Initial SignsEarly Predictions & Experts’ OpinionClosing Thoughts

As we’re off to a new start in 2019, the SEO enthusiasts, bloggers, and content marketers have their eyes fixed on the forthcoming algorithm updates from Google. Owing to a series of updates in 2018 that brought big escalations in rankings, the speculations are all around that a new algorithm update might be arriving soon. Also, the last major Google Algorithm Update reportedly arrived in April last year which was a long time ago. So it’s high time we get to see a new update now.

Although there hasn’t been an official statement from Google officials, it appears that the latter is going to launch another crucial update very soon. As of January 9, 2019, the analytics tools like SEMrush and Accuranker have recorded some vigorous fluctuations in search engine rankings.

On 6th January 2019, the SEMrush sensor experienced an abrupt change in the SERP statistics. The charts revealed a drastic rise in SERP volatility over the next few days. The statistics were most intense on 9th January when the volatility index was found to be 8.4 which is considered extremely high. Google Webmaster and Accuranker also revealed similar statistics, explicitly indicating a change in the picture. There is an acute rise in the Google Grump rating of Accuranking and it’s following the same trends for more than a week. This perhaps is a clear indication that Google is allegedly in process of implementing a new algorithm update which might be arriving pretty soon.

The SERP volatility is unexpectedly high on most search tools right now. Also, the websites that are most substantially affected by this update are the ones related to a specific business. The list includes business websites in food, retail, and healthcare sector. A number of animal care, law, and government websites have also faced the impact.

Many SEO experts are of the opinion that this update might be similar to the Google Medic update which mainly targeted the websites related to healthcare and e-commerce. So if that’s true, the impact might be limited to a few industries only and others might remain unaffected.

If we closely analyze the algorithm updates from Google that have arrived within the last five years, one thing is obvious. Google is giving far more importance to the quality of content on a particular website. You might have noticed that out of all the Google algorithms, Panda is the one which is updated more frequently over the last two years. Through all these updates, Google probably wants to make sure that only the best quality content is available to the visitors. Although the actual repercussions will only come out once the update is live, it’s very likely to be related to the content quality as well. So it’s time we should all be taking this into consideration and ensure that the most relevant and high-quality content remain on our website.