Good morning, Search Marketer, do your Google rankings feel rocky?
It is me again, Barry, the one obsessed with Google algorithms. Over the past month or so I feel like I've written in the "Search Shorts" section below about several unconfirmed Google algorithm updates. Google seems to be pretty busy tweaking its search ranking algorithm and not talking much about those tweaks. Of course, the search results rankings are very dynamic these days but tracking these unconfirmed updates, in my opinion, is important.
So let's sum up the past month or two: We had unconfirmed algorithm update recently on March 2nd and 3rd, then February 26th and 27th, February 20th and 21st, February 17th, February 6th through 8th, and then January 27th or so. Yes, this is more than what I would typically see in such a short time frame, but I guess Google is busy. This does not include passage ranking going live on February 10th, that is a confirmed update that did not seem to cause much of a ranking change in Google Search.
If your site gets hit by one of these updates, it is often good to know that you are not alone. You might go down a rabbit hole looking for technical issues that just do not exist. It might just be that Google adjusted its ranking algorithm, and you did nothing specifically wrong on your end. Having a place to see others in the same boat can give you a sense of comfort and belonging. That is why I report on these unconfirmed updates.
Barry Schwartz,
Google algorithm watcher