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Ah, that's the definitive Moz answer I was looking for. Thanks Tawny. Yes I read that blog post. Very useful as always. Many thanks Neil

I've been watching some large sites, and I've seen some pretty crazy things around the 14-17th, with most sites seeing the biggest impact in ranking drops on the 16th. It was clearly an update, but I can't find reliable info on what exactly it was - probably because it affected a small niche of sites. Does your site receive a lot of traffic for local terms by chance? My working theory is another update to local search results. (Trying to show more companies that work in that area, possibly with more local packs.) The reason I'm thinking local is because it was the biggest shift in rankings I've seen in a long long time, and tools like Mozcast didn't pick up a big change. There are so many possible combinations of local terms that it's nearly impossible to track even a small set of keyword + city terms. Anyway, I've seen about the same as you - a big drop for some key local terms, followed by a slow and steady recovery. The results looked pretty bad when the update was first made, so maybe Google realized it wasn't a good update and has rolled some of it back. Of course this is all just speculation. I'd love to hear what other types of terms people have seen ranking decreases on.

Thanks Jo but there has already been an update since I started this thread. I wonder if UK sites get indexed less frequently in these updates. Thanks Neil

Yeah, I have to agree that it's pretty unlikely the URL alone is the thing helping them rank. Since you're a Pro subscriber, I'd suggest using the Keyword Difficulty Tool to run a Full SERP Report on that keyword. That might help you work out what's going on. Cyrus Shepard made a video explaining that report that I think could be useful.

Hi Miriam Thanks very much for your response. Much appreciated. The reason I asked about this particular issue is that a client's site is slightly below this one on key searches even though it beats it on nearly every criteria in OSE (authority, links etc). Therefore I am looking at any other factors - such as this url issue - which could be making the difference. Thanks again Neil