February 2026 Google Discover Core Update Rolling Out - Local Impact

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Barry Schwartz / Executive Editor

Google has released its first core update of 2026, which is focused on just Google Discover. Google named it the February 2026 Discover core update. This one is rolling over the next two weeks or so, just English language users in the US and at some point will roll out beyond that to all countries and languages.

Google wrote, "This is a broad update to our systems that surface articles in Discover."

Google said this specific update will impact non-US publishers from showing up in the US, clickbait or sensational content and will show more in-depth, original and timely content.

Google wrote, the update will improve Discover as follows:

• Showing users more locally relevant content from websites based in their country
• Reducing sensational content and clickbait in Discover
• Showing more in-depth, original, and timely content from websites with expertise in a given area, based on our systems’ understanding of a site’s content

Because this update will show users more locally-relevant content from sites based in their country, it may impact the traffic of non-US websites that publish news for a US audience. But at the same time, over time, this update will elevate those websites' content in their locally relevant regions.

I am honestly not sure if Google ever announced a Discover specific update, we know normal core updates impact Google Discover. But this specific announcement is just about a core update impacting only Google Discover.

And it is no surprise, the amount of comments on this site about visibility changes in Google Discover over the past couple of days is insane. Here are some select comments from this post:

It feels like Google is 'fixing' the SERPs by serving more low-intent or Discover-style traffic that doesn't convert.

I remain at 90-95% down, wiped from search, images, news, and discover.

I've been doing this for a long time, but it was all wiped overnight, and yes, my site was in News, just like Discover and removed.

Not trying sound negative or anything, but my site did start showing up again on Discover and on the first page of Google News...

From Feb 2nd I lost almost all traffic from Discover. it's just terrible.

Those are just some of the comments I pulled from this site.

John Mueller from Google added:

Since many sites demonstrate deep knowledge across a wide range of subjects, our systems are designed to identify expertise on a topic-by-topic basis. So whether a site has expertise in multiple areas or has a deep focus on a single topic, there’s equal opportunity to show up in Discover. For example, a local news site with a dedicated gardening section could have established expertise in gardening, even though it covers other topics. In contrast, a movie review site that wrote a single article about gardening would likely not.

We’ll continue to show content that’s personalized based on people’s creator and source preferences.

As with all core updates, this change may lead to fluctuations in Discover traffic. Some sites might see increases or decreases; many sites may see no change at all. We're releasing this update to English language users in the US, and will expand it to all countries and languages in the months ahead.

Google updated its Discover documentation on the "To increase the likelihood of your content appearing in Discover, we recommend the following" section to read:

• Avoid clickbait and similar tactics to artificially inflate engagement by using misleading or exaggerated details in preview content (title, snippets, or images) to increase appeal, or by withholding crucial information required to understand what the content is about.
• Use page titles and headlines that capture the essence of the content.
• Avoid sensationalism tactics that manipulate appeal by catering to morbid curiosity, titillation, or outrage.
• Provide content that's timely for current interests, tells a story well, or provides unique insights.
• Include compelling, high-quality images in your content, especially large images that are more likely to generate visits from Discover. Large images need to be at least 1200 px wide and enabled by the max-image-preview:large setting, or by using AMP
• Provide an overall great page experience. For more advice, check out our help page on Understanding page experience in Google Search results.

Here's a side-by-side comparison. Beyond clickbait and related things, the Discover documentation now includes "Provide a great page experience" as well. So you know, watch overloading your page with annoying ads, auto-playing crap, and more. :) https://t.co/40TWNGpKOO pic.twitter.com/cCtJdh7UAz

Again, this should take up to two weeks to roll out and we don't know when it will expand beyond the US and English language.

Let us know what you see.

Forum discussion at X and LinkedIn.

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