Google Search Ranking Volatility Hits January 15-16

I am seeing new signs of yet more Google Search ranking volatility and a possible tweak to the ranking search algorithm. Something kicked off yesterday, January 15th, that the third-party tools picked up on. With this update, there is limited chatter, unlike the previous unconfirmed Google Search ranking update.

The heat and volatility seemed to kick into gear on January 15, 2026, based on the third-party tools. Some people noticed some swings in their ranking and Google traffic around then as well. It is hard to know how wide spread the search volatility is, but it is worth reporting to see if more of you are noticing it.

As a reminder, we had unconfirmed Google ranking volatility on January 12th and January 6th. Prior to that, we had the Google December 2025 core update kick off on December 11, 2025 at around 12:25 pm ET and ended on December 29, 2025 at around 2:05 pm ET. It had two spikes, one on December 13th and the other on December 20th.

So what am I seeing.

Google Tracking Tools

Here are what the tools are showing right now:

Semrush:

Mozcast:

Accuranker:

Advanced Web Rankings:

Wiredboard’s Aggregator of Tools – this report shows the aggregate of the tools above and plots them on one chart:

SimilarWeb:

Zutrix:

Algoroo:

Wincher:

Mangools:

Data For SEO:

SERPstat:

Sistrix:

CognitiveSEO:

SEO Chatter

Like I said, the recent chatter over the past 24-hours is pretty calm but here in the comments and on WebmasterWorld – here is what I am able to pull out:

I‘m still 25% below last week which was already very low compared to last year.

Totaly dead.

Slight traffic uptick since same days last week. Not big, maybe just under 5%.

Today more spam websites in Discover. Spam websites are very OLD, registered yesterday

@rustybrick Good morning, Barry. I’m noticing traffic down a bit this week. Another BIG Google update? pic.twitter.com/JqxEGoQh7D

— Lisa Sicard 👩‍💻 (@Lisapatb) January 16, 2026

What are you all seeing?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.