February 2026 Discover Core Update

Google says this update will improve the experience of Discover in a few key ways:

• 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

1. Organic traffic trends, especially non-branded (Google Search Console)

2. Ranking flux & search visibility for high intent keywords (Semrush, Ahrefs, or similar)—look for ranking movements (higher or lower) for website content

3. Keep a close eye on your most valuable SERPs—look out for any changes in the content that is being ranked higher or lower than before the update

4. URL indexation trends (Google Search Console)

Per Google's announcement: "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."

1. Check if the speed or E-E-A-T of your URLs could be a cause of traffic drops.

2. Make sure you haven’t deleted any pieces of content which were previously earning a high volume of organic search traffic.

3. Make sure your content that used to get traffic is still indexed.

4. Determine if significant changes have been made to your website structure or semantic HTML.

5. Prune your content to remove (or improve) unhelpful or non-unique pages. Monitor & track changes made to your website.

6. Track the changing relevance (perceived intent) of keywords related to your content.

Google  said their guidance about general core updates and Discover applies.