Data providers: Google August 2024 core update was very volatile

Google said the March 2024 core update was their biggest core update but the August 2024 core update did shake things up, in a big way.

Google’s August 2024 core update started on Aug. 15, 2024, and completed 19 days later on Sept. 3, 2024. Early on, we saw some signs of life for sites hit by the infamous September 2023 helpful content update. But honestly, most of those sites did not see enough traffic rebound to make a difference.

While the August core update felt really big for us, Google told us the March 2024 core update was its largest core update ever.

Ranking bug. The first four or so days of the August core update also included a big search ranking bug that was fixed four days later. You should disregard any movement you saw during those first four days or so. You should compare your rankings and traffic from Google this week. Going forward, compare to the weeks prior to the release of the August core update.

So this is a big caveat with all this data. So much so that Moz was unable to send us data or a statement because it was unable to separate out the ranking bug from the core update, a spokesperson told me.

Data providers on the Google August 2024 core update

Similarweb. SimilarWeb’s SERP Seismometer reported a massive spike in SERP ranking fluctuations, as you can see from this chart:

The August 2024 update showed an average fluctuation level of 4.48 in global ranking changes, according to Similarweb. “This represents the highest fluctuation level observed since 2021,” Shay Harel from Similarweb told me.

Here is a chart showing that — you will notice that the March 2024 core update is missing, as they did not run the numbers for that update.

Then, when you compare the ranking fluctuations in the top three, five, and 10 results for the November 2023 and August 2024 updates, Similarweb showed that the top three and top five results showed similar levels of ranking fluctuations between updates. The August update exhibited substantially lower levels of fluctuations in the top 10 results.

Similarweb also broke it down by niche/industry, showing the retail space experienced the highest fluctuations in the top three results, while the health niche had the lowest. “This trend continued when examining the top five results, with health maintaining the lowest fluctuation levels. However, all four niches showed similar fluctuation levels in the top ten results,” Shay Harel told us.

Semrush. Semrush also reported incredibly heated volatility with the August 2024 core update. In fact, “the peak volatility seen with the August update was significantly higher than back in March,” according to Mordy Oberstein who put this data together for Semrush. Note, Mordy did our March 2024 core update analysis a few months back. But when you break it down, “in terms of the severity of the movement the March and August updates are seemingly in the same range,” Oberstein added.

Source: https://searchengineland.com/data-providers-google-august-2024-core-update-was-very-volatile-446597?