June 2026 Google Search Observations

[BigKat]

I am supposed to believe that AI is useful for business when biggest AI company (Google) itself can't make AI that can spot spam from real content.

It demonstrates AI is more hype than anything else. If AI were so great, all the states allowing AI data centers to be built would be using the technology themselves and they're not. I'm sure a lot of politicians are getting rich, along with the AI companies, but that's about it at this point.

[edited by: not2easy at 11:46 am (utc) on Jun 3, 2026]
[edit reason] New month, new thread [/edit]

[bgweb]

The big problem with AI is that it is still spewing out far too much information that is simply wrong. I use the "cricket test" to try and quantify this, but it probably won't mean much to people in North America and most of Europe. However, the key points are very simple to grasp.

Cricket is a sport rich in detailed statistics, and one I happen to know well, having followed it for much of my life. The number of times AI will throw out something like, "Player X scored Y in match Z" and be wrong is horrific.

Now apply this scenario to businesses that are making decisions, and you quickly realise that unless due process is followed and rigorous checks are in place, the potential problems remain huge.

[MrSnuts]

@bgweb - IMHO, that cricket test is misleading: You are trying to get an expert response from a general purpose chat LLM, that rather qualifies as a misunderstanding of the tool than as a sign of the tool being no good. Ask it to assist you researching certain players scores in time frame A based on the reliable data to be found somewhere you define as reliable source, plus ask it to double check any answers against a second reliable source before answering, and the result will be different, promised. "the potential problems remain huge" is correct, it takes people who know how to avoid those, and who know when not to rely on AI.

Good brand mentioning appears to be key for AIO inclusion. I know brand-as-ranking-signal has always been viewed skeptically or as possibly unfair in the webmaster community, but there is some value to the brand concept. Consumers simply get bonus reassurance when going to well-established brands, assuming they would not be as well established if they were no good at all.
That may be objectively wrong in some cases, but protects from complete fallout, too (think of buying some item and having to choose between the cheap remake and a well-known brands product).
What I sometimes wonder is: How come there seem to be a lot of people publishing on the web who have had millions of visitors over the course of a few years, but failed to generate any brand recognition whilst having all that attention. That cannot be disconnected from your publications quality, if millions of people fail to remember your website was a cool thing to visit, what has gone wrong there? I know this is a painful question, but anyone can hardly blame google for missing that opportunity.

Back to traffic changes:
May was extraordinary strong conversion wise, google traffic has re-stabilized at April levels, bot visits are outrageous and CF isn't keeping up with a large portion of them - yet again, overall conversions were great and revenue is up on my project.
Putting in a lot of work cleansing the UI and removing technical dept lately, sometimes "move forward regardless" is a good strategy when google goes crazy.

[edited by: not2easy at 12:01 pm (utc) on Jun 2, 2026]
[edit reason] (quoted post removed/ToS) [/edit]

[Micha]

The Core Update is finished... I hope everyone got through it relatively unscathed

[status.search.google.com ]

[seokees]

I hope this it for the time being. There are cases of drops / hits a day or a few days after a core update, right?

Time for the June 2026 Google Search Observations?

[Micha]

Yes, search rankings are fluctuating wildly again today, and traffic is low. Things will continue to fluctuate a bit over the next few days, and hopefully they’ll finally stabilize.

[RedBar]

fluctuating wildly

I like yo-yoing because, for me, it goes from one extreme to the other:-)

Since G Classifieds are now 90+% in force now on "page 1" why doesn't G simply give us a "search" tab so that those of us not "shopping" can go straight there?

[Micha]

I hate roller coasters; I don't even like boat swings, so I'm not a fan of this up-and-down on Google. Especially because it went up until Monday, then down... And that happened with both websites, the News and the Shop. Well, let's see what happens in a few days; either things will get better, or Google will roll out an update (I'm betting on the update).

