Google Search Updates & Release Notes

Understanding how users find your content is crucial for any publisher or site owner. As Search evolves to include more visual and multimodal experiences, we want to ensure you have the data you need to analyze your performance.

Today, we are excited to introduce Search Console reporting for web multimodal search, in the report for performance on Search results as well as in the report for Generative AI features. This update is designed to give you insights into how your content is surfaced when users search using images (such as with a smartphone camera). The data reported here includes searches with Lens, Circle to Search on Android, image uploads to Google Search, and the Chrome right-click "Search this image" feature.

To view these insights, use the new multimodal search type filter in the performance reports. Click "Export" to download the data and analyze it in your other tools.

We believe this new data will help you better understand your site's performance in the modern search landscape and optimize your visual content. The integration of multimodal search data is rolling out globally starting today. You will start seeing these metrics in your Performance report if your site is receiving traffic from these queries.

As always, we value your feedback: please let us know what you think via the "Submit feedback" link in Search Console or in the Google Search Central Community.

Posted by Harsh Kharbanda, Product Manager Lead, Google Lens and Moshe Samet, Product Manager Lead, Search Console

In 2024, we introduced our site reputation policy to stop a practice where third-party content is published on a trusted website just to exploit that site's good reputation to rank higher in Search. This practice hurts search quality, and creates a bad experience for users.

Following discussion with the European Commission, we are adjusting our enforcement approach within the European Economic Area (EEA) and clarifying the criteria we consider when applying the policy. While we remain concerned that an overbroad application of the DMA could prevent us from addressing real threats to the integrity of our search results, we believe this approach enables us to combat attempts to manipulate search results for our users.

Beginning August 30, manual actions applied under our site reputation policy will have a different effect for those searching in the EEA than outside of it. In particular:

• For users outside the EEA, a manual action regarding our site reputation policy will directly affect search results for the portion of the site affected. As before, the rest of the site won't be affected.
• For users inside the EEA, the impact of the manual action won't apply. The affected section of the site may be separated in our systems so that, over time, it ranks independently from the rest of the site.

Site owners will continue to be notified within Search Console when a manual action is applied. If you believe an action was taken in error, you can submit a reconsideration request. Eligible sites will, following the reconsideration request, also have the opportunity to bring disputes to mediation. Because many pages are viewed by people globally, it's possible that any given page might have a manual action taken on it, but that change will only affect search results shown to users outside the EEA.

We are committed to our site reputation policy because it ensures a better, more reliable search experience for everyone.

Posted by the Google Search Quality team

In 2024, we introduced our site reputation policy to stop a practice where third-party content is published on a trusted website just to exploit that site's good reputation to rank higher in Search. This practice hurts search quality, and creates a bad experience for users.

Following discussion with the European Commission, we are adjusting our enforcement approach within the European Economic Area (EEA) and clarifying the criteria we consider when applying the policy. While we remain concerned that an overbroad application of the DMA could prevent us from addressing real threats to the integrity of our search results, we believe this approach enables us to combat attempts to manipulate search results for our users.

Beginning August 30, manual actions applied under our site reputation policy will have a different effect for those searching in the EEA than outside of it. In particular:

• For users outside the EEA, a manual action regarding our site reputation policy will directly affect search results for the portion of the site affected. As before, the rest of the site won't be affected.
• For users inside the EEA, the impact of the manual action won't apply. The affected section of the site may be separated in our systems so that, over time, it ranks independently from the rest of the site.

Site owners will continue to be notified within Search Console when a manual action is applied. If you believe an action was taken in error, you can submit a reconsideration request. Eligible sites will, following the reconsideration request, also have the opportunity to bring disputes to mediation. Because many pages are viewed by people globally, it's possible that any given page might have a manual action taken on it, but that change will only affect search results shown to users outside the EEA.

We are committed to our site reputation policy because it ensures a better, more reliable search experience for everyone.

