Google Search Ranking Volatility Remains Heated Through The Weekend

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Barry Schwartz / Executive Editor

On February 10th, we reported the beginning of yet another unconfirmed Google Search ranking update. The volatility has not cooled yet and it seems it may have even heated up through the weekend.

Again, this does not seem related to the February 2026 Google Discover core update, which started on February 5th and is still not officially completed.

Previously we had volatilioty during February 10th and then February 2nd, January 29th onwayrds and then around January 26th/27th, then January 21st, January 15th, January 12th and January 6th. Prior to that, we had the Google December 2025 core update kick off on December 11, 2025 at around 12:25 pm ET and ended on December 29, 2025 at around 2:05 pm ET. It had two spikes, one on December 13th and the other on December 20th.

And as I said before, Google is not commenting on these unconfirmed updates, but we did see some evidence of Google going after self-serving listicles with those previously unconfirmed updates. And Glenn Gabe believes it was beyond listicles and was a Google reviews system, formerly product reviews system, of sorts.

This one seems really big.

Google Tracking Tools

Just look at how heated most of these tracking tools are. Note, I updated some of these charts the next day to show more of the volatility.

Semrush:

Wincher:

Advanced Web Rankings:

Zutrix:

Accuranker:

Sistrix:

Mangools:

SimilarWeb:

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

Mozcast:

Data For SEO:

Algoroo:

CognitiveSEO:

SERPstat:

SEO Chatter

Here is some of the more recent chatter over the past couple of days from WebmasterWorld and the comments here:

Massive drop tonight -50% and big attack of bots ( >200%).

Okay: RPM is rising, traffic is rising, ranking is rising. My news site is coming back to life. Shop: Yesterday saw more sales than ever before in a single day. It won't last long, but at least there's life in the place again.

11+ hours gone and my global site so far is at 21% of its normal traffic whereas I would expect it to be 50+% ... hmmmm ... UK sites also well down however this can often recover, we'll see.

My french site lost lot of its rankings, with RPM at its lowest in years... I just hope to make it to minimum AdSense payment this month...

I would really like to understand what Google is trying to achieve with its latest update. Spam is on the rise and Discover is going completely crazy. My news site has a little more traffic, but the ranking jumps have gotten even worse. The shop has seen a decline in sales since yesterday.

Other shops are also reporting sharp declines, even though traffic has not fallen but risen.

Looking at Google Analytics is the new horror since the update has started.

Yeah I never seen numbers this low. And this has nothing to do with Discover either.

I'm also seeing some fairly massive drops on my highest traffic pages...I checked and the ranking has been scrambled. It seems that now each request the ranking changes considerably.

I also can confirm ranking issues here too. Though not big, there are still noticeable fluctuations.. So I can kind of see my issues here, but again, its out of my control.. G really do want us dead..

I have a WordPress site that was getting a ton of traffic. That also tanked. I don't think it's 5k now. I gave up on it. It was a big site. Some of you may even know it. Once AI started to hit, it was cooked, and I stopped wasting time.

Well I got Zeroed. From 7m views last April to almost 0 now. Google told me they don't see that much drop. So Google i lying or Adsense and analytics are lying. Worst day past 10 years today...

All the traffic my french site gained in January evaporated in February... lot of shuffling... also AdSense lowest RPM in all these years...

The volatility lately is exhausting. It feels like we're in a constant state of "unconfirmed updates." Hard to stay hopeful when the rankings keep swinging so wildly.

Big shake up in SERPs today. A lot of reddit is seeing a decline. You seeing anything @glenngabe @lilyraynyc @rustybrick

— SEO Observer (@observeseo) February 15, 2026

Those are just some of the comments - there are so many more.

This volatility is pretty intense and is having a huge impact on many publishers and site owners.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

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