[Fluff_Nutz]

So, as I continue to edit today's articles. Whilst, also, wasting my time in doing so. I, once again, ask what is the point of continuing? This is slave work with zer0 rewards.. Traffic is terrible. I'm still stuck at February levels. Consistency is meaningless and.. well.. this.. Although, with the way things are going, this is not new or unexpected. Just disappointing..

[searchenginejournal.com ]

[christianz]

The Core Update is finished... I hope everyone got through it relatively unscathed

In my vertical it was profoundly AWFUL update.

[RedBar]

[searchenginejournal.com ]

There are some interesting comments / statements in this article especially:

And so it’s a continuum.

But I don’t see…

Sources and links will always be there as part of it.”

This is the target:

This ties directly with the concept of Google Zero. Google Zero is the big brand calculation that referral traffic is dwindling to zero. So in order to survive, businesses must promote and monetize as if Google referrals will one day be zero, Google Zero.

There you have it, no more what ifs.

[BigKat]

@RedBar

Google can only rely on abusing their market share so long before it has a lasting impact, which may now be happening. DDG says installs have increased 61% and they've shattered their daily search record. The story [thestreet.com...] goes into more detail. I would imagine Bing, Yahoo and other search engines are also picking up users as well.

[Micha]

@BigKat We all know Google: when they realize their decision was a mistake and the competition is stealing their market share, they quickly copy what the competition is doing. So if other search engines are gaining users because they offer a “no AI” mode, it’s only a matter of time before Google’s CEO panics and has that feature added as well.

[Fluff_Nutz]

It will likely require way more than DDG, unless the competition are smart. I can totally see G buying off any remaining competition that tries to pose any real threat. They are an untamed mammoth and the useless authorities should be ashamed.

In a perfect world G wouldn't be able to buy out any competition. In order to restore more faith in humanity, more users will make the switch. DDG won't attempt to be a replica of G. Continuing to allow for no AI option. No one likes it. It's damaging the economy and anyone in their right mind would retaliate and dislike it. It's loosing jobs. More and more of the population is becoming unemployed. How are people meant to live with very little income? I reckon the switch to DDG is part of this backlash. People are starting to get fed up of it and are finally retaliating. Good, keep it up!

The world should not be governed by the small few billionaires. None of which is doing any good for anyone but themselves! Keep it up people! Hopefully they join and use other SE too. So we never get a repeat of this. The WWW should never be ran by one single entity.

Peace out.. I'm tired of Google and this whole zero click ***

[Micha]

How about this, then: The European Parliament replaces Google with Qwant. (Unfortunately, i have only a German source.)

[deutschlandfunk.de ]

And there are several initiatives underway in the EU. Obviously, this won’t happen overnight, but Google will lose market share. Unfortunately, the situation in the U.S. seems to be quite different, but if I’ve read the reports correctly, resistance to AI and this data center craze is also growing.

[saladtosser]

@Micha It would be awesome, in an alternative common-sense universe it could happen. Imagine if every country or region had its own search engine and blocked non native search engines, therefore protecting its own digital economy! Everyone would be a winner (except google) GDP/Tax Take and tax paying job opportunities/security in every country would spike!

But sadly, the ruling political elite across the world are brought and paid for by Google and the US Epstein robber baron class, so the chances of that happening feel about the same as my ex wife admitting the used condom I found sticking out the top of her jeans was indeed used for cheating and didn't just get stuck to her while walking around the street....(never gonna happen basically)

Remove lobbying, crack down properly on political corruption, and maybe once the orange man is gone and weaponised tariffs are no longer being used as a threat, common sense might finally have a chance. But as long as politicians are allowed to buy shares in these companies or receive bungs.... cough, i mean donations.. its never gonna happen!

[RedBar]

It's been awhile since I last tested Qwant and it has improved considerably. Not as fast to load as G etc on my SIM connection however I'll use again.

[BigKat]

when they realize their decision was a mistake and the competition is stealing their market share, they quickly copy what the competition is doing. So if other search engines are gaining users because they offer a “no AI” mode, it’s only a matter of time before Google’s CEO panics and has that feature added as well.

It won't be as easy for Google to do that without upsetting investors who have billions invested hoping for massive returns on Google's AI. Just today Google is in the news looking to raise $85 billion more. Google may be between a well deserved rock and hard place on this one.

[Shepherd]

Google can only rely on abusing their market share so long before it has a lasting impact,

may be between a well deserved rock and hard place on this one.

The "searcher" is no longer of any interest to google.
google will only be interested in how to effectively sell ads around an LLM chat.
google does not care about your website (never has)

[christianz]

The "searcher" is no longer of any interest to google.
google will only be interested in how to effectively sell ads around an LLM chat.
google does not care about your website (never has)

In that case why use google chat and not some other chat? There are countless alternatives, they have no moat since they discard publishers and websites and eventually loose Googlebot access to fresh data.

[RedBar]

What happened Friday about 12.00 PDT?

My traffic across all sites, including niche UK, fell off a cliff edge and are still dead. After 12 hours today I am at about 10% of average!

Anyone else?

[Micha]

Good question; it's the same for me. Traffic has been very low since around noon yesterday, and the shop has practically come to a standstill.

[EditorialGuy]

Our week-over-week Google traffic has been up most days lately (anywhere from single- to double-digit percentages). The increases are almost academic, though, when you consider that AI Overviews have lowered the baseline to a pittance.

[RedBar]

With 2 hours of my Googleday to go my global site is at 20% of average, this makes Xmas Day look busy!

[seokees]

EU traffic is really crashing since yesterday.

[Micha]

@seokees yes, it currently seems as though Google has forgotten to release the handbrake in the EU. No matter which website I check the data on, they’ve all seen significant drops since Friday. Strangely enough, however, all of these websites are showing ranking gains (according to Sistrix). It’s not as if the number of spam sites or AI-generated responses has increased either. You’d almost think an update is running in the background.

[seokees]

But also the other search engines (DDG, Bing) are very quiet. Maybe something to do with my niches. But a crash from all traffic is weird. Google traffic is almost non-existent, though.

[Micha]

DDG hardly plays a role in the EU market anyway, but you're right: traffic from other search engines has also declined. I suspect this is currently due to the World Cup, even though that wouldn’t explain the entire decline. The same goes for an aftereffect of the Core Update, because the decline is too steep for that. It’s not just search either; News and Discover are also running on “idle.” The traffic is there, but it’s very low.

[RedBar]

My specialised global widget site is still bouncing along the bottom this morning, so far with 13 hours gone 20% of average traffic!

Here's a thought for a successful retail site. Our hotel venue traffic has been average whereas spikes are usually seen on weekends however the venue has been extremely busy across rooms, restaurants and especially the live music.

Its success in the tills seems to equate to less web traffic. Does "automatic" customer attendance deliver fewer site visitors?

We began our summer outside entertainment a couple of weeks ago and it's already easily exceeding last year.

[christianz]

Google traffic is record low, the SERPs in my niche are record bad, constantly getting worse.

On positive side - my AI scraper tarpit is working. Scraping has reduced significantly.

Magically, even with almost no Google traffic relative to my site size / vintage / quality, my ad CPMs have suddenly exploded, they are highest they have ever been.

Several possible causes:

Random transient luck of some bidders suddenly bidding high amounts on my inventory.
Reduction in bot traffic elevating my overall traffic score
Google Ad Exchange SSPs using more private data (full IP) to more aggressively filter out bot traffic, elevating the value of my real traffic (there was something in my e-mail about full IP sharing)

It seems that everyone, from advertisers to "AI companies" (who constantly scrape me like crazy!) can recognize the value of my site (20 years worth of human content and human content only), but Google. Google currently have the dumbest ranking systems ever.