Google update checker: was it Google, or something else?
Did a Google update cause your traffic drop?
Only if the dates line up and nothing else explains it. Enter the day your traffic fell, or drop in your Search Console export, and the checker lists every confirmed Google update that overlaps it since December 2022. With the export it also finds the drop week, checks impressions and compares a year earlier. Nothing is uploaded.
September 2026 spam update, September 24 – October 8, 2026 (14 days). Checked October 23, 2026.Penalty or update? How to tellEvery update since December 2022
Check your drop
How do you export the right file from Search Console?
Open the Performance report. In Search Console, pick your site’s property, then Performance, then Search results.
Set the dates. Click the date filter and choose Last 16 months, the most Search Console keeps. A shorter range works, but the checker needs 12 full weeks to find a drop, and about 13 months to compare it with a year earlier.
Keep it unfiltered. Leave Search type on Web and remove any query, page, country or device filter, so the export covers all your search traffic. Turn off Compare.
Export. Click Export at the top right and choose Download CSV. You get a .zip: drop the whole file into the checker. Download Excel works too. If you choose Google Sheets, open the Dates tab, select everything and paste it into the box.
Check what loaded. The checker reads the Dates table (some exports call it Chart): one row per day with Date, Clicks, Impressions, CTR and Position. It ignores Queries, Pages, Countries, Devices and Search appearance, and it shows the filters the export lists.
Google writes values shown as “~” or “-” in the report as zeros in the download (Search Console Help, Performance report, checked October 23, 2026). The checker reads them the same way.
How do you read the result?
| Finding | The rule | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Drop | Clicks over 4 weeks average at least 20% below the 8 weeks before. When several weeks qualify, the largest fall wins and separate drops are listed. | The week your traffic broke: the date everything else is tested against. |
| Overlaps | The drop starts during a rollout or up to 14 days after it ended. | Google is a suspect. Not yet the cause. |
| Nearby, less likely | The drop came in the 30 days before a rollout started. | A fall that started before an update is less likely to be its doing. Check your site. |
| No update near the date | Neither of the above, for every confirmed update in the list. | Look at the other two suspects: your redesign and AI. |
| Google’s own check | Clicks in the 7 days before each rollout against the first full week after it ended. | The comparison Google’s core updates guide describes. A large fall around one update, with flat weeks around the others, tells you which one to read about. |
| Impressions held | Clicks fell 20% or more while impressions moved less than 10%, or rose. | Your pages were still shown but clicked less, which points at AI answers above your result. |
| Impressions not compared | A comparison window touches May 13, 2025 – Apr 27, 2026. | Google’s logging error makes impressions unreliable there. Clicks weren’t affected. |
| A year earlier | The same weeks 52 weeks before, when the data reaches back that far. | If clicks fell then too, the drop may be seasonal. |
Why weeks, not days or months?
Rollouts on Google’s Search Status Dashboard since December 2022 have lasted from about a day (the March 2026 spam update) to 45 days (the March 2024 core update). Daily clicks swing with the day of the week, and a monthly view hides the week a drop started. Each weekly bar holds every day of the week once. Switch the chart to daily when you want to see the days.
Why are impressions sometimes left out?
Google’s data anomalies page says a logging error kept Search Console from reporting impressions accurately from May 13, 2025 until April 27, 2026. Impressions, CTR and average position were affected; clicks were not (Data anomalies in Search Console, entry dated April 3, 2026). So the checker compares impressions only when both windows sit outside that period, and it always uses clicks.
Is it a Google penalty or an algorithm update?
A Google penalty has a name in Search Console: a manual action. Google issues one “when a human reviewer at Google has determined” that pages on a site break its spam policies, and it tells you in the Manual actions report and in the Search Console message center (Search Console Help, Manual actions report). To check, open the Manual actions report in Search Console. If your site has no manual action, Google says the report shows a green check mark: no one at Google has penalized it by hand.
An update is different. Core updates “don’t target specific sites or individual web pages”, in Google’s words (Core updates), and a spam update is an improvement to Google’s automated spam detection (Spam updates). No one reviewed your site, so there is no message and nothing to appeal. Google’s advice after a core update is to improve the content, and it says some changes take effect in a few days while others take “several months”, sometimes until the next core update.
| Manual action (a penalty) | Algorithmic update | |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides | A person at Google | Google’s ranking systems, for every site at once |
| Where it shows | The Manual actions report and the Search Console message center | Not in Search Console. Google lists confirmed updates on its Search Status Dashboard |
| Aimed at | Pages that break Google’s spam policies | Core updates: no site in particular. Spam updates: sites Google’s systems find breaking its spam policies |
| What you do | Fix every page the report lists, then select Request Review and describe your fixes | Nothing to file. Improve the site; after a spam update, check it against the spam policies |
| Recovery | Google reviews your request | Some changes show in days, others take several months, and Google guarantees nothing |
What should you do after the check?
No update near the drop.
Look at your redesign first: old URLs that now break, redirects to the homepage, a noindex left on from staging. Then at AI.
Suspect 1: Your redesignAn update overlaps, and you also relaunched, moved or changed redirects.
Both are suspects. Start with the site, because it’s the part you can fix: trace your old URLs with the redirect checker, and test key pages with the noindex checker.
Redirect checkerAn update overlaps and nothing changed on your site.
Google is the likely suspect, though not proven. Check the Manual actions report, read what Google suggests for that kind of update, and see how we test this suspect.
Suspect 2: GoogleClicks