Archive
- Rankings still shaking, and nobody knows why
Barry Schwartz says the ranking swings are getting "more heated by the day" and asks whether the results are poisoned or Google is building something. Either way, Google still has not announced a thing.
- AI answers just got stingier with links to sites
Google has quietly stripped the visible source cards out of AI Overviews on desktop, and one SEO says those cards were most of the clicks those answers ever sent. If your impressions fell this week, this may be why.
- Google warns sites that let users publish pages
Google now tells any site that lets users publish pages, generated outputs or interactive tools to watch for manual actions. Lily Ray's first thought was Claude artifacts and ChatGPT pages, and the warning lands on anyone with a forum or user profiles too.
- Rank trackers were wrong all week. Check Search Console.
One SEO says Google is now locking the top one or two results in place for 7 to 10 days at a time. Rank trackers spent the week showing drops that may never have happened.
- Rankings jumped Saturday, no update announced
One SEO says Google quietly stopped showing listicles that rank the publisher first in AI answers, while leaving them in the normal results so nobody notices. Plus rankings moved over the weekend.
- Four AI tools, four different local winners
Ask four AI engines for the best local business and nearly half the time you get four different answers. The one thing the agreed-on winners had in common was their own website.
- Rankings are 48% more chaotic now
Google's May update made search results 48% more volatile, meaning the same search shows different sites to different people. This matters because you can't trust a single ranking check anymore—track your position over weeks instead.
- Patch PHP today: the NSA says take sites offline
The NSA told every organization running PHP to patch two critical bugs or take the system offline until they can. The software runs most of the web, including WordPress.
- Patch your site's PHP today, a big hole is coming
One well known developer pulled every one of his websites offline this morning and told everyone else with a PHP site to do the same before the fix lands at 2 PM UTC. PHP runs most of the web, including most WordPress sites.
- Google may now ask for your ID to verify your listing
Google is asking some business owners to upload a government ID to verify their Google Business Profile. Review appeals are running late again at the same time.
- Rank trackers are mostly fixed, but not fully
Google has been serving fake search results to scrapers, and 8% of 27.5 million results pages were poisoned after September 13. One tracking tool now says it has corrected its data, with about 2% of keywords still wrong.
- SEO plugin shipped malware, check your site
Some paid copies of the Rank Math WordPress plugin downloaded on 15 and 16 October carried a backdoor, and the company says passwords and API keys should be treated as exposed. Google also quietly started showing site owners how often they appear in AI answers.
- AI tools cite almost totally different websites
Nearly 73% of the websites cited across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity showed up in only one of them, and just 2.2% appeared in all four. Checking one chatbot tells you almost nothing about where you stand.
- Google adds more links to its AI answers
Google says the number of people picking Preferred Sources has grown 7x since January, and it is now pushing more clickable links into AI answers. It still will not show you how many clicks those answers send.
- ChatGPT traffic just vanished from your analytics
Glenn Gabe says ChatGPT has now stripped tracking tags from every link it cites, so your analytics will show a big drop in ChatGPT visits that never actually happened. He thinks it is a bug.
- ChatGPT traffic may now look like direct traffic
Links from ChatGPT have stopped carrying the tracking tags that tell your analytics where visitors came from, so AI traffic can land in your reports as "direct". Separately, Google is feeding fake results to rank tracking tools.
- Google wants your user content, traffic not included
Google launched a program to take fresh user content straight from sites, and Lily Ray says the announcement says nothing about paying partners or even sending them traffic. Elsewhere, two SEOs say site moves keep going wrong.
- Spam update done, penalties up, trackers unreliable
One SEO who cleans up Google penalties says sites hit by them can lose 90% of their traffic overnight, and she is getting more of those calls than at any time since 2012. Here is what actually settled this week.
- Search Console data is stuck, and it may mean an update
Google's Search Console has gone quiet for more than two days, and one SEO says the same lag came right before the last couple of broad core updates. Your traffic numbers are not broken, they are just late.
- AI answers are spreading to even more searches
A survey of 1,076 business software buyers found 69% picked a different vendor than planned after an AI chatbot told them something. Meanwhile Google is putting AI answers on weather and sports scores.
- Spam update over, now the wait for a core update
Google's September spam update took about two weeks instead of the usual couple of days, and it is finally finished. One SEO's read on what changed: Google stopped caring how you make content and started caring whether you checked it.
- Google's September spam update is finally finished
Google confirmed its September spam update finished rolling out on October 8, after nearly two weeks. Meanwhile Glenn Gabe says hand-issued penalties for "Pure spam" and "Thin content" are piling up alongside the usual drops.
- A spike in manual penalties may signal an update
Marie Haynes says a wave of hand-issued Google penalties for thin and mass-produced pages looks like the run-up to Penguin in 2012, and she expects the next update to be "quite shocking" for some sites. Also: Google is now emailing you when readers pick your site as a favorite.
- Check your Cloudflare settings, Google may be blocked
Cloudflare started blocking Google by default on September 15, and its own CEO says that breaks search rankings. If your site sits behind Cloudflare, this is a five minute check worth doing today.