Google Search Ranking Volatility Surged on May 12 and 13
It appears that Google may be rolling out another search ranking update. Over the past 24 hours, there have been noticeable signs of increased volatility and ranking fluctuations. Several tracking tools have already picked up on these tremors, and the SEO community is reporting significant movement that began on Monday, May 12, and continued into Tuesday, May 13.
The last major spike in Google Search ranking volatility occurred on May 8. Before that, we observed similar activity on April 25, April 22–23, April 16, and April 9. As of now, there has only been one official update from Google in 2025 — the March 2025 core update. No other confirmed updates have been announced yet.
That said, I may have missed a major unconfirmed update around May 1–2. According to Glenn Gabe, that period saw substantial ranking shifts, and I’ve had others reach out to me afterward mentioning similar signs. Apologies for not covering that one earlier.
What the SEO Community Is Saying
Here’s a sample of the chatter coming from various SEO forums, including this site, WebmasterWorld, and social platforms over the past 24 hours:
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"Massive traffic gains! Never seen this before. Traffic doubling on a daily basis."
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"No traffic… Terrible."
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"All traffic is gone… Few clicks in the last 24 hours!"
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"Something big (bigger than normal) going on today, at least in Google Japan. Crappy new features, a slow decline since May 8, then a massive 88% drop this morning. Thought my site was broken — turns out it’s just Google again, siphoning traffic/content."
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"Same here. Overall traffic down. Meanwhile, my competitor's traffic is up."
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"Traffic is terribly bad even on weekends these days — it's so upsetting."
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"The past two days have seen the lowest leads and sales we've had in three years. It’s devastating."
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"Zombie traffic is off the charts — no inquiries, no orders, all metrics are dropping."
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"Google seems to be cracking down again. Our news site was flatlined all day, and by 1 PM, the store’s traffic collapsed. This weekend’s update feels like another blow to small publishers. Others I've spoken to also report a steep decline in visitor numbers."
As always, stay tuned — we’ll continue monitoring and sharing updates as this situation evolves.
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