Google released the March 2026 core update today, the company announced.

This is Google’s first core update of 2026. It follows the quick March 2026 spam update from a couple of days ago and the February 2026 Discover update.

What Google is saying. Google updated its Search Status Dashboard to state:

• “Released the March 2026 core update. The rollout may take up to 2 weeks to complete.”

Google added on LinkedIn:

• “This is a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites. The rollout may take up to 2 weeks to complete.”

About core updates. Core updates roll out several times each year. They introduce broad, significant changes to Google’s search algorithms and systems, which is why Google announces them.

• Google also releases some smaller, unannounced core updates.
• It has been a long time since the last core update. While many expected Google to roll out core updates more frequently, that didn’t happen.

What to do if you are hit. Google didn’t share new guidance specific to the March 2026 core update. However, Google has previously offered advice on what to consider if a core update negatively impacts your site:

• There aren’t specific actions you can take to recover. A negative rankings impact may not mean anything is wrong with your pages.
• Google provided a list of questions to consider if your site is hit by a core update.
• You may see some recovery between core updates, but the biggest changes tend to follow another core update.

In short: write helpful content for people, not for search engines.

• “There’s nothing new or special that creators need to do for this update as long as they’ve been making satisfying content meant for people. For those that might not be ranking as well, we strongly encourage reading our creating helpful, reliable, people-first content help page,” Google said previously.

For more details on Google core updates, you can read Google’s documentation.

Previous core updates. Here’s a timeline and our coverage of recent core updates:

• The December 2025 core update was on Dec 11 and ended on Dec. 29.
• The June 2025 core update was on June 30 and ended on July 17.
• The March 2025 core update was on Mar. 13 and ended on Mar. 27.
• The December 2024 core update was on Dec. 12 and ended on Dec. 18.
• The November 2024 core update was on Nov. 11 and ended on Dec. 5.
• The August 2024 core update was on Aug. 15 and ended on Sept. 3.
• The March 2024 core update was on March 5 and ended on April 19.

Why we care. With any core update, you often see significant volatility in Google search results and rankings. These updates may improve visibility for your site or your clients’ sites, but you may also see fluctuations or declines in rankings and organic traffic. We hope this update rewards your efforts and drives strong traffic and conversions.

Today, Google released Google Search Live globally where AI Mode is available, for these languages and regions. This brings Search Live to more than 200 countries and territories.

Google credits its new audio and voice model, Gemini 3.1 Flash Live, which it says “delivers even more natural and intuitive conversations.” The “new model is also inherently multilingual, which means that people around the world can now speak with Search in their preferred language,” Google added.

How it works. To use Search Live, open the Google app on Android or iOS and tap the Live icon under the Search bar. From there, you can ask your question out loud to get a helpful audio response, then continue the conversation with follow-up questions or dive deeper with helpful web links. If you want to ask about something in front of you, like how to install a new shelving unit, you can enable your camera to add visual context. This way, Search can see what your camera sees and offer helpful suggestions, plus links to more information on the web.

You can also access Search Live if you’re already pointing your camera with Google Lens — just tap the Live option at the bottom of the screen to have a real-time, back-and-forth conversation about what you see in the real world.

More. Last September, Google made Search Live with video available in the U.S, prior to that, it was an opt in beta and before that it was talk and listen, without video.

Why we care. This is another way users can have conversations with Google’s AI instead of typing queries. Answers could increasingly bypass traditional clicks, and further erode traffic to websites. The inclusion of links (citations at the bottom) means publishers and brands could still see some benefits, but most searchers likely will have little need or desire to click on those links or dig deeper after getting their answer.

Google released the March 2026 spam update less than 24 hours ago and it is already done rolling out. The update finished today at 10:40 a.m. ET.

• This update was released yesterday (March 24) at 3:20 p.m. It took 19 hours and 30 minutes to fully roll out, which is super fast.

Why we care. This is the second Google algorithm update announced in 2026. It’s unclear what spam it targeted, but if you see ranking or traffic changes in the next few days, the Google March 2026 spam update could be the cause.

More on spam update. Google’s documentation says:

“While Google’s automated systems to detect search spam are constantly operating, we occasionally make notable improvements to how they work. When we do, we refer to this as a spam update and share when they happen on our list of Google Search ranking updates.

For example, SpamBrain is our AI-based spam-prevention system. From time-to-time, we improve that system to make it better at spotting spam and to help ensure it catches new types of spam.

Sites that see a change after a spam update should review our spam policies to ensure they are complying with those. Sites that violate our policies may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all. Making changes may help a site improve if our automated systems learn over a period of months that the site complies with our spam policies.

In the case of a link spam update (an update that specifically deals with link spam), making changes might not generate an improvement. This is because when our systems remove the effects spammy links may have, any ranking benefit the links may have previously generated for your site is lost. Any potential ranking benefits generated by those links cannot be regained.”

Impact. This update should only impact sites spamming Google Search, so hopefully you didn’t see any major negative impact.

Google released its March 2026 spam update today at 3:20 p.m. It’s the second announced Google algorithm update of 2026, following the February 2026 Discover core update.

• This is the first spam update of 2026.
• Google’s most recent spam update was in August 2025.

Timing. This update may only “take a few days to complete,” Google said. On LinkedIn, Google added:

• “This is a normal spam update, and it will roll out for all languages and locations. The rollout may take a few days to complete.”

Why we care. This is the second announced Google algorithm update of 2026. It’s unclear what spam this update targets, but if you see ranking or traffic changes in the next few days, it could be due to it.

More on spam update. Google’s documentation says:

“While Google’s automated systems to detect search spam are constantly operating, we occasionally make notable improvements to how they work. When we do, we refer to this as a spam update and share when they happen on our list of Google Search ranking updates.

For example, SpamBrain is our AI-based spam-prevention system. From time-to-time, we improve that system to make it better at spotting spam and to help ensure it catches new types of spam.

Sites that see a change after a spam update should review our spam policies to ensure they are complying with those. Sites that violate our policies may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all. Making changes may help a site improve if our automated systems learn over a period of months that the site complies with our spam policies.

In the case of a link spam update (an update that specifically deals with link spam), making changes might not generate an improvement. This is because when our systems remove the effects spammy links may have, any ranking benefit the links may have previously generated for your site is lost. Any potential ranking benefits generated by those links cannot be regained.”

Update, March 25. The update completed in less than 24 hours. See: Google March 2026 spam update done rolling out