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]

[RubicCubed]

We use our own domain's SMTP server for email, and immediately after this update our messages suddenly started landing in Gmail spam folders. We have SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configured correctly, and our domain passes every blacklist, email security, and DNS verification test we've thrown at it. Yet Google still decides our emails belong in spam.

It's a big waste of time dealing with people who call and say they placed an order but never got an email confirmation. Or customers who don't receive their tracking email and call asking when their order will ship when it was delivered earlier in the day. IMO Google does this to make us independent shops look inept and bog us down with time wasting activities that attempt to distract us from the ever declining search traffic they are sending. Most of our customers checkout as a guest. When Google gets crazy on the filters, we put a notice on our checkout page that Gmail is not being accepted at this time until Google corrects their problem. They keyword being "their problem" because like you said everything can be configured properly on our side, with a dedicated good reputation IP address, and nothing get through.

[RedBar]

@goodoldweb & RubicCubed

I've suffered the exact same problem after moving from Plesk to CPanel . I'm going back to Plesk in the early Autumn since I really do not like CPanel whatsoever.

[Martin Ice Web]

This was an Anti-Anti-SPAM-Update. Complete clean site. Lost 90% and SPAM is still in index.

[BigKat]

Regarding the email issue we stores are having with Gmail, keep in mind what Google has done to search - basically forcing us to pay to be seen. Google may eventually do the same with email by offering a paid subscription to increase the odds our emails land in their user's inboxes. Google has made a fortune acting as a wedge between users and information/products/services, so don't be shocked if they monetize their monopoly in other ways to extract more money out of the market.

Instead of outright blocking Gmail, and potentially losing the sale, one could force an email confirmation before the order is accepted. In that email also explain the reason why Gmail and other free email providers block legitimate email and that's so their own marketing emails have less competition in the inbox. Also suggest your customers whitelist your domain in Gmail, although that doesn't always work either.

[RedBar]

If I remember correctly it's not just GMail but also AOL, BTInternet, iCloud, TalkTalk and Yahoo.

[samwest]

This was an Anti-Anti-SPAM-Update.

Like double secret probation....again.
Google's been playing by Faber College rules for years.
[youtu.be...]

[Chris travel 30]

@Martin, it's exactly like that. 100 % clean, first hand content on our travel site, got kicked in the *ss by the so called "spam Update". Why don't they name it as it is? Does Spam Upgrade not sound good enough?

[Micha]

I don't get what you guys are complaining about. Don't you want to display bets from all those wonderful gambling sites Google is currently pushing? And honestly, all those Arabic websites spinning cheap AI content into German and ranking incredibly well are super informative, right? ;) Okay, jokes aside: calling this a 'spam update' is just taking users for a ride. Plus, there's still a massive amount of movement. My news site took a heavy dive in Sistrix today, just like tons of other websites I monitor. While Google News and Discover are back up and working, the regular index is completely useless right now.

[goodoldweb]

Instead of outright blocking Gmail, and potentially losing the sale, one could force an email confirmation before the order is accepted. In that email also explain the reason why Gmail and other free email providers block legitimate email and that's so their own marketing emails have less competition in the inbox. Also suggest your customers whitelist your domain in Gmail, although that doesn't always work either.

I agree. Google has pushed the boundaries for too long. We're now being actively limited in our ability to communicate directly with our customers, and that's wrong on many levels. In response, we're discouraging the use of Gmail and clearly informing customers about the limitations and risks involved.

[goodoldweb]

If I remember correctly it's not just GMail but also AOL, BTInternet, iCloud, TalkTalk and Yahoo.

It’s only Gmail that has been causing issues recently. Emails to Microsoft and Yahoo addresses are delivered without any problems, and customers respond as expected. The issue seems to be limited to Gmail, where our order confirmations and tracking notification emails seem to disappear into a Google black hole, leaving customers unaware that the emails were ever sent.

[Martin Ice Web]

So far we are sitting at 40% of normal traffic. Will not get to 50% though.
This update was worse than panda and penguin together.
Our vertical is full of big marketplaces (mediamarkt, otto) and manufactures where customers canīt buy from.
Most of our competitors have been hit very hard.

