Once again, another weekend brought noticeable fluctuations in Google search rankings. This recurring event is reminiscent of the weekend ranking bug that occurred between late last year and early this year. However, it might simply be an algorithm designed to mix things up for weekend users.
Following July 4th, there was an increase in discussions, starting from the Friday before the weekend and continuing throughout the weekend. Similar to recent unconfirmed updates we’ve observed, this activity seemed to begin on July 5, 2024.
Numerous SEO forums experienced a surge in conversations, and several, though not all, monitoring tools detected significant volatility in Google Search rankings over the past few days.
Here’s what we have observed:
Here’s what the tools show – take note of the July 5th date on many of these tools:
Advanced Web Rankings:
Cognitive SEO:
Algoroo:
SERPmetrics:
Mozcast:
SERPstat:
SEMrush:
SimilarWeb:
Accuranker:
Mangools:
Wincher:
So many of the tools seem to pick something up around July 4th, 5th and 6th.
SEO Discussions
A decrease in website traffic around July 4th is common due to the major American holiday and the subsequent weekend. This trend is well-known among SEO professionals, who can compare current data to that of previous July 4th holiday weekends for context.
Here are some discussions from WebmasterWorld along with comments from various blog posts on this subject:
There were numerous similar observations. We noticed comments mentioning both declines and improvements in rankings. Distinguishing between typical holiday traffic drops and genuine ranking fluctuations can be challenging, as holiday drops are expected.
We’re curious whether we are witnessing another instance of Google’s weekend ranking bug or simply normal variations.