---
title: "Google SERP volatility by category, mid-September 2026"
url: https://seomadman.com/reports/serp-volatility-by-category-september-2026
section: reports
published: 2026-09-16T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-09-16T00:00:00.000Z
author: Adam Hafez
topics: ["Core updates", "Technical SEO"]
---

# Google SERP volatility by category, mid-September 2026

## The short answer

Semrush Sensor put Google's overall SERP volatility at 2.1 out of 10, inside its normal range, on September 16, 2026. That average hides a wide spread: News sat at 5.0, Finance at 4.1 and Food & Drink at 3.7, while Science and Health held at 0.8, showing a calm headline number can mask a rough day in one vertical.

## Key takeaways

- Semrush Sensor's all-categories score read 2.1 out of 10 on September 16, 2026, which the tool itself labels normal range.
- The News category scored 5.0 on the same day, more than double the all-categories figure and the highest of the 25 categories shown.
- Finance scored 4.1 and Food & Drink scored 3.7, both well above the sitewide average despite the calm headline number.
- Science and Health both scored 0.8, the lowest readings on the page, showing volatility is not evenly distributed across verticals.
- Semrush's own methodology note says the score comes from a proprietary formula over a fixed daily keyword set, not a disclosed weighting anyone can reproduce.

Semrush's Sensor tool read Google's overall SERP volatility at 2.1 out of 10 on September 16,
2026, a figure the tool itself describes as normal range. That single number is the one most
often quoted, and it is also the one that hides the most. Broken out by category on the same
day, News read 5.0 and Finance read 4.1, while Science and Health sat at 0.8. The all-categories
score is an average across very different days happening in parallel.

## What Semrush Sensor actually measures

Sensor checks Google search results for a fixed set of keywords once a day and measures how much
changed by the end of that day. Semrush is explicit that the scoring formula itself is
proprietary: what it publishes is the resulting number, not the weighting behind it, on a scale
where 0 to 2 reads low, 2 to 5 normal, 5 to 8 high and 8 to 10 very high. Scores refresh roughly
every 24 hours and are shown for the United States on desktop, with separate views for mobile and
for 25 individual categories. That is a real, live measurement, not a static report; the numbers
in this piece are what the dashboard showed at the time of writing and will already look
different by the time you check it yourself.

## The spread beneath the headline number

| Category | Sensor score (Sep 16, 2026) |
| --- | --- |
| News | 5.0 |
| Finance | 4.1 |
| Food & Drink | 3.7 |
| Sports | 3.3 |
| Jobs & Education | 2.9 |
| Law & Government | 2.8 |
| Travel | 2.6 |
| All categories | 2.1 |
| Science | 0.8 |
| Health | 0.8 |

Ten points on the same scale, read from the same dashboard at the same moment, span from 0.8 to
5.0. A site owner in Health who checked only the all-categories figure would have concluded
nothing was happening; a site owner in News, reading the same headline number, would have missed
that their own vertical was running at high on Semrush's scale.

## Why we care

A single volatility score is a convenient shorthand, and it is also an average that can sit
comfortably in the normal range while a specific vertical is well into high. If your traffic
moved and the all-categories figure looked calm, the category breakdown, not the headline
number, is the first thing to check against your own [Search Console](/topics/search-console)
data before concluding nothing happened. And because Semrush's formula is proprietary, treat any
single day's reading as one vendor's directional signal about [core update](/topics/core-updates)
weather, not as confirmation of a specific cause.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is 2.1 a calm day for Google search?

By Semrush's own scale, yes. The company marks 0 to 2 as low and 2 to 5 as normal, and its dashboard labelled September 16, 2026 as "another ordinary day" at 2.1. That label applies to the all-categories average, not to any single vertical.

### Why did News score so much higher than the overall figure?

Semrush breaks its score into 25 categories precisely because ranking movement is not evenly spread. On September 16, 2026, News read 5.0, more than double the 2.1 all-categories figure, while Science and Health both sat at 0.8. A site in News would have had a rougher day than the headline number suggests.

### Can I reproduce Semrush's score myself?

Not exactly. Semrush discloses the inputs, a fixed set of keywords checked daily, and the general idea, more change means a higher score, but describes the exact formula as proprietary. Treat the number as a directional signal from one vendor's methodology, not a reproducible measurement.

## Sources

1. [Semrush Sensor: Google's rank and algorithm tracking tool](https://www.semrush.com/sensor/) - Semrush (primary)
2. [What is Semrush Sensor? (Sensor FAQ)](https://www.semrush.com/kb/652-sensor) - Semrush (primary)