What we figured out is that this ANTI-ANTI-SPAM UPdate aimed at duplicate content caused by copied manufacturer descriptions.
Not certain sites have been hit but it was a domain downgrade.
Winners are big marketplaces, amazon, ebay and price compare engines.

So this was not a ANTI-ANTI-SPAM Update but a big upside down shuffle camouflaged as an SPAM-Update with the goal to reduce the choices users can buy from but clicking on google ads.

What we are seeing since beginning of the year is that google constantly reduces the quality of serps and reduces choices by removing high quality websites from serps.


observations:
-There are double or more entries ( same site, same URL) within #1 - #10.
-Bots from Lithuania are going crazy.
-traffic comes in surges

[RedBar]

@MIW

-Bots from Lithuania are going crazy.

Have you had the Andorra, Bulgaria and Netherlands bots yet?

[Martin Ice Web]

@RedBar,

bulgaria is rising.

I am thinking of giving the bots something to eat that they canīt swallow. Like a very stupid mixed 10.000 word text.

[Chris travel 30]

@Martin, the domain downgrade was my first impression as well

[Fluff_Nutz]

This month seemed promising at one point. But, perhaps, as expected by now. With today being the last day of the month. The site ends, ONCE AGAIN, with no growth at all to either traffic or revenue.. Talk about a caged beast. Sad thing is my team continue to be consistent and I know if we were allowed growth, we would be doing exceptionally well right now..

On top of that as these ''updates'' do not end and are, essentially, 24/7 now.. Making growth even harder. I always wondered when that would kick in.. Visibility keeps dropping too, as a result..

These data centers and AI are incredibly costly. Not even necessary but we live in a corporate world and are mere slaves to such.. Thought slave labour was abolished? Obviously, not.. But I fear that this manipulation will never end as, we know these ''updates'' only ever benefit Google's profits and not, as they say, to improve search. As it rarely ever does.. Long story short this manipulation is most likely to fund their AI and, climate negative, data centers. It could end when these centers are all up and running but they will, likely, always want to create more..

Google cannot create money without destroying something else in the process.. We should all die from hunger, poverty. Let the higher ups deal with themselves. No more slave work and see how long the world lasts.. Idiots..

[RedBar]

@MIW

I am thinking of giving the bots something to eat that they canīt swallow. Like a very stupid mixed 10.000 word text.

I did the opposite ! I removed all my custom error pages and let CPanel display their Unauthorised, Not Found etc pages which now generate hardly any data usage whatsoever.

[Martin Ice Web]

@RedBar,

i have that done too.
But i think of rising the cost for those bot-farms. They have to process the information and this costs money.
The more nonsens these bot become to eat the more the costs will rising.
Think of millions of pages with stupid sentences and misinformation.

[RedBar]

@MIW
Ah, however I don't believe these specific bots are scraping / harvesting information, mine are mostly WordPress vulnerability attacks including email login attempts.

I would have thought that by now someone / something would have realised I don't use WordPress. Yeah, I know it's all automated however surely someone, somewhere is paying for something to do this?

[Martin Ice Web]

@RedBar,

the bots that we are seeing exclusivly fetch our produkt-pages ( i guess from google-shoppping-ads)
These are LLM bots.

[RedBar]

Global traffic for June -40% and going lower judging by this morning at 10% of 6 months average ... The localised hotel venue is now outperforming everything!

[RubicCubed]

the bots that we are seeing exclusivly fetch our produkt-pages

We're seeing it too with them landing on the product's add to cart urls. Could be inventory attacks, to reduce inventory to make items unavailable for purchase by legitimate shoppers. Might also be shopping agents fetching info, price data and/or monitoring for price changes. Could also be UCP related with Google or some other AI testing to show our products on their page and make them available for purchase without ever visiting our site.

Since this is not legitimate traffic, we have blocked their ability to add items to their shopping cart unless they do so from our site.

[System]

New month, new thread here: [webmasterworld.com...]

[edited by: not2easy at 4:23 pm (utc) on Jul 1, 2026]
[edit reason] New month, new thread [/edit]