I missed last month’s Google Webmaster Report, so I am combining both April and May into one big report. Google completed rolling out the March 2026 spam update in March, and started the March core update, which completed in April. We also had a lot of other ranking volatility throughout.
Google announced a shiny new search spam penalty that targets back button hijacking. Google even sent out notices for sites that will see action taken if they don’t make changes, will some of those be AdSense ads related or not – is the question.
Danny Sullivan spoke about commodity vs non-commodity content. Google published a help document on read more deep links, and on web crawling and discussion forum and Q&A markup. Google also warned against self-serving listicles.
Google now says it won’t use your spam reports with PII when first saying the opposite. And Google seems to be working on a new AI contribution report in Search Console. Google also rolled out branded queries in Search Console. Google also released and is testing tons of search features.
Google on the local side released its spam fighting numbers, added new policies and rules and rolled out Ask Maps in more locations.
Google also released stellar earnings report.
Those were some of the larger changes over the past month, make sure to check out the March 2026 Google webmaster report if you missed that.
Here are the bigger Google SEO stories from the past two months (sorry for missing last month):
Google Updates & Volatility:
- Google March 2026 Core Update Is Rolling Out – First Core Update Of Year
- Google’s March 2026 Broad Core Update Has Completed Rolling Out
- Google March 2026 Spam Update Unleashed (& Finished)
- Google Search Ranking Volatility Heating Up April 27th & 28th
- Google Search Ranking Volatility Heating Up April 23rd
- Google Search Ranking Volatility Still Heated
- Google Search Ranking Volatility Heated Into March
- Google On Why Core Updates Take Weeks To Fully Roll Out
Google SEO:
- Google Search Goes After Back Button Hijacking With New Spam Penalty
- Google Sends Warning Notices On Back Button Hijacking Spam Penalty
- Google AdSense Vignette Ads Setting May Trigger Back Button Hijack Penalty
- Google On Publishing Commodity Content
- Google Documents Read More Snippet Links Best Practices
- New Google Help Doc About Google’s Web Crawling
- Google Adds Properties For Discussion Forum & QA Page Markup & Documents Robots Tags Outside HTML Head
- Google Is Aware Of And Warns Against Self-Serving Listicles
- Google May Ignore Links From Sites That Spam & Violate Policies
- Google: Most Sites Don’t Need To Disavow Links But That’s Not All Sites
- Loading Content With JavaScript Does Not Make It Harder For Google Search
- Google explains undocumented way to disavow entire TLDs (and why you probably shouldn’t)
- Google Discusses Page Weight, Average Mobile Homepage Size, and Googlebot File Size Limits
- Google Explains Googlebot Crawling, Fetching & Byte Limits
- Google Chimes In On Teen SEO Wants To Save Family Spain Vacation Rental
- Google “Developing” Opt-Out of Generative AI Features in Search
- Google: You Can Do A Lot Of SEO That Don’t Work & Still Do Ok
- Google: When It Comes To SEO, Nobody Knows Everything
- Google Adds Google-Agent User Agent
Google Search Console:
- New: Google Won’t Use Spam Reports With Personally Identifying Information
- Google: We May Use Spam Report Submissions For Manual Actions
- Google Search Console Testing AI Contribution Report
- Branded Queries Filter Rolling Out in Search Console
- GSC Logging Error Yielded Inflated Impressions Since May 2025
- Google Search Console Performance Report Job Listings Reporting Bug
- Google Confirms Confirming Search Console Email Is A Bug
Google Search Features:
- Google Search Live Goes Global
- Google Using AI to Create Title Links on SERP
- Google Expands Personal Intelligence As Jarvis Approaches
- Google Testing Jumping To AI Mode Directly From AIOs ON DESKTOP
- Google Tests “Skip Digging, Start Guided Research” Driving Users to Web Guide-like Results
- Google’s AI Mode Now Opens Links In Split View On Desktop
- Google AI Overview Ask Anything Box Sticks As You Scroll
- Google Testing Audio Overviews In The Wild (Not Just In Labs)
- Google Chrome Tab Transforming To Gemini With Deep Search & Create Images
- Google Officially Removes “What People Suggest” Health SERP Feature
- Google Click Through Rates Improving For Organic Results With AI Overviews
Google Local & Business Profiles:
- Google Maps Blocked 292 Million Reviews & Removed 13 Million Fake Profiles
- Google Updates Reviews Policy To Restrict Staff Mentions & Solicitations
- Google Business Profile Updates Identity Change Policy Language
- Google Ask Maps Fully Available In US and India
- Google Tests Reply To Reviews With Al
- Google Business Profiles Gains Place Page Attributes
- Google Posts Repeat Posts Feature Now Live
- Google Maps Video Editing Within Google App
- Google Business Profiles Sorts Photos By Most Recent
- Google Local Review Replies Are Now Moderated (ReviewReplyState)
Misc Google:
- Google Ad Revenue Up 15.5% With Overall Revenue Up 22%
- Google’s Liz Reid On Progression Of Google AI Search
- Liz Reid Of Google Interviewed By Bloomberg On Google Search & AI
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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