April 2026 Google Search Observations

[Martin Ice Web]

from now on I would say we call the updates: core-downgrades – best of two worlds: spam and ads

[edited by: not2easy at 3:07 pm (utc) on Apr 1, 2026]
[edit reason] New month, new thread [/edit]

[RubicCubed]

from now on I would say we call the updates: core-downgrades

I prefer "profitdates" as @Fluff_Nutz mentioned. Because the only one who benefits from these updates is Google and not publishers or users who are faced with even more low-quality Googlejunk loading the serps.

[RedBar]

I closed my global specialist widget site at midnight since the blatant manipulation has made it pointless insofar as many international trades are concerned because they're not suited to a G classified ads system.

[Micha]

The Core Update seems to be really hitting hard in my theme area: Cheap stock market websites with English reviews are ranked #1, and suddenly very small local newspapers are showing up at the top,though with articles that don’t even fit the topic, oh, and sports here and there. Not a single useful link... I hope that changes soon... To be honest, I don't see how Google stands to benefit from this

[Martin Ice Web]

11am and a sharp drop (-80%). Could be poeple going into Easter-vacation or googles core-profitdate (former called google core-downgrade) is working as expected (for google).
Lower quality. Kill quality sites and show more ads.

[BigKat]

Easter-vacation or googles core-profitdate

Why not call them Cork Updates?

I'm sure Googlers are popping a bottle of bubbly to celebrate all the money they are making by using the content they stole from us to feed their AI and keep all the traffic for themselves. With that being said, I don't think the drop in Google traffic is Easter related because other search engines are sending their normal (if not more) traffic than usual.

[ichthyous]

I don't understand the strategy from Google anymore...I really think it's just constant experimentation and leaving the AI to train itself. For two months my site was removed from the SERPS day by day and my high-traffic content was banished completely for about half the days.

This latest update is just a rollback of the previous two month long disaster it looks like. My pages are popping right back to where they were before and staying there more consistently (for now). However, where is the traffic? It looks like it has not fully recovered at all.

I should mention that for two months there was very little in the way of decent inquiries, but from the day before this latest update was announced I started getting a non-stop stream of new inquires. As usual, it last about 2.5 days and died again. This has been going on for years not. It shows how highly manipulated the results are...we really only get high quality inquiries from Google anymore in the short periods right at the begin of a new update.

[seokees]

How is it possible, everytime just before an update, conversions are increasing, but when the update is rolling the conversions are gone? Traffic is normal, finally not much bot traffic (as far as i can dissect) but no revenue.

[caspergt1]

1.

[jc2021]

Lets hope this has a positive effect on Google Discover.

[RedBar]

Dead across siites today, and by dead I mean zero genuine traffic whatsoever.

[Shepherd]

Have you seen the "yes" query showing up in GSC? I'm thinking it's impressions/traffic in/from the AI overviews.
Maybe when google uses your content in the AI Overview and then asks "would you like to see (something from the site)?", confirmation-style prompt and the searcher types "yes"...

[Micha]

Lets hope this has a positive effect on Google Discover.

I have no idea what it's like in your country right now, but in Germany, Discover is currently a messy mix of spam, ads, and nonsensical articles. And in general, the way results are being displayed is strange right now. It's as if the Core Update has made it so Google can no longer gauge readers' interests.

[jc2021]

^Google Discover is a big disappointment for me. This is not a viable business model anymore.

Only the big sites are winning now.

[RedBar]

Oh well I've joined the Cloudflare users today since I want to see if it will stop all those MSFT probe attacks. They're not causing me any server issues, I simply can't abide the visual mess it makes of my stats!

Will let you know later in the week hopefully.

[RedBar]

Cloudflare ... Ok, what am I doing wrong? I'm supposedly full protected yet the three domains I have added have had zero effect whatsoever, in fact I've had my highest MSFT hit ever.

There seem to be so many options I really have no idea what / which to select / use.

Any simple solutions or do I just give up and retire?

[not2easy]

There have been several getting started discussions here, but the bing site search only turns up forums these days, not specific discussions. Bing has become useless for the local search. It would take all day to scroll through the linked forums in search of specific information any more. Their co-pilot push is aggravating.

I don't use it so I do need to update .htaccess regularly :(

You might be better off to see what Cloudflare suggests or start a discussion in the "Content Management" forum: [webmasterworld.com...]