Posted by the Google Search Quality team

Earlier this month, we announced platform properties for Search Console, allowing you to track how your social and video posts on Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube perform on Google Search, Discover, and Google News. Today, platform properties are globally available to everyone.

Add your platform property in Search Console

In an era when publishers reach their audiences through a diverse range of channels beyond websites, we want to help you make the most of these new insights.

Today, we're also publishing a new guide on how to analyze your social and video content performance. Whether you're a content creator, social media manager, or SEO professional, this guide will show you what insights are available from Search Console and how to analyze your performance.

Here is a sneak peek at some of the elements covered in the guide:

• Understand your Search audience: Use the Insights report to identify the top, trending up, and trending down query groups sending traffic from Google Search to your social and video content. Analyzing these search term themes helps you understand what your audience cares about, providing data-driven inspiration for your next video topic, caption, or hashtag strategy.
• Spot trending content: Use the 24-hour filter to identify sudden traffic spikes from Google Search to your recent posts, enabling you to cross-promote the trending content on other platforms.
• Analyze across platforms: Export performance data from multiple properties into a single spreadsheet to compare how your content performs side-by-side on YouTube, Instagram, X, or TikTok.
• Optimize existing content: Use Search Console to guide your strategy with data by identifying older videos that are regaining search traction, indicating which posts you might want to pin to your social or video feed, or expand into a part two. Additionally, you can use Search Console annotations to track whether external updates, like rewriting a YouTube title or TikTok caption, affect your search performance over time.
• Compare formats: For example, you could apply page filters or comparison mode to evaluate the performance of your video playlists, or contrast the search traffic of short-form versus full-length videos.

Example of the social and video content performance guide in Search Console

Learn more about platform properties and how to set them up. If you already set up your Search profile, you should have access to your data for the same platform in Search Console.

We value your feedback: please let us know what you think using the "Submit feedback" link in Search Console, filing feedback on the documentation page itself, sharing your comments on LinkedIn, or in the Google Search Central Community.

Posted by Daniel Waisberg and Lizzi Sassman, Search relations team

Earlier this month, we announced platform properties for Search Console, allowing you to track how your social and video posts on Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube perform on Google Search, Discover, and Google News. Today, platform properties are globally available to everyone.

Add your platform property in Search Console

In an era when publishers reach their audiences through a diverse range of channels beyond websites, we want to help you make the most of these new insights. Today, we're also publishing a new guide on how to analyze your social and video content performance. Whether you're a content creator, social media manager, or SEO professional, this guide will show you what insights are available from Search Console and how to analyze your performance.

Here is a sneak peek at some of the elements covered in the guide:

• Understand your Search audience: Use the Insights report to identify the top, trending up, and trending down query groups sending traffic from Google Search to your social and video content. Analyzing these search term themes helps you understand what your audience cares about, providing data-driven inspiration for your next video topic, caption, or hashtag strategy.
• Spot trending content: Use the 24-hour filter to identify sudden traffic spikes from Google Search to your recent posts, enabling you to cross-promote the trending content on other platforms.
• Analyze across platforms: Export performance data from multiple properties into a single spreadsheet to compare how your content performs side-by-side on YouTube, Instagram, X, or TikTok.
• Optimize existing content: Use Search Console to guide your strategy with data by identifying older videos that are regaining search traction, indicating which posts you might want to pin to your social or video feed, or expand into a part two. Additionally, you can use Search Console annotations to track whether external updates, like rewriting a YouTube title or TikTok caption, affect your search performance over time.
• Compare formats: For example, you could apply page filters or comparison mode to evaluate the performance of your video playlists, or contrast the search traffic of short-form versus full-length videos.

Example of the social and video content performance guide in Search Console

Learn more about platform properties and how to set them up. If you already set up your Search profile, you should have access to your data for the same platform in Search Console.

We value your feedback: please let us know what you think using the "Submit feedback" link in Search Console, filing feedback on the documentation page itself, sharing your comments on LinkedIn, or in the Google Search Central Community.

