There’s nothing worse than noticing a drop or significant change in your site’s activity without knowing what caused it. On November 15th, MozCast reported a significant temperature spike hitting 102.2.
No, there wasn’t a glitch in the system and the chat on Google didn’t discuss any updates, but there was certainly something amiss. So, was it an unannounced Google Algorithm update? Something Google seems to be doing a lot more of as of late.
SERPs.com and SERPmetrics both reported spikes on November 15th. While one day shifts are nothing to panic about, it often means there is something in the mix that needs to be investigated further.
The Big Guys Win Again
According to a blog by Moz.com, the Big 10 websites saw a significant increase in their search results for the day of the spike — with a jump of 15.39 percent to 15.89 percent. You might not think this number is anything to fret over, but that small fraction of a leap is actually a huge amount if you consider the statistics historically. Sites that had the biggest range jump included eBay, Amazon and Wikipedia — all enjoying three to five percent gains.
Yes, some algorithm updates can cause leaps in numbers like this, but a jump doesn’t necessarily mean an update either. So was there an update for sure?
No one has officially released the word on whether or not there was another algorithm change. In some cases big websites can benefit from algorithm changes, while the little guys suffer. However, there are times where these changes benefit or hurt everyone.
There are two things for certain that website owners and SEO specialists should keep in mind:
- There was a historical one-day change, which is something that cannot be ignored.
- The Big 10 metric has now hit yet another historical high — with the last high being in April of 2012.
Wikipedia, for example, gained a few spots on the first page of search results for terms such as “Famous Footwear Store Hours.” In fact, Famous Footwear went from holding eight spots down to four spots while Wikipedia quickly filled up the rest on the search engine result page. It is theorized that this drop is because someone else dropped out, leaving Wikipedia to fill the gap.
There Was a Glitch Though…
Google did have DNS issues on November 14th and there were plenty of errors to go around for that 24 hour period while Google worked out their issues. According to the Search Engine Roundtable, the change in ranking reports coincides with the DNS errors, but Search Engine Roundtable doesn’t see any changes for themselves.
It’s hard to say if there was really an update on November 14th or if the entire situation was a glitch. Because the holiday season is upon us (with Black Friday gone and Cyber Monday hitting hard), it’s natural for commercial SERPs to fluctuate — and it doesn’t necessarily mean Google has released or updated anything.
Whatever did occur November 14th hasn’t happened again and there’s no further news to confirm or deny an update. Thus, for now, consider it a SERP mystery. While a one-day spike is something you traditionally see with an update, the holiday season might account for the changes as well. Until then, the big websites can enjoy their new spaces.