I have read that you need to use Cloudlare DNS for it to work at all.

[RedBar]

I have read that you need to use Cloudlare DNS for it to work at all.

Yep, doing that. I have tried several different suggestions however all of them involve a Cloudflare payment which I am not doing when I do not know if it will work or not.

Do I just stop checking my distorted stats?

[not2easy]

If you can check your headers, it may show you things that are and are not being done, at least. If your stats are still SC, they may have stopped recording bot visits and you can change that at SC.

[Martin Ice Web]

How is it possible, everytime just before an update, conversions are increasing, but when the update is rolling the conversions are gone? Traffic is normal, finally not much bot traffic (as far as i can dissect) but no revenue.

Because, this is what the google core-profitdate are supposed to do.
It is not about quality, content or compelling websites. It is about getting poeple used to low quality results in very little steps.

[Micha]

“Hola die Waldfeed,” as they say in Germany. My news site has shot up in the rankings since Sunday night, which is also reflected in the visitor numbers. Google Discover has also taken the brakes off again. The shop is seeing the same trend: on Monday, sales from Google traffic increased sharply, and today things are still going well. It can stay like this.

Overall, I can see that some websites in my niche have disappeared. At the moment, it actually looks like the results are improving somewhat.

[Martin Ice Web]

@Micha,, fingers crossed. We saw the same on Satureday till Monday. And today rankings and sales dropped sharply at point 11am.

[BigKat]

Looks like the Cork Update is over.

[status.search.google.com...]

[RedBar]

Cloudflare ... So far a horrible experience for a newbie to their site. The navigation and terminology is horrendous for new users therefore hours can be lost reading destructions and moving around.

Has it worked as hoped for? I added 5 sites to see what would happen but already two of those sites have had to be removed since emails simply stopped sending and receiving.

The other three sites do not use my mail servers. All three have seen a reduction in garbage MSFT traffic however nowhere near what I was hoping. I'll see how it goes for the rest of the week but will probably remove them on the weekend.

I enabled all the freebie recommendations however to block specific IP addresses seems to be a subscription needed. Let me know if I've got that wrong so I can experiment.

CF is clearly aimed at those with loads of money plus probably a team of CF experts, it is not, IMHO, even the average experienced webmaster usual "jump in and let's muddle through somehow" journey, it needs serious work and effort.

[Micha]

Looks like the Cork Update is over.

Then we just have to get through all the babbling from pseudo SEO experts about what supposedly changed, and hopefully this will finally settle down.

[RedBar]

The lack of postings here look like my websites!

For me I have two significant observations.

1. My specialised international construction widget sites are dead, on their backs, just like Monty Python's parrot sketch, the only traffic some are having are bots etc.

2. Our hotel venue ... This is interesting, traffic is down 33% but realworld takings across all sections, bars, accommodation, restaurants, live music, are all consistent. Ok we've just had Easter but that was on par. Speaking with other local venues and they have seen similar and with the roll-out of the EU digital ID scheme, local holiday resorts are experiencing an increase in vacation enquiries from within the UK, staycations?

It would seem the only predictability is the unpredictability.

[RubicCubed]

It would seem the only predictability is the unpredictability.

What's predictable is Google continually reducing organic traffic as they did again with this latest update. That's likely why there's a lack of postings, and it will undoubtedly get worse as Google slowly kills the web.

[shawnb61]

Folks are increasingly relying on the AI summaries, instead of clicking thru to the source of the info. There are published studies confirming this.

Info & news sites have been hit the worst. The summaries are zero-click solutions.

They're cooking their golden goose. As the primary content is increasingly AI generated, it's all going to slowly feed back on itself & hallucinate.

We'll need paid enclaves of non-hallucinatory content for humans to gather around. AOL is coming back!

[RedBar]

as Google slowly kills the web

Do you say that from an ecommerce viewpoint?

[RubicCubed]

Do you say that from an ecommerce viewpoint?

Both, but Google took most of the info traffic over a year ago. It's seems Google is going after the little info traffic that remains and limiting user's product search results to just ads. At least our sales are slowly (very slowly) picking up from non-Google sources, which may be a sign Google is restricting options/choice so much that some shoppers are open to the idea of searching elsewhere.