Posted by Daniel Waisberg and Lizzi Sassman, Search relations team

Earlier this month, we announced platform properties for Search Console, allowing you to track how your social and video posts on Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube perform on Google Search, Discover, and Google News. Today, platform properties are globally available to everyone.

Add your platform property in Search Console

In an era when publishers reach their audiences through a diverse range of channels beyond websites, we want to help you make the most of these new insights. Today, we're also publishing a new guide on how to analyze your social and video content performance. Whether you're a content creator, social media manager, or SEO professional, this guide will show you what insights are available from Search Console and how to analyze your performance.

Here is a sneak peek at some of the elements covered in the guide:

• Understand your Search audience: Use the Insights report to identify the top, trending up, and trending down query groups sending traffic from Google Search to your social and video content. Analyzing these search term themes helps you understand what your audience cares about, providing data-driven inspiration for your next video topic, caption, or hashtag strategy.
• Spot trending content: Use the 24-hour filter to identify sudden traffic spikes from Google Search to your recent posts, enabling you to cross-promote the trending content on other platforms.
• Analyze across platforms: Export performance data from multiple properties into a single spreadsheet to compare how your content performs side-by-side on YouTube, Instagram, X, or TikTok.
• Optimize existing content: Use Search Console to guide your strategy with data by identifying older videos that are regaining search traction, indicating which posts you might want to pin to your social or video feed, or expand into a part two. Additionally, you can use Search Console annotations to track whether external updates, like rewriting a YouTube title or TikTok caption, affect your search performance over time.
• Compare formats: For example, you could apply page filters or comparison mode to evaluate the performance of your video playlists, or contrast the search traffic of short-form versus full-length videos.

Learn more about platform properties and how to set them up. If you already set up your Search profile, you should have access to your data for the same platform in Search Console.

We value your feedback: please let us know what you think using the "Submit feedback" link in Search Console, filing feedback on the documentation page itself, sharing your comments on LinkedIn, or in the Google Search Central Community.

Posted by Daniel Waisberg and Lizzi Sassman, Search relations team

Earlier this month, we announced platform properties for Search Console, allowing you to track how your social and video posts on Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube perform on Google Search, Discover, and Google News. Today, platform properties are globally available to everyone.

Add your platform property in Search Console

In an era when publishers reach their audiences through a diverse range of channels beyond websites, we want to help you make the most of these new insights. Today, we're also publishing a new guide on how to analyze your social and video content performance. Whether you're a content creator, social media manager, or SEO professional, this guide will show you what insights are available from Search Console and how to analyze your performance.

Here is a sneak peek at some of the elements covered in the guide:

• Understand your Search audience: Use the Insights report to identify the top, trending up, and trending down query groups sending traffic from Google Search to your social and video content. Analyzing these search term themes helps you understand what your audience cares about, providing data-driven inspiration for your next video topic, caption, or hashtag strategy.
• Spot trending content: Use the 24-hour filter to identify sudden traffic spikes from Google Search to your recent posts, enabling you to cross-promote the trending content on other platforms.
• Analyze across platforms: Export performance data from multiple properties into a single spreadsheet to compare how your content performs side-by-side on YouTube, Instagram, X, or TikTok.
• Optimize existing content: Use Search Console to guide your strategy with data by identifying older videos that are regaining search traction, indicating which posts you might want to pin to your social or video feed, or expand into a part two. Additionally, you can use Search Console annotations to track whether external updates, like rewriting a YouTube title or TikTok caption, affect your search performance over time.
• Compare formats: For example, you could apply page filters or comparison mode to evaluate the performance of your video playlists, or contrast the search traffic of short-form versus full-length videos.

Learn more about platform properties and how to set them up. If you already set up your Search profile, you should have access to your data for the same platform in Search Console.

