on my sites but also on sites from my competitors and the results are consistent. The sites that I've used to check are all over 2 years old and have a decent on-page and link profile. Posting has been constant and have over 200 posts.

@Ryuzaki Any thoughts on this?
 
It seems as if some recent published posts are slower to get properly indexed. They say they are indexed but are not ranking at all. I resubmitted one of them and it jumped to rank 5 instantly, then today it is gone again.
 
We're heating up again leading into the weekend:

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I feel like the June 23rd on so small update gave me another tiny improvement, thank goodness. Let's hope this is in that same ballpark. Anyone seeing anything obvious in their own analytics or patters of affected pages?
 
Had jumps starting on June 27 through today for me, but it affected pages sitewide not one or two in particular. It didn’t impact pages that I havent finished updating yet.
 
Def a big update

My sites changes today vs 7 days ago- (all of these are over 500 sessions a day) Decent changes
-3%
+24%
+32%
+30%
+30%
 
ianovici said:
I was suspecting for a while that Google has some "indexing and index retention issues". Basically, it means that it fails to index some URLs or "drops" them from the index.

Things I've found:

1. Lately, I've been checking the fluctuations in my keywords a little bit more aggressively. Noticed multiple times really crazy dances, all across the board. Keywords drop from the index for a short period of time, even on really well-performing pages. Discovered that not only does the keyword drop but the entire page is also kicked from the index for a short period of time.

To what extent this happens, I don't know.

2. Even though GSC reports that only a few URLs are not indexed under "Page Indexing", the reality is that almost 30% of my pages are not indexed or dropped. I've encountered this on other sites also, the ratio is usually between 25-45%. I've inspected a few and noticed that they get dropped for some days, get picked up and dropped again, and so on. Even 6+ months posts. It's like a circle.

I've tested this on my sites but also on sites from my competitors and the results are consistent. The sites that I've used to check are all over 2 years old and have a decent on-page and link profile. Posting has been constant and have over 200 posts.

@Ryuzaki Any thoughts on this?
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We had a whole thread I started about this problem between indexing (where there seems to be no problem as far as I can tell) and serving the pages into the SERPs (or index retention as you've called it, from a certain angle). You can find that here: Indexing and Google's Core Updates, Product Review, Helpful Content, & Spam Updates

I don't think we ever really figured out why it was happening, just that it is. There are some theories in that thread, and rather than spit out a bunch of unfounded ideas that fit the bill but aren't really satisfactorily explanatory, I'm going to just have to chalk it up to a bug. I've thought about things like them raising the "quality threshold" for what they think should be indexed (in order to fight the onslaught of AI content) and they're doing a lot of testing. I've thought about them cycling the serving in order to test more pages in the top 100. It's really hard to say what's going on.
 
Definitely seeing large swings in keywords on various pages yesterday and today - both upwards and downwards. Mostly on TOFU content. And new posts all this year are mostly still dead in the water - indexed, but not being served (or if they are served its spotty/short-lived at best)
 
Semrush sensor is going crazy again today. It's at 7.9, which is its joint highest in the past 30 days.

Traffic looks very slightly down on my end compared to this time last week.
 
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Things are heating up. I'm seeing around a 7-8% boost in traffic the past couple of days, which is nice while RPMs are down at the start of Q3. Who knows what will hold or not, but a sustained bump sure would be nice.
 
And its funtime again

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Some people saying their seeing the sge experience on normal serps. I haven't seen it yet
 
I'm unsure how to add an image, but the Semrush Sensor has been at 8.3, 8.9, and 9.3 over the past few days. I don't t think I've ever seen it so high.

Despite this, traffic seems stable for me.

Has anyone noticed a big difference in the past few days?

I can't remember the last time Google went this long to confirm an update.

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Google Search Console tells me I had a massive increase in traffic yesterday (Saturday), like 30% up from previous best.

I can't really tell though because I can't figure it out in GA4.
 
The past couple of days, I noticed that a keyword I used to rank number 1 for and brought in a lot of traffic, but dropped to number 5 several months ago, is now back at 2.

Previously:

1. Huge, high DR site in the same vertical.
2. Effectively copied my content. Even said as much by referencing my site, but did not link to me. No EEAT.
3. Out of date Forbes article from 2018. 2018 was even in the title.
4. Zero EEAT. Seems to write about everything under the sun.

Now I'm only below the huge, high DR site. I feel that my page is more valuable, but I can't complain too much given their authority in the same vertical.

Just an observation I wanted to share that hopefully means Google is fixing things, and there are good things to come.
 
smithy said:
The past couple of days, I noticed that a keyword I used to rank number 1 for and brought in a lot of traffic, but dropped to number 5 several months ago, is now back at 2.

Previously:

1. Huge, high DR site in the same vertical.
2. Effectively copied my content. Even said as much by referencing my site, but did not link to me. No EEAT.
3. Out of date Forbes article from 2018. 2018 was even in the title.
4. Zero EEAT. Seems to write about everything under the sun.

Now I'm only below the huge, high DR site. I feel that my page is more valuable, but I can't complain too much given their authority in the same vertical.

Just an observation I wanted to share that hopefully means Google is fixing things, and there are good things to come.
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That’s fascinating. Is your site or that page connected to active socials? Or more branded vs the anonymous type?

I find that those high DR no eeat corporate sites post incorrect information too. Hope you beat those that copied your content without a backlink ref!
 
Éowyn said:
That’s fascinating. Is your site or that page connected to active socials? Or more branded vs the anonymous type?

I find that those high DR no eeat corporate sites post incorrect information too. Hope you beat those that copied your content without a backlink ref!
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I link to my social media profiles in my header. They have social media profiles, but their followers mostly look bought.
 
Anyone seeing movement right now? August 12 onwards one site has lost around 50% organic search traffic.
 
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