Website design services were again on the lookout for what Google had in store for them. But May was a relatively quiet month. Nevertheless, the chatter about updates kept coming in the month of May as well. The last month of spring did keep SEO professionals and Internet marketers busy.
Variations Possibly Related to New Googlebot?
Around the 9th of May and perhaps starting on May 8 itself, there were discussions about a potential update. There weren’t too many ranking changes, but there were certainly some disturbances that caused these dates to be recorded. Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz reckoned it could be related to the new Googlebot that Google said would be evergreen. It was updated to the latest Chromium browser version. Google had been testing this, and the new evergreen character of the Googlebot has equipped it with many features for crawling. It was announced to have gone live.
Short-term Variations Reported
On the 23rd of May, Search Engine Roundtable ran a report which captured webmasters discussing a potential update around the 22nd of May. WebmasterWorld had a great deal of chatter. One of the webmasters actually noted a rise in traffic, though wasn’t sure whether it was the result of the changes he/she had made to their SEO strategy, or some algorithm at work. Another webmaster also noted their website ranking for many new keywords. But these variations lasted for only 24 hours. It was assumed that Google was just testing something. Google’s John Mueller didn’t confirm anything in his response to the Twitter chatter. He neither denied nor accepted an update, but just said that there are “tons of updates” Google makes each year.
On May 29, Search Engine Roundtable reported that there were “early signs” of an update. There was the usual chatter from the forums of WebmasterWorld. But it could well have been a test or just some minor variation. There was no confirmation from Google. Experienced digital marketing services company keep their eyes open for such search variations and algorithmic changes, to ensure their clients aren’t caught off-guard.
