Google’s latest core update leaves publishers rattled, but its consequences are still to be determined

One head of audience at a news publisher said there were a few moments during the 16-day roll-out period where things were looking “grim,” as traffic tanked, albeit temporarily, though they declined to share specific figures.

Google did not immediately return a request for comment.

Publishers are well accustomed to the stomach-dropping moments they can have over traffic fluctuations during Google’s regular core updates. So much so that they have a rehearsed playbook to draw from, even during the traffic-plunging moments. “We have a responsibility to our staff to have an even keel in these moments,” said the same exec, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. “There’s no point in running around saying this is the death of the internet as we know it. It’s depressing and demoralizing and makes people make [rash] business decisions… which is the last thing you want to do in a core update and in a moment of industry disruption. You want to be the control and not the variable. We are keeping our newsroom calm, and our approach the same.”

Sure enough, traffic has started to stabilize after the core update completed on July 17, according to three publishers.

The core update’s completion coincided with two other major announcements last week: Google confirmed it was testing AI summaries in its Discover platform and an AI Mode button was added to its search bar.

Publishers are having a hard time figuring out just how much of an effect any of these changes are having, as they’re difficult to separate and measure, according to the three execs who spoke to Digiday. 

Core updates can impact Google’s AI tools like AI Overviews and AI Mode — which have been chipping away at publishers’ search referral traffic — as well as platforms like Discover. 

“It’s tough to separate how much going on right now is core update volatility and how much is specific to AI Overviews,” said the head of audience.

Three analytics companies told Digiday it was too soon to provide accurate numbers showing how the core update affected publishers’ search traffic.

Here are the things to know so far about Google’s latest core update:

Publishers aren’t seeing an impact from AI summaries coming to Discover — yet

Three publishing execs said they hadn’t seen a negative impact since Google started testing AI summaries in Discover two months ago.

“Discover continues to be one of our strongest traffic sources,” said an SEO manager at a food publisher, who requested anonymity.

One of the biggest impacts the news publisher’s head of audience has seen as a result of this core update was a “significant delay” in stories being surfaced in Discover. Typically, Google indexes their breaking news stories in three to five minutes, they said. They were seeing delays of up to 50 minutes.

While it may be too early to see a change in impressions and click-throughs on Google Discover, it’s safe to say that any new feature that puts an added layer between a user and a publisher’s site will drive down referral traffic, according to four SEO consultants and managers who spoke to Digiday.

“Google is cutting into the last remaining source of organic traffic for publishers,” said Lily Ray, vp of SEO strategy and research at performance marketing agency Amsive. “We don’t know how much they’re rolling this out, if it’s just a test, and how many publishers will be impacted.” 

Some publishers took a hit from this update, while some smaller sites benefited

Publishing execs were hesitant to share data showing the impact of the latest core update to their search visibility and click-throughs, citing continued volatility even after the update completed.

The SEO manager said some food sites had seen an impact, but their team was still working out what caused those changes. 

The news publisher’s head of audience said it had been a rough couple of weeks. “Just about every publisher I know has taken a hit,” they said.

According to Glenn Gabe, an SEO consultant and president of G-Squared, sites that were negatively impacted by this core update also saw visibility in AI Overviews drop.

However, this update seems to have helped return some of the traffic lost as a result of Google’s Helpful Content Update in September 2023 (and a related March 2024 core update), which was aimed at rewarding high-quality content in search results and demoting low-quality pages. Early data shows that some of the smaller sites that were hit hard by that update are seeing “at least a partial recovery” of 30-40% increase in click-throughs, according to Ray.

After seeing “significant volatility” and a “negative impact” to search referrals while the core update was rolling out, this has now improved, the news publisher’s head of audience said. And though they were seeing a “little trickle back” from the search referral traffic they’d lost since the rollout of AI Overviews, it wasn’t enough to offset those losses, they said.

“We’ve taken a hit, but it’s not existential,” they said.

The good news is the news publisher is gaining “topical authority” in Google’s AI Overviews, meaning their sites are the top citations in some AI topical summaries.

How did they achieve that? They’re not certain yet. There’s not enough data to draw those kinds of conclusions. “We’re in the observational phase,” the head of audience said.

Publishers’ visibility on Google search results has fallen since 2019, but this trend has accelerated sharply since April, according to a recent report by Enders Analysis. And since March, publishers’ search keywords have become over three times more likely to trigger an AI Overview. For now, the impact on publishers’ businesses is minimal, according to the analysis. Publishers’ discoverability and top-of-the-funnel brand awareness are most at risk.