We value your feedback: please let us know what you think using the "Submit feedback" link in Search Console, filing feedback on the documentation page itself, sharing your comments on LinkedIn, or in the Google Search Central Community.

Posted by Daniel Waisberg and Lizzi Sassman, Search relations team

Content creators and publishers use many channels beyond their own websites to reach their audiences. As people gravitate toward firsthand perspectives and different content formats, we want to make it easier for site owners and creators1even those without their own websiteto get a consolidated view of how all of their content is getting discovered on Search.

Following an earlier experiment, we're thrilled to introduce platform properties, a new Search Console property type to help site owners and creators understand how their social and video posts perform on Google Search and Discover. Now, you can track which search terms lead people to your Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube content on Search, and see exactly how your audience is interacting with your posts.

To view Google Search information about your property, visit Search Console, where you can create a platform property and use the following reports:

• Performance report: View your total clicks, impressions, and additional metrics. Filter and sort this data to see which specific posts and queries are driving the most traffic. If you prefer to analyze your performance using another tool, you can export the data.
• Insights report: View a high-level overview of your recent traffic trends, your top-performing posts, and how people discover your account on Google.
• Achievements: Track your growth and celebrate milestones, such as reaching a new threshold for total clicks from Google Search in the last 28 days.

To add a platform property to your account:

• Open Search Console.
• Go to the Search Console verification page, or open the property selector drop-down anywhere in Search Console and click "Add property."
• Select one of the four available platforms: Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube.
• Follow the onscreen verification steps to securely authorize the connection.

The platform properties will become available gradually over the coming weeks. Learn more about platform properties and how to set them up in our help center documentation. We value your feedback: please let us know what you think using the "Submit feedback" link in Search Console or in the Google Search Central Community.

Posted by Moshe Samet, Product Manager Lead, Search Console

Content creators and publishers use many channels beyond their own websites to reach their audiences. As people gravitate toward firsthand perspectives and different content formats, we want to make it easier for site owners and creators 1 even those without their own website to get a consolidated view of how all of their content is getting discovered on Search.

Following an earlier experiment, we're thrilled to introduce platform properties, a new Search Console property type to help site owners and creators understand how their social and video posts perform on Google Search and Discover. Now, you can track which search terms lead people to your Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube content on Search, and see exactly how your audience is interacting with your posts.

To view Google Search information about your property, visit Search Console, where you can create a platform property and use the following reports:

Performance report

View your total clicks, impressions, and additional metrics. Filter and sort this data to see which specific posts and queries are driving the most traffic. If you prefer to analyze your performance using another tool, you can export the data.

Insights report

View a high-level overview of your recent traffic trends, your top-performing posts, and how people discover your account on Google.

Achievements

Track your growth and celebrate milestones, such as reaching a new threshold for total clicks from Google Search in the last 28 days.

To add a platform property to your account:

• Open Search Console.
• Go to the Search Console verification page, or open the property selector drop-down anywhere in Search Console and click "Add property."
• Select one of the four available platforms: Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube.
• Follow the onscreen verification steps to securely authorize the connection.

The platform properties will become available gradually over the coming weeks. Learn more about platform properties and how to set them up in our help center documentation. We value your feedback: please let us know what you think using the "Submit feedback" link in Search Console or in the Google Search Central Community.

Posted by Moshe Samet, Product Manager Lead, Search Console

Content creators and publishers use many channels beyond their own websites to reach their audiences. As people gravitate toward firsthand perspectives and different content formats, we want to make it easier for site owners and creators even those without their own website to get a consolidated view of how all of their content is getting discovered on Search.

Following an earlier experiment, we're thrilled to introduce platform properties, a new Search Console property type to help site owners and creators understand how their social and video posts perform on Google Search and Discover. Now, you can track which search terms lead people to your Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube content on Search, and see exactly how your audience is interacting with your posts.

To view Google Search information about your property, visit Search Console, where you can create a platform property and use the following reports:

Performance report

View your total clicks, impressions, and additional metrics. Filter and sort this data to see which specific posts and queries are driving the most traffic. If you prefer to analyze your performance using another tool, you can export the data.

