Google Search Rating Algorithm Replace Presumably Coming Soon

Over the past couple of weeks, the Google search rankings have been pretty stable and calm. It actually has been unusually calm that some SEOs are getting nervous. I recently saw some super early signs of an update brewing. Is this the calm before the storm?

We did see some limited signals of an update both around February 6th other February 1st / 2nd but those two were unusual ones. Then before that on January 22nd, January 19th and 20th, January 14th, 15th and 17ththen before that on January 11th and then it was quiet until some tremors in late December. So for the past few weeks or so, if you exclude February 1st and 2nd and the weirdness from February 6th or so, it has been very quiet.

Now I am seeing some super light chatter and some of the tools spike up a bit.

SEO chatter

The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread had some chatter pick up a few days ago, around February 14th (which was Valentines Day) and then continue through today. But the chatter is not massive, it is not signaling a massive ongoing Google update.

Then yesterday, there was a bit of a blip in the chatter – so a spike on February 167th.

Maybe they are signs of an update to come or maybe not? Here is a summary of that chatter:

Traffic sharply lower. Traffic probably redirected to YouTube and large media priority sites. God bless them, they need that traffic more than me anyway (obviously)! I’m starting to wonder if G has dropped an update within the past couple of hours. Traffic has fallen off a cliff. I’m also seeing some traffic changes. We had some decent gains starting the Sunday before last, but dropping back slightly since yesterday. The Semrush sensor was up slightly along with our personal score.