This week has been unusual in terms of Google Search ranking volatility. The fluctuations appear to have continued from last weekend through most, if not all, of this week.
However, similar to last weekend, most third-party tracking tools have not shown significant levels of activity. At the same time, there has been considerable discussion within the SEO community about noticeable changes in search rankings.
Earlier this month, the Google May 2026 Core Update was completed on June 2, 2026. During the update, we saw significant ranking fluctuations on May 21, 2026, followed by further volatility over the following weekend. More ranking changes were then reported last weekend, with another noticeable increase in volatility on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, the final day of the core update, just before Google confirmed that the rollout was complete.
SEO Chatter
Here are samplings of that chatter:
‘’This is what we see in our vertical after this quality downgrade:
-pages with branded items got hit very hard -shops with non-branded items got pushed -#1 to #5 are big seller platforms (media markt, otto, idealo) -low content rules over good content -traffic comes in surges 2 hours and then 1-3 hours with nearly no traffic only bots -overall quality has tanked to an all time low.’’
‘’EU traffic is really crashing since yesterday. ‘’
‘’I can confirm that. I’m seeing it with my shop too: although we had a good day for a change the day before yesterday, things are running very poorly again now.’’
‘’Yesterday something changed to worse again. Very worse.’’
‘’My global site for the last few days has been consistently down 50%!’’
‘’So, for the last couple of days, it was quite good, to be honest, the whole month of May and the first week of June. But: Since Monday this week, something has changed, and today looks awful. If you ask me, there is something going on right now. ‘’
‘’I’ve noticed some volatility this week too. Good or bad? As ever, time will tell;’’
‘’Agree, definitely seeing volatility here too. ‘’
‘’Anyone seeing an increase in visibility/traffic (I know, it’s ironic to post such a question under such a topic) in the last 16 hours? I have a domain hit by last year’s spam update (probably due to too many pages in the index) which seems to bounce back for some reason. It’s not fake traffic, it’s real and looks like I’m regaining some of the lost keywords.’’
‘’It was normal yesterday but seems low today.’’
‘’The traffic lost last weekend came back on Tuesday/Wednesday but will surely disappear again.’’
‘’We’re up a fair bit over the last 48 hours – but we’re just winning back traffic we lost last week. Don’t get me wrong its nice to get ‘my’ traffic back but I’m definitely not up (or down now) over the last month or so.’’
‘’I am also seeing some change, but I’m not sure if that will stay. One of my sites (already hit by HCU) lost almost 100% of visibility and lost all keywords in the August 2025 update. Now, I am seeing some visibility for the last few hours (within 24 hours). However, I am not getting any meaningful traffic as those keywords may have lost their volume now. For the time being, I can see some keywords are back. Let’s wait for a few more days.’’’
‘’Yes, I see less traffic today, don’t know what’s happening ?’’
‘’Something is definitely going on and has been since mid-May. It has gotten worse in the past few days.’’
This is just a sample of the chatter, there is a lot!
Google Search Tracking Tools
Similar to the Google update activity observed over the weekend, most third-party tracking tools are not showing significant levels of volatility. As a result, the data from these tools does not appear to align with the increased discussion and reports of ranking changes within the SEO community.
Here is what the tools are showing:
Data Sources
AWR:
Do you want just the interactive graph or you want them all listed individually?
What are you all seeing?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