Insights report

View a high-level overview of your recent traffic trends, your top-performing posts, and how people discover your account on Google.

Achievements

Track your growth and celebrate milestones, such as reaching a new threshold for total clicks from Google Search in the last 28 days.

To add a platform property to your account:

• Open Search Console.
• Go to the Search Console verification page, or open the property selector drop-down anywhere in Search Console and click "Add property."
• Select one of the four available platforms: Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube.
• Follow the onscreen verification steps to securely authorize the connection.

The platform properties will become available gradually over the coming weeks. Learn more about platform properties and how to set them up in our help center documentation. We value your feedback: please let us know what you think using the "Submit feedback" link in Search Console or in the Google Search Central Community.

Posted by Moshe Samet, Product Manager Lead, Search Console

Content creators and publishers use many channels beyond their own websites to reach their audiences. As people gravitate toward firsthand perspectives and different content formats, we want to make it easier for site owners and creators—even those without their own website—to get a consolidated view of how all of their content is getting discovered on Search.

Following an earlier experiment, we're thrilled to introduce platform properties, a new Search Console property type to help site owners and creators understand how their social and video posts perform on Google Search and Discover. Now, you can track which search terms lead people to your Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube content on Search, and see exactly how your audience is interacting with your posts.

To view Google Search information about your property, visit Search Console, where you can create a platform property and use the following reports:

• Performance report: View your total clicks, impressions, and additional metrics. Filter and sort this data to see which specific posts and queries are driving the most traffic. If you prefer to analyze your performance using another tool, you can export the data.
• Insights report: View a high-level overview of your recent traffic trends, your top-performing posts, and how people discover your account on Google.
• Achievements: Track your growth and celebrate milestones, such as reaching a new threshold for total clicks from Google Search in the last 28 days.

To add a platform property to your account:

• Open Search Console.
• Go to the Search Console verification page, or open the property selector drop-down anywhere in Search Console and click "Add property."
• Select one of the four available platforms: Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube.
• Follow the onscreen verification steps to securely authorize the connection.

The platform properties will become available gradually over the coming weeks. Learn more about platform properties and how to set them up in our help center documentation. We value your feedback: please let us know what you think using the "Submit feedback" link in Search Console or in the Google Search Central Community.

Posted by Moshe Samet, Product Manager Lead, Search Console

Today, we're excited to announce the launch of new Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console, including dedicated reports for Search and Discover, to help you understand your site's visibility within generative AI features on Search.

The new Search Console reports are designed to give you dedicated views of your impressions within generative AI features on Search, such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, as well as generative AI features in Discover. This data is included in the overall performance report, where it will continue to be tracked to give site owners an overview of the overall visibility of their site in Google Search. Today, we are launching a separate view dedicated to visibility from generative AI features.

We are rolling these reports out to a subset of websites, allowing us to thoroughly test them and receive feedback before making them widely available.

To help you understand how pages from your site are shown, our new reports show the following information:

• Impressions: How often URLs from your site appeared in generative AI features in Search and Discover.
• Pages: Check which URLs appeared within AI features.
• Countries: Understand your visibility on a country basis.
• Devices: Identify the devices people are using when seeing your website (available for Search results).
• Dates: Monitor your performance over time with hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly granularity.

Learn more about the data available in our help center documentation on the generative AI performance reports.

As always, we value your feedback: please let us know what you think using the "Submit feedback" link in Search Console, with the dedicated feedback form for these reports, or in the Google Search Central Community. We're continuing to work with website owners to understand what insights and data would be most helpful to inform their strategies, such as adding additional metrics over time.

Posted by Hillel Maoz, Search Ecosystem Engineering Manager and Moshe Samet, Product Manager Lead, Search Console

Note: As of August 31, 2026, we've rolled out these insights to all websites worldwide.