On September 5, 2019, a significant change to Google’s algorithm took place.
SERP trackers, such as RankRanger’s, showed this as seen in the screenshot below:
The September 5, 2019 Update Timeline of Events
This timeline of events will be updated as the algorithm rolls out along with my findings and observations.
- September 4, 2019: Tremors begin in various countries
- September 5, 2019: RankRanger picks up the algorithm change and rates it a 94, typically only seen with “Broad Core” algorithm updates.
What happened on September 5, 2019?
I’ve covered some really big updates here on the blog. I often look at Analytics data for a variety of websites in the medical, health, legal, eCommerce and news niches for correlations to give me an idea of what took place. Sometimes algorithm updates can impact sites based on certain factors. In other cases, certain vertical are impacted.
As for September 5th, I’m honestly not sure. If and when I discover more information about this update I will update this article.
I do know that a friend who focuses on casino SEO in Europe told me that he believes the update was a tweak to the way Google analyzes backlinks. And I am seeing some flux on news and finance sites. But at this point, I’m just not sure.
I rarely create an article when there’s no conclusions, actionable advice, or at least some sort of speculation. But, I threw this article up as soon as the SERP trackers noticed major volatility, and as of September 8, 2019, I just don’t have any strong signals to measure. I personally have access to around 100 sites and I’m just not seeing any volatility worth mentioning.
Were you impacted on September 5, 2019?
Websites impacted by the algorithm may notice an increase or decrease in rankings, visibility and traffic. If you were impacted by this algorithm update I’d love to hear from you. Please feel free to email me or post in the comments section below.
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I had two positive 5 star reviews removed last night. Both were posted by my customers in the last 30 days or less. I called google and spoke with a woman who blamed everything but me. She hung up on me when she refused to answer a simple question and I asked to speak with a supervisor. I simply asked, “So the algorithm removes reviews and there is no human review of the removal to ensure that the algorithm is working correctly, is that correct?”
When I only have 4 reviews and 50% just vanish…that hurts.
No process to appeal the review removal. I work damn hard for those reviews and poof!, sorry gone forever. Such BS.
I know I’m not the only one. Need a class action against google, IMO.
I think you are referring to reviews on your Google My Business page. IF they were just reviews with no text, GMB does erase them from time to time. No, they do not communicate this. This does not have anything to do with the algorithm update though. 🙂