Algoroo reports a high level of turbulence in Google’s search results after more than 2 months of silence. The scale was at 3.27 roos which is the major spike in comparison to the previous 77 day period. This is the second biggest spike in 2014 only slightly behind the 17 May (PayDay Loan 2) jump to a whopping 3.52 roos. What’s interesting is that the possible update seems to carry more punch than the last Panda.
| Date | Update | Roos |
| 7-Aug-14 | Yesterday | 3.27 |
| 12-Jun-14 | PayDay Loan 3 | 1.89 |
| 21-May-14 | Panda 27 | 2.9 |
| 17-May-14 | PayDay Loan 2 | 3.52 |
| 6-Feb-14 | Top Heavy 3 | 2.64 |
A review by our chief engineer reveals no obvious anomalies with our dataset and we’re probably looking at a genuine algorithm update at Google.
Days following the spike have been highly volatile as well with SERP flux ranging between 2.8 and 3.14 roos.
Update
Barry Schwartz has just published a nice summary of webmaster reactions and comparison of various SERP flux tools. The most interesting part is the recovery graph from one of Barry’s readers who believes this was a major Panda refresh:
I went back to the date this webmaster experienced a huge drop in traffic, 10th of January 2014 and even though there are no records of any official algorithm updates we’re seeing a clear breaking point that profoundly affected Google’s results from that point on.
These SERP epochs happen several times throughout the year as illustrated in the image below:
First major epoch comes after Penguin 4 on the 23 May previous year, the second one was on the 10th of January, third one around 4th of April and last one we recorded happened almost on Penguin’s anniversary with Panda 27 in May this year. There is a possibility that the current update links to the January event, but we need more cases in order to make any conclusions.
It’s worth noting Glen Gabe already wrote about the January update earlier this year:
@dejanseo I noticed the January update & wrote about it here 🙂 -> http://t.co/yN7FtznLAg #seo
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 11, 2014
For some reason, Google did not wish to comment on the update:
@glenngabe @dejanseo google responded, they won’t confirm it or deny it. http://t.co/u8xzfUOAaL
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) August 11, 2014
Dan Petrovic, the managing director of DEJAN, is Australia’s best-known name in the field of search engine optimisation. Dan is a web author, innovator and a highly regarded search industry event speaker.
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6886-3211