Why does the industry talk about “sudden spikes”?

Google regularly rolls out broad core updates. Their effects can be felt as dramatic shifts: some sites gain visibility, others lose it, and SEO tool charts spike.

In recent major movements, "waves" of volatility have attracted considerable attention. These waves appear suddenly: visibility rises or falls over 24–72 hours, then calms down briefly and accelerates again. This is significant for e-commerce, as even a few days of sharp declines can impact sales, customer acquisition costs, and budget decisions.

Practical lesson : when things get busy in the SERPs, the worst thing to do is act blindly. The best approach is to gather data, set priorities, and only then implement changes.

Why does the core update affect online stores?

An online store isn't just about products. It also includes categories, filters, pagination, an internal search engine, descriptions, guides, FAQs, shipping and returns sections, reviews, and trust-building elements. Google evaluates not just one element, but the entire experience and its relevance to user intent.

As the algorithm begins to weigh the usefulness and accuracy of answers more heavily, differences between stores become more apparent. And often, the winner isn't the one with the "most text," but rather the one that better answers customer pre-purchase questions and guides users to a decision without frustration.

• Intent – ​​does the page answer what the user is really looking for (advice, comparison, purchase, specific feature)?
• Completeness – does the user receive parameters, variants, applications, limitations, selection instructions?
• Credibility – does the store show company details, realistic delivery and returns policies, contact information, and reviews?
• Technical order – don’t filters and variants create indexing chaos?
• UX – is it possible to quickly find a product, compare it and go to the cart?

The most common causes of declines in e-commerce

There's no single "magic solution." However, in my experience, the following problems are most common in online stores:

• Descriptions without specifics – the product or category does not explain: who it is for, what to choose, how the variants differ, how to avoid a bad purchase.
• Content and URL duplication – Filter, sorting, and pagination parameters create multiple, nearly identical pages that blur quality signals.
• Chaos in categories – the user doesn’t know what is a bestseller, what is “for small apartments”, what is “for a balcony”, and what is “for a large family”.
• Poor match to intent – ​​the user wants advice on “how to choose” and gets a bare list of products without context.
• Insufficient signals of trust – lack of easily accessible information about the company, returns, complaints, warranties, payments.
• Technical issues – canonicalization, filter indexing, sitemap errors, internal linking errors, thin information architecture.

If you feel like "we haven't changed anything," that's also typical. An algorithm update can change how we evaluate something that's been on the site for a long time.

How not to confuse the impact of an update with a technical error?

In practice, it is worth separating three scenarios:

• Scenario A: Update – declines come in waves, at a similar time to increased volatility in the industry; some phrases fall, some rise.
• Scenario B: Post-deployment failure – the drop is sudden and "hard" (e.g. almost all traffic from Google disappears), often after a deployment or CMS changes.
• Scenario C: seasonality – demand, CTR and search volume decrease, but positions are relatively stable.

The simplest test: if you see a decline in impressions and clicks in Search Console, but your rankings have also dropped, you have a ranking topic. If your rankings are stable but your CTR or impressions are dropping, it's possible that demand has changed, the SERP layout has changed, or new elements have been added (e.g., shopping modules).

Step by step: analysis in Google Search Console

This scheme works for most online stores and helps you avoid “putting out fires” without a plan.

1. Set comparison periods
   Instead of comparing “yesterday vs. today,” compare the week after the period of greatest change with the week before it began.
2. Pull out the top losing pages.
   Start with the categories and products that generated sales. Often, 10-20 URLs are responsible for most of the impact.
3. Check the top queries
   See if the declines concern informational, transactional, local or advice phrases.
4. Assess the change in intent in the SERPs.
   Manually enter the most important phrases and see what Google shows in the TOP: shops, guides, comparisons, marketplace, video?
5. Find the pattern.
   What do URLs that have dropped share in common? Lack of descriptions? Duplicate content? Overly generic content? Weak filters? Invisible return policies?

This is where the real work begins: we don't "fix SEO," we just improve the elements that hinder the user's decision or prevent Google from understanding the site.

How can you tell if the problem is a category or a product?

If it's mainly categories that are falling , the problem is often the intention and lack of context: the user wants choice, comparison, tips, but they only get a catalog without answers to their questions.

If it is mainly products that are falling in price , the common reason is insufficient information, lack of parameters, too similar descriptions, poor differentiation of variants or the lack of elements that build purchase confidence (delivery, return, warranty, reviews).

If everything goes down , then we get into the issue of the architecture and quality of the entire website: indexation, URL duplication, navigation, internal linking, and sometimes even reputation and trust issues.

Checklists: Quick Checkpoints for E-Commerce

Checklist: Category Page

• Is there a short description at the top with specifics, not generalities?
• Does the user know how to choose the product that best suits their needs?
• Are there answers to 5-7 common pre-purchase questions?
• Do filters and sorting help rather than hinder?
• Are there links to guides and bestsellers?

Checklist: product card

• Does the description include parameters, applications and selection guidelines?
• Are the variants clear and well described?
• Are delivery and returns visible without endless scrolling?
• Does the user see reviews and trust-building elements?
• Do the photos show the product in practice (scale, detail, use)?

Checklist: Technical SEO

• Don't filters generate hundreds of indexed duplicates?
• Does canonicalization point to the correct URLs?
• Does the sitemap make sense and is it up to date?
• Does internal linking strengthen key categories?
• Are there any spikes in crawl errors in GSC?

What does this mean for swiatacyfrowy.pl in 2026?

The biggest lesson is simple: SEO is no longer a "links and keywords project" but increasingly resembles a quality system for the entire website. Shops with refined categories, meaningful product descriptions, organized indexing, and trust-building elements tend to navigate change more smoothly.

In practice, consistency wins: users quickly understand the offer, make decisions without friction, and Google sees order and clear quality signals. This is the foundation of long-term organic sales.

If you want to approach the topic without guesswork, at Świat Cyfrowy we conduct e-commerce audits and analyses that conclude with a specific list of actions: what to improve first, what will give the greatest return, and what can be left for later.

FAQ: Google Ranking Spikes – Quick Answers

Does inheritance mean a penalty?

Most often, no. In many cases, it's the result of reshuffling: Google has deemed other results to be more relevant to the user's intent.

Is it worth rewriting all the descriptions at once?

No. It's usually better to start with the URLs that have the greatest impact on sales and traffic, and then scale the changes.

How quickly can visibility be regained?

It depends on the cause of the decline. The fastest results are achieved by actions that address the bottlenecks: duplication, indexing chaos, and shortages in key categories and products.

What is more important: content or technique?

In e-commerce, one without the other rarely works well. Content responds to intent, technology ensures order and indexing. The best results are achieved by working in parallel, but with clear priorities.