Anyone else seeing weird CTR swings after the latest Google update?

[mike_donovan]

Hey all,

Not trying to start a doom thread, just curious if anyone else is seeing this.

A couple of my affiliate sites got hit with weird CTR changes over the last 2 weeks. Rankings didn’t move much on some pages, but clicks dropped hard on a few money keywords. Other pages actually picked up a bit, so it doesn’t look like a full-site issue.

What I’ve noticed so far:

– Pages with more “AI-ish” intros seem to be underperforming
– Snippet tweaks helped a little on one article, but not enough to call it fixed
– Branded queries are holding up better than generic affiliate terms
– One site in a less competitive niche is still fine, which makes me think it’s more SERP behavior than a pure penalty

I’ve been testing a few things:
– rewriting titles to be more direct and less keyword-stuffed
– adding simple comparison tables higher up
– trimming fluff from the first 200 words
– using a couple AI tools to speed up content refreshes, but keeping the edits human

So far the best quick win has been title changes. Nothing crazy, just making the benefit more obvious. CTR bumped a bit on 3 pages, but traffic is still not back to where it was.

Anyone else seeing similar swings?
Would love to hear if you’re changing titles/meta, updating content, or just waiting it out.

Also curious if anyone found a good pattern with affiliate pages that are still holding after the update.

[Author]

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