Google may have stepped up their mobile first index tests. A lot of folks are not just continuing with their chatter on the Google Columbus update but also now we are seeing specific ranking changes in Google mobile results.

It is hard to tell if the chatter is specific to mobile or desktop or both. But when you look at the tracking tools, a lot of them are showing huge swings specific to the mobile Google search results starting yesterday.

Here are the charts specific to mobile results in Google:

Accuranker:

Cognitive SEO (a new tool):

Advanced Web Rankings:

SEMRush:

So many of these tools that track specific mobile changes show those significant changes on the mobile front. Some show the changes a few days earlier, some show them as of yesterday. Either way, chatter is pretty high in the industry since the weekend.

Maybe Google is testing that mobile first index tests more these days and when these tools are crawling, they may more often be seeing these tests?

What do you think?

Source URL: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-mobile-ranking-search-update-24614.html

Looks like we had a Google algorithm update over the weekend, starting probably late Friday, October 6th and rolling out over the weekend. Most took notice on Saturday October 7th but the chatter is still fairly strong and will likely remain strong for the net couple of days.

The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has a lot of weekend chatter around Google ranking shuffles and changes. Here are some of those comments from the thread:

I don't think we should name it the Sunday Bloody Sunday Update - since the update started before Sunday. Maybe you can call it the Columbus Weekend update since today is Columbus Day or something Fred related or we can not name it anything.

Here are the tools, almost all of them showing significant changes in Google:

Mozcast:

Algoroo:

SEMRush:

Accuranker:

SERP Metrics:

Advanced Web Rankings:

RankRanger:

RankRanger is the only tool not showing changes, which is weird - maybe there is a bug with their software or maybe they see something no one else does?

In any event, I don't see any comments from Google on this and I am honestly tired of asking Google about these updates. Maybe that will change with Danny Sullivan joining Google or maybe it won't? We will see.

Did you notice changes? Let us know.

Resource URL: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-algorithm-ranking-update-october-24589.html

As you know, yesterday I posted about the big Google algorithm ranking update and it seems to be getting a lot more attention this morning as SEOs and webmasters dig into their rankings and traffic this morning.

First, this update does seem to be to be link quality related and not content quality related - but it is still very early to make such a judgement call. Second, Google has still not confirmed or denied the update. But Gary Illyes from Google did say they are constantly updating and I asked him to name the update and he said he will name all ongoing updates as Fred unless stated otherwise.

John Mueller and Gary Illyes from Google would not yet officially confirm this update out of the typical Google speak:

So we will go with Fred and name it based on Gary's request -- the Fred update. I even used his own photo of Fred, the fish for this story. So Gary gets credit for the name and the photo here, although since he was on vacation for the past few weeks, I don't think we can blame Gary for this algorithm update.

Based on reviewing most of the posts in the various threads at WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World, I do think this update is more link quality related. Typically the black hat space is more link focused and when those forums light up, it typically and generally means there was a link quality algorithm update. Of course, many are saying they never have done any black hat techniques and got hit with this. That can be due to false positives or they did do link building and they don't consider their technique of link building to be black hat. I don't know for sure.

The tracking tools are mostly updated and showing significant updates also, although Mozcast is not yet updated today.

AccuRanker:

RankRanger:

SEM Rush:

Algoroo:

SERPMetrics:

Mozcast is now available:

I asked Glenn Gabe to show me some screen shots of sites he tracks and he shared both individual sites that jumped and declined:

To see some of the earlier chatter, see our original post from yesterday.

I hope that the Fred Google update treated many of you on the upside and only your competitors dropped.

Source URL: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-fred-algorithm-update-23529.html

As you know, we reported about the February 7th Google update and that it seems pretty big. So I asked Google for a comment and got a no comment from them on the update.

I am not surprised but I wanted to report back to you all that Google is not confirming or denying that there was an update last week. They are simply not commenting.

John Mueller from Google isn't really commenting either but he did reply to two tweets about it this morning. He basically said Google is always changing. Here are those tweets:

He also commented in that last hangout saying he wasn't aware of anything specific regarding this update.

I am sorry I couldn't get something official outside of a no comment but I tried.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.