High impact

Judge Questions Google AI, Spam Update Fallout – SEO Pulse via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

This week’s SEO Pulse covers Google’s AI publisher dispute, spam update fallout, the GEO debate, AI citation gaps, and ChatGPT’s Reddit behavior in search.

Ranking & Algorithms AI Search & Visibility

Google Updates Site Reputation Abuse (Parasite SEO) Policy via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google is replacing site reputation abuse manual actions in the EEA with a system that can rank affected site sections independently.

Also covered by Google Search Central

Ranking & Algorithms Policy & Penalties

Google won’t respect manual actions for site reputation abuse in European Economic Area

Searchers outside of the European Economic Area (EEA), the manual action will apply but not within the EEA.

Also covered by Search Engine Roundtable

Policy & Penalties

Google’s August 2026 spam update hit rankings harder than normal

Google's spam update caused exceptional search disruption, with dramatic ranking losses across 20 industries, according to SE Ranking data.

Also covered by Semrush Blog

Ranking & Algorithms

Google August 2026 spam update done rolling out

The update took 2.5 days to roll out and is now complete.

Also covered by Google Search Status

Ranking & Algorithms

Google releases August 2026 spam update

The update will take a few days to roll out.

Ranking & Algorithms

Google June 2026 spam update done rolling out

This spam update took two full days to roll out.

Ranking & Algorithms

Google releases June 2026 spam update

This update should only take a few days to roll out.

Ranking & Algorithms

Google May 2026 core update rollout is now complete

The second Google core update of 2026 was a big one, causing a lot of search ranking volatility over the rollout.

Ranking & Algorithms

May 2026 Core Update: Visibility Analysis and Data Updates

The May 2026 Core Update was announced on 21st May 2026, following the March Core Update. It was completed on the 2nd June. Data, analysis, examples and rankings for affected domains are shown below…

Also covered by SEL — Algorithm Updates

Ranking & Algorithms

March 2026 Google core update more volatile than December — here’s what changed

Nearly 80% of top results shifted as Google’s latest update hit aggregators and boosted brands, official sites, and data-rich sources.

Ranking & Algorithms

How Google’s August 2025 Spam Algorithm Update Impacted Local SEO [Case Study]

Ranking & Algorithms Local SEO