This page is a living record of SEO algorithm updates: every confirmed and unconfirmed Google core, spam and Discover update, plus Bing changes, AI-search features, guidance and tooling. Each entry explains what changed and how it affects website owners, with sources you can verify. It is refreshed monthly.
Guidance, volatility, tooling, AI features & Bing
Google rolled out globally two Search Console features: new Search generative-AI performance reports showing your impressions inside AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover (impressions only, no clicks), plus a toggle to block your content from those AI experiences. Site owners now get both visibility into AI search and control over it.
Not an algorithm change: Google confirmed routing search-result clicks through google.com/goto redirect URLs as an anti-abuse measure against scrapers and AI engines. It's largely invisible to searchers, but can skew referrer data and third-party rank-tracking tools. Google Search Console data is unaffected.
“We have a long history of deploying technical measures against evolving forms of abuse, and we regularly take steps to protect our services and users.”
Sources: Search Engine Land ·Search Engine Roundtable
Beyond the confirmed spam update, trackers logged repeated unconfirmed Google ranking swings through August — around August 1–3, 5–6 and 12–13 — and volatility kept running after the spam update finished on August 21. Google confirmed none of these. Match dates to your analytics before reacting to any single spike.
Google made Search Console “Platform properties” available to everyone worldwide, letting creators and brands track how their Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube posts perform in Google Search, Discover and News. It adds visibility into off-site content you don't own, alongside a new guide for analyzing that performance.
Google updated its review snippet structured data guidance, telling sites not to mark up fake or undisclosed incentivized reviews — those exchanged for money, discounts, vouchers or free products without clear disclosure. Non-compliant markup risks losing review star rich results in Search and Knowledge Panels, so audit your review schema.
“Don't include fake or undisclosed incentivized reviews on your page or in your structured data markup.”
Sources: Search Engine Land ·Google review snippet docs ·Search Engine Roundtable
Google saw repeated, unconfirmed ranking volatility through July — spikes around July 11 (dubbed the “7-Eleven update”), the July 18–19 weekend, and an intense run from July 24 into the weekend. More than a dozen trackers lit up, but Google confirmed no core or spam update. Match dates to your analytics before acting.
Microsoft Bing tested a refreshed news section in its search results and shipped updates to its AI reporting/analytics. Lower-impact than Google's core updates, but worth tracking for brands that monitor Bing visibility and its expanding AI-answer surfaces.
Sources: Search Engine Roundtable
Trackers and forums flagged a sharp, unconfirmed Google ranking movement around Friday June 19 that several SEOs believed disproportionately hit black-hat and manipulative sites. Google didn't confirm it, and volatility had been elevated through mid-June.
Sources: Search Engine Roundtable
Google fixed and updated the long-buggy Search Console link report, restoring more reliable internal and external link data. Not a ranking change, but it improves the data SEOs rely on to audit link profiles and diagnose movement after updates.
Sources: Search Engine Roundtable
At Search Central Live Sydney, Google's Gary Illyes warned against buying or manipulating brand mentions to appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode, comparing the tactic to paid links that Google's systems detect and ignore. Whether authentic mentions directly help AI search wasn't confirmed.
“compared the practice to paid links.”
Sources: Search Engine Roundtable ·Google AI optimization guide
Google added a “Preferred Sources” option and a new carousel to AI Mode and AI Overviews, letting users influence which publishers appear in AI answers. For site owners it's another sign that visibility inside AI features is becoming its own discipline alongside classic rankings.
Sources: Search Engine Roundtable
Grokipedia continued losing visibility across both Google's organic results and AI search surfaces, a reminder that large, automated content repositories aren't guaranteed durable rankings and can decline sharply as quality systems re-evaluate them.
Sources: Search Engine Roundtable
Google clarified why broad core updates take weeks to fully roll out, pointing to the staged, system-wide re-evaluation of content quality at scale. Useful context for site owners trying to read week-to-week ranking movement during a live rollout.
Sources: Search Engine Roundtable
SEO observers noted Google again appeared to target self-promotional “best of” listicles, a tactic some brands and LLM-generated pages use to rank themselves atop their own roundups. Sites leaning on this pattern saw renewed ranking volatility.
Sources: Search Engine Roundtable
No major confirmed DuckDuckGo algorithm updates surfaced in this window. DuckDuckGo largely relies on Bing's index for its results, so Bing's changes are the more meaningful signal to watch for DuckDuckGo visibility.
Broad core, spam & Discover core updates
Google rolled out its third spam update of 2026 globally and across all languages — a routine tightening of automated spam detection, with no new policies or blog post. It bit harder than usual: SE Ranking measured 82% more top-10 URLs dropping out of the top 100 than a no-update baseline period.
Google began rolling out its second spam update of 2026 worldwide and across all languages, refining the automated systems, including SpamBrain, that detect spam. No new spam policies came with it. If your rankings or traffic shift in the following days, review Google's spam policies before assuming another cause.
“applies globally and to all languages.”
Sources: Search Engine Journal ·Google Search Status Dashboard
Google's second core update of 2026 rolled out with heavy, sustained ranking volatility and several weekend spikes, and many practitioners judged it stronger than March's. Google framed it as a routine update to better surface relevant, satisfying content, with no update-specific recovery steps beyond its standard core-update guidance.
“March was meh, but May is big.”
Sources: Search Engine Land ·Search Engine Roundtable ·Search Engine Journal
The year's first broad core update recalibrated quality signals around information gain, originality, first-party data and E-E-A-T, with domain-level authority outweighing page-level optimization. It was highly volatile: SE Ranking data showed roughly 80% of top-three results shifting and about a quarter of top-10 pages dropping out of the top 100.
Sources: Search Engine Land ·Search Engine Roundtable
Google's first spam update of 2026 updated its automated spam-detection systems and finished in under a day, the fastest spam rollout on record. No new spam policies were announced, so existing spam policies remained the framework for judging any ranking impact. It rolled out a day before the March core update began.
Google released a broad core update to the systems that surface articles in Google Discover, reshaping which content appears in the feed by rewarding originality and demonstrated topical expertise while reducing clickbait. Discover traffic can rise or fall; many sites see no change. Standard core-update guidance applies.
“more useful and worthwhile.”
Sources: Google Search Central Blog ·Search Engine Roundtable
Major updates (right) are the broad core, spam and Discover updates most likely to move your rankings. Minor updates (left) cover guidance, volatility, tooling and AI features worth tracking but lower-impact. When you see movement, match the dates here against your analytics before assuming a technical cause, then review Google's core and spam guidance rather than chasing a single fix.
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