{"id":13235,"date":"2026-05-01T16:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T16:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/april-may-2026-google-webmaster-report-core-spam-update-back-button-hijacks-spam-reports-more-search-engine-roundtable\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T16:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T16:54:11","slug":"april-may-2026-google-webmaster-report-core-spam-update-back-button-hijacks-spam-reports-more-search-engine-roundtable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/april-may-2026-google-webmaster-report-core-spam-update-back-button-hijacks-spam-reports-more-search-engine-roundtable\/","title":{"rendered":"April & May 2026 Google Webmaster Report: Core & Spam Update, Back Button Hijacks, Spam Reports & More – Search Engine Roundtable"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Google
I missed last month’s Google Webmaster Report, so I am combining both April and May into one big report. Google completed<\/a> rolling out the March 2026 spam update in March, and started the March core update<\/a>, which completed<\/a> 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<\/a>. Google even sent out notices<\/a> for sites that will see action taken if they don’t make changes, will some of those be AdSense ads related<\/a> or not – is the question.
Danny Sullivan spoke about commodity vs non-commodity content<\/a>. Google published a help document on read more deep links<\/a>, and on web crawling<\/a> and discussion forum and Q&A markup<\/a>. Google also warned against self-serving listicles<\/a>.
Google now says it won’t use your spam reports with PII<\/a> when first saying the opposite<\/a>. And Google seems to be working on a new AI contribution report<\/a> in Search Console. Google also rolled out branded queries in Search Console<\/a>. Google also released and is testing tons of search features.
Google on the local side released its spam fighting numbers<\/a>, added new policies and rules and rolled out Ask Maps<\/a> in more locations.
Google also released stellar earnings<\/a> report.
Those were some of the larger changes over the past month, make sure to check out the March 2026 Google webmaster report<\/a> if you missed that.
Here are the bigger Google SEO stories from the past two months (sorry for missing last month):
Google Updates & Volatility:<\/p>\n