Google Search Ranking Volatility Heated May 13th & 14th

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Barry Schwartz / Executive Editor

Over the past day or so, I am seeing a large spike in signs that there is Google search ranking movement and volatility. This is between the SEO community chatter spiking, as well as some of the tools showing some big volatility swings.

This is not a confirmed Google search ranking update but Google does not confirm most of its search ranking algorithm tweaks. They tend to only confirm the larger, more planned-out ones.

As a reminder, the March 2026 core update started on March 27, 2026 and completed April 8, 2026.

Plus, the deindexing trend we wrote about early has not stopped. More and more sites are noticing a drop in indexing, the "Crawled - currently not indexed" is spiking for many.

But we did see unconfirmed updates May 8th, April 27th and 28th, April 23rd and so on...

Google Tracking Tools

Here are what the tools are showing:

Semrush:

Advanced Web Rankings:

SERPstat:

SimilarWeb:

Sistrix:

Wiredboard's Aggregator of Tools - this report shows the aggregate of the tools above and plots them on one chart:

Wincher:

Zutrix:

Accuranker:

Mozcast:

Data For SEO:

Algoroo:

Mangools (looks broken):

SEO Chatter

I am seeing a spike in chatter across this site and WebmasterWorld - here is some of that chatter:

Things are pretty chaotic right now. Sistrix is showing extreme fluctuations; the store was practically at a standstill yesterday. Good traffic from Google, but zero sales. The news site is still performing well on Discover, but its ranking keeps fluctuating.

Fortunately, we aren’t seeing a new wave of bots, but we’re starting to feel the effects of the economic situation

I have also seen the ranking fluctuations. This feels like the start of another ''update''. As said, there is way too many of them now.. I often feel like I'm wasting my precious hours per day editing and writing articles. Does any of it matter any more?

Same "trash" definition can be said for those rare Google users who convert into sales. Talk about heavy returns! Google must have their users so disoriented with all the garbage in the serps that they just order everything and return what doesn't work. These ridiculous return costs are growing by the day and MUST be passed along to customers.

Everything has come to a standstill this afternoon. What happened?

Since yesterday morning (I mean 13th May here)

My website Discover traffic is dead totally. Like the March update. Goes to zero.

UK results are absolutely abysmal this week. The amount of spam and poor quality I've seen over the last 2-3 days is possibly the highest I remember.

I should also note, the deindexing trend we are seeing from Google is still happening. I am nto sure what is up, but I am trying to find out.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

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