Google Search Ranking Update Spiking June 23rd

We have been watching what I named the Google Juneteenth Search Ranking Algorithm tremors since the weekend and it is now spiking even more this morning. Seems like some sites hit by the May 2022 core update are seeing some big recoveries, many are not, and sites in general are reporting on big swings in the Google search results.

None of this has been confirmed by Google, but most of these updates are not confirmed by someone at Google – except the big pre-announced ones for the most part.

We are seeing a spike in chatter from within the SEO community starting in a bigger way in the past 24-hours and also seeing the tracking tools show much more volatility over the past 24-hours.

Tracking Tools

Today, lets start with what the tracking tools are showing – and again, it spiked this morning on many of these tool provider’s dashboards.

Semrush:

RankRanger:

Accuranker:

Advanced Web Rankings:

Mozcast:

SERPmetrics:

Algoroo:

Cognitive SEO:

SERPwoo is high:

SERPstat:

SEO Chatter

The chatter is pretty hefty in the ongoing WebmasterWorld and the comments section of the Juneteenth post here. Here are some quotes from both over the past 24-hours:

It’s been happening for smaller sites, but not for significant sites. Perhaps I’ve just come across it and its been going on a while.

This is not a good sign, and I’m hoping it’s just an aberration and will be keeping an eye on this.

Tuesday’s traffic was 105% for me with a substanital increase in USA visitors however as soon as it went towards the end of my day, say 19.00 EST, it almost ground to a halt and just coming up to 11 hours this morning I am on 14% of average, yes 14.

This is utterly bizarre, I can’t call these traffic flows, they are controlled surges, on / off and completely unnatural by my historical standards.

Big drop few hours ago. Obviously there is no recovery any time soon (or ever).

I also noticed for one of my top keyword phrases which is 100% informational / non-commercial, Google showed large mobile Ad, which looked like organic listing with sitelinks. This top-ad was very large, about 40% of phone screen size. Only reasons why I could tell its not real search result was tiny black “Ad” label in corner, and, of course, the glaring irrelevance.

It was like searching “tallest buildings” and getting “PremiumXYZTapeMeasures.com” as first result with sitelinks. No, Google, I am not going to tape measure skyscrapers. Someone needs to tell Google AI that people don’t always want to buy things when they look up facts.

I don’t recall ever seeing any top ads (even regular size) for this phrase.

Extraordinary … I’ve already exceeded my weekday average with less than half my day gone. Multiple visitors looking at multiple pages from multiple global locations … How long will this last, not long I bet ?

First time, after the core update, I am gaining lots of keywords but the strange thing is, I am gaining new types of keywords that never ranked before the core update. I am still unable to gain my lost keywords.

It is early on for this June 22nd/23rd spike but I think whatever happened with the Juneteenth update is spiking in a much larger way today?

What are you all noticing?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.