And it’s here. A major change to Google’s algorithm rolled out, as can be seen here thanks to RankRanger’s monitoring tool:

July 2019 Google Algorithm Update – Live Timeline

Here’s how the July algorithm rolled out:

  • July 13, 2019 – On July 13, 2019, there were several fluctuations in Google’s search engine results. The vast majority of the flux affected websites in the USA. Some of the sites impacted included health sites and other “YMYL” sites. At first this appeared to be a “core update”, however, very few health sites were impacted. One of the medical sites that was hit was DrAxe.com, which appears to be impacted by nearly every Core Algorithm update:
  • July 16 and July 17 the “tremors” continued, this time heating up and affecting more random websites. Google could have twisted a few of the dials initially seen in the August 1, 2018 Algorithm Change (aka “Medic”). However, several search features have changed over the last couple of days as well, such as a large increase in the number of Featured Snippets in search results.
  • July 18, 2019: This was the biggest day of flux in a long time. It appears that some sites reversed course from a few days ago. I have data for over 100 websites here and I am not seeing many changes in any of those sites. To be honest, I’m not sure what happened. Nobody is. Some sites in the entertainment site were impacted. I was able to track down one movie review site, MetaCritic.com, which was negatively impacted:

The Google Maverick Update?

On July 29, 2019, someone informed me that some people are calling this the “Google Maverick Update”. I’m not sure what the reasoning is behind this or who came up with it, but maybe it was due to the unorthodox nature of the algorithm shift.

As of July 20, 2019, Google search engine results pages were as quiet as a mouse, which is unlike the behavior of normal updates.

Was your site impacted in July 2019?

While we have access to well over 100 Google Analytics accounts, we are always seeking more information and data. If you have any input on this algorithm update or experienced a change in rankings or noticeable impact on your traffic, please post in the comments below.

Since none of my sites or clients were impacted and most of us in the SEO community are having trouble finding good examples of sites impacted, there’s not much digging left to do. If I obtain any new information on this update, I’ll be sure to add it to this article.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Len
1 Comment
  1. I was hit from that update. My website is a travel and immigration niche website.

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