Google & SEO

Google Search IO 2026

Google Search IO 2026 highlights a continued shift toward AI driven search, with Gemini powering a more interactive and agent based experience. Search is moving beyond traditional listings, allowing users to ask complex questions, use multimodal inputs, and complete tasks directly within the search interface.

Key updates include expanded AI Overviews, a stronger AI Mode, and new agent style features that can help users take actions such as planning or booking. This signals a move from search as a list of results to search as an AI assistant that helps complete tasks.

For SEO, the focus should shift toward topical authority rather than isolated keywords by building strong content clusters that fully cover a subject. Content should be clearly structured so AI systems can easily interpret and reuse it, supported by strong internal linking to reinforce relationships between pages. There is also increased importance on informational content that directly solves user problems, alongside consistent brand and entity signals to strengthen Google’s understanding of site authority. Overall, optimisation should prioritise intent completion rather than rankings alone, especially as more queries are handled through AI driven results.

Google’s linking improvements in AI search

What’s changed?

Google has recently announced an update to the way it links to sources and information within its AI overview and in AI Mode. 

It will now link directly within the AI response next to the relevant text, rather than linking a cluster of sources towards the end of the information provided. 

It’s also introduced a new feature, giving users the ability to preview a website when hovering over the inline link on desktop. 

Why it matters

The more relevant placement of links will help with further exploration on a subject, rather than AI responses being a ‘dead end’ to the search. 

The new preview feature will help a user decide whether to click through to a site, with Google saying “We’ve seen that people might hesitate to click a link if they’re not sure exactly where it leads — so this update will help people feel more confident about visiting helpful websites.”

AI search is splitting user behaviour

Google is not putting every AI experience in one place. Search, AI Mode and Gemini are being used in different ways, with Google’s VP of Search Liz Reid saying people often move between them depending on what they are trying to do.

Search and AI Mode are more likely to be used for informational queries, while Gemini leans more towards writing and creative tasks. AI Mode also appears to be where longer, more complex and conversational questions are happening.

For brands, that makes authority and clarity even more important. If people are asking different types of questions across different Google tools, brands need to be clearly associated with the topics they want to be found for. Digital PR can support this by building trusted coverage, expert commentary and consistent mentions across the wider web, helping search engines and AI tools understand who the brand is, what it knows and when it should be surfaced.

March 2026 core update complete

Just days after a quick, spam update roll-out was complete, Google have announced their latest core update has officially rolling out this morning. The March 2026 core update has been deemed a “regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites”.

As we typically expect with all core updates, this may take up to 2 weeks to complete and we will be continuing to monitor all impact for clients and competitors across various industries. Ideally, impact will always be minimal for those sites which are improving organic performance, but it’s important not to knee-jerk react to any site changes until the update has finalised and rankings have stabilised.

Google’s February 2026 Discover core update has completed

Google has confirmed that the February 2026 Discover core update rollout has completed. It started on 5th February and finished on 27th February. This is the first confirmed Search update of 2026 and notably, the first core update that only impacts Google Discover.

The update only applies to English-language users in the USA, however Google has confirmed this will expand globally in the coming months.

Google says the update was designed to improve the Discover experience by:

• Prioritising locally relevant content from publishers based in the users country
• Reducing sensationalist headlines and clickbait
• Elevating original and timely content from sites with clear topical expertise

Importantly, expertise is assess topic by topic, not just at domain level, which means broad publishers can still perform well, but only where Google recongises genuine authority.