Google Search Ranking Volatility Continues Post August Spam Update
As you know, Google’s August 2026 spam update began on August 18th and concluded on August 21st. But the volatility has not calmed down since and I think it is time I document it. We’ve been seeing chatter within the SEO community, in addition to the third-party Google tracking tools pick up on volatility within the Google Search results after the conclusion of the August spam update.
It is like Google is pushing out a new Google ranking update post-spam update and did not announce it. And I doubt this is related to the PDF issue in Google Search but who knows…
As a reminder, besides for the August spam update we saw previous unconfirmed on August 13th, then the August 5th or so, then around August 1st to 3rd and then before that it was on July 24th and then before that, we had volatility on the 18th and 19th, which honestly lasted through the week. Before that was the Google 7-Eleven update. But the last confirmed Google search ranking update was the June 2026 spam update which started on June 14 and completed on June 26. Prior to that was the Google May 2026 core update that started on May 21st and completed on June 2nd.
And now we’ve been noticing volatility after the 21st.
Google Tracking Tools
Here are what the tools have been showing:
AWR:
Wireboard – this report shows the aggregate of the tools above and plots them on one chart:
Sistrix:
CognitiveSEO:
AccuRanker Grump:
Zutrix Tension:
Serpstat:
Wincher:
SimilarWeb:
DataForSEO SERP Volatility:
Mangools SERPWatcher:
Algoroo:
SEMRush:
Mozcast:
SEO Chatter
Most of the chatter I’ve been seeing are both in the comments on this site and on WebmasterWorld. Here is a sampling:
I am seeing major shuffling today actually. My niche has been quite calm for a while even after all these updates. Google bot activity picked up last night and today I am seeing some changes. Who knows what’s going on.Me too, something is going on. +100% AI Overviews mentions too.they are pushing something. I don’t know how big but my niche was unchanged for months. There were a keyword or two moving here or there but now seems like a real shuffle.
Whether it is good or bad, I don’t even know. It’s pointless because you can’t build a business on this kind of unpredictability. If your business relies on another one shuffling results every few weeks, then you really don’t have one.
Another lost day 26th Aug! Okay, so let me get this straight: right after the spam update, everyone who creates real, human-written content and has followed all indexing and SEO policies—but is now having indexing issues (not even showing up in searches)—got penalized by Google, while dozen of spam sites got off scot-free and are sitting pretty all over the results? What is that even supposed to mean? ..what kind of logic is that?Traffic still dead. Search – dead, Discover – dead. For some reason Google is sending some visitors to 404 pages. This has been going on for two weeks now. Brilliant.Something is rolling out for sure
What are you all seeing?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
