SERP Volatility Index
A free Google algorithm volatility tracker — how much search rankings are shifting right now, measured across every keyword we track.
What is the SERP Volatility Index?
SerpDino tracks Google rankings for thousands of real keywords every day. Every time a fresh scrape looks suspicious — a tracked domain that ranked yesterday is suddenly missing entirely, or a ranking drops by more than 10 spots overnight — the scraper automatically re-checks that result through a different scraping node before it gets recorded. That re-check exists to catch our own scraping noise, but it turns out to be a useful signal in its own right: when Google's results are genuinely in flux, the same query returns different results from one check to the next far more often.
The SERP Volatility Index is that re-check rate, measured daily and expressed relative to a rolling recent baseline — 100% means today looks like a typical recent day. The baseline window grows as we track for longer (up to 60 days) and trims out days that look like they were themselves part of a spike, so a Google rollout that runs longer than a couple of weeks doesn't quietly drag the baseline up to meet it.
How to read the index
Built on real ranking data
These aren't a synthetic sample assembled just for this index — every keyword above is a real ranking tracked for a live SerpDino project, updated on its own daily schedule. The dataset grows every day a new project is added, and these counts update automatically as it does.
Tracking for this index started June 23, 2026, so the baseline window is still short — it widens automatically (up to 60 days) and gets more reliable the longer it runs.
Frequently asked questions
What does the SERP Volatility Index measure?
How often a fresh Google search result looked different enough from the previous day's ranking to trigger an automatic re-check, across every keyword we track. When a domain that ranked yesterday suddenly disappears from the results, or a ranking drops by more than 10 spots overnight, our scraper re-verifies that specific result through a different scraping node before recording it. The index is the daily rate of those re-checks.
What does 100% mean?
100% means today's re-check rate matches the recent rolling baseline — a typical day. Above 100% means more rankings are shifting than usual; below 100% means things are calmer than usual. The chart's dashed line marks that baseline.
Why a relative index instead of an absolute 0-10 score?
Because a re-check gets triggered fairly often even on an ordinary day — the raw rate normally sits somewhere between 15% and 30% of scrapes. An absolute percentage would make every single day look alarming. Comparing today against a rolling baseline answers the question that actually matters: is today worse than usual, not is today's number big.
Can a long Google rollout skew the baseline itself?
That's the failure mode of a naive rolling average: a core update rollout can run 1-3 weeks, and once it outlasts a short fixed window, the "recent normal" period becomes mostly rollout days, dragging the baseline up to meet it. We handle this two ways — the baseline window grows with available history (up to 60 days) rather than staying fixed, and it's a trimmed average that drops the highest-ratio days in that window before averaging, so days that are themselves part of an ongoing spike get largely excluded instead of diluting it.
How many keywords is this based on?
It is not a fixed sample assembled just for this index. Every keyword is a real ranking tracked for a live SerpDino project, so the dataset grows every day new projects are added — see the exact current counts below.
How often does the index update?
Today's figure refreshes roughly every 30 minutes as new scrapes come in. The last couple of days also get periodically recomputed, since some re-checks land a few minutes after the scrape that triggered them.
Does a high index mean a Google core update is happening?
Not on its own — a short spike can also come from personalization, a data-center inconsistency, or a smaller regional update. A sustained spike across several days, especially lining up with a marker from Google's own Search Status Dashboard on the chart above, is a much stronger signal.
Why is there only a few weeks of history?
The underlying re-check mechanism shipped on June 23, 2026, and we started publishing the index from that first day rather than waiting to accumulate a "clean" archive. The baseline window grows toward 60 days as we track longer, so it gets more reliable over time — we would rather be upfront about that than backfill a fake history.
Is this free to use?
Yes. The index is public, updates automatically, and does not require an account.