The SEO Content Goblin has finally been awakened from his winter slumber by a disturbance in the force, I mean SERPs and he's hungry for answers.
As 2023 ended and Google finished rolling out the third Core Update in the span of 90 days, and finished their last confirmed reviews update in early December, it's not been almost 2 months since our last "confirmed" Google Algorithm Update.
However, that doesn't mean the SERP's haven't been volatile or hot! What is strange though, is the SERP sensors remained hot the rest of December....and most of January until early last week. Look at the SEMRush sensor. BUT, some sensors are starting to pick up again after a 7 day reprieve. Check out AccuRanker.
Is this an impending signal that Google was testing the next round of confirmed updates? Is the next new Google Algorithm Update coming? It's been 4 months since we had a "helpful content update." The last HCU was in September of 2023.
So far in 2024 Google has been quiet, besides announcing more layoffs. In Search things have been pretty quiet - so far. No confirmed algorithm updates, changes to SERP features, Labs Experiments, SGE, etc. So what is going on in the SERP?
Yes we had some weird URLs showing up in Google Search Console, and over the past few months industry experts have been complaining how bad the SPAM is on the SERP.
This is why it is imperative to have a dedicated SEO/Organic Specialist keeping up with the volatility and reviewing your websites data and SERP performance to dig into what exactly is changing and how it is affecting you, both positively or negatively.
If the SEO Content Goblin was a betting Goblin, which he is, late winter/spring 2023 was busy with a few algorithm updates, so leading into February 2024 I suspect another wave of algorithm updates is cresting the horizon and I think it might start with the next Helpful Content Update and followed by, or overlapping with the next SPAM update.
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