SEOs Report Significant Drops in Search Rankings in September
17, Oct 2021
Craig UptonEvidence of unannounced and unconfirmed Google search algorithm updates is growing, as SEOs and webmasters take to social media with their concerns.
A Twitter user by the name of Aleyda Solis launched a poll earlier this week, quizzing SEOs on whether their rankings had taken a dive as of late. The poll was posted after a wave of chatter from SEOs throughout September, concerning a possible core update that had detrimentally affected traffic for countless online businesses.
The results of the poll confirmed what most had suspected for several weeks; among the 300 respondents who took part in the poll, the overwhelming majority said they had seen a drop in their SERP placements.
Two polls were posted by Aleyda Solis, the first of which quizzed SEOs as follows:
“Have you experienced *unexpected* search rankings and (as a consequence) traffic drops (due to any reason: rankings drop after update, manual penalization, implementation error, etc.) in the sites you’ve worked on?”
A whopping 82% of respondents said that they had seen a fall in their rankings. In which case, only 18% seem to have come out of the whole thing unscathed. Aleyda Solis then posted a second poll, asking the following question:
“What has been the main reason for most of the rankings/traffic drop cases you’ve experienced?”
While Google has not yet offered any confirmation of an update having taken place, 71.2% said their fall in the rankings was the result of a search algorithm update. Just 3.3% said the fall had been caused by a Google penalty (i.e. manual action) while 14.7% attributed it to an implementation error.
Thousands of Tweets were directed at Google over the course of the past month, in an attempt to clarify what may or may not be taking place. No official word as of yet, leaving those affected in the dark as to why they have suffered a major fall in the rankings and a significant loss of traffic.
