Rank tracking accuracy
Google serving fake results to automated rank trackers and scraping tools. Every SEO Weekly story on rank tracking accuracy, newest first. 8 stories since October 2026.
- Ranking swings got worse again, with no explanation
Barry Schwartz says the movement is heating up, and he will not say whether the cause is bad tracking data or Google.
- Google rankings are swinging harder again today
Google has still not announced anything, so nobody knows yet what is causing the movement.
- Top Google spots may be frozen in place for days
Charles Floate says some search results have been stuck for weeks, and rank trackers will not tell you the difference.
- Ahrefs says it is deleting bad rank tracking data
A statement shared by Glenn Gabe says past affected results are being cleaned up, but nobody has said yet whether old charts get fixed.
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- Some sites vanished from Google, then came back a week later
Glenn Gabe confirmed the drops with both site owners and says the cause sits on Google's end.
- Google is dropping the "AI Overview" label from some answers
Unlabelled AI answers may be why tracking tools suddenly show fewer of them.
- Rank tracking is mostly fixed after a week of fake drops
The fake ranking crashes of the past week were a data problem, and most of it has now been repaired.
- Check Google's own report before panicking over a rank drop
Rank trackers are being fed fake results, so Search Console is the sanity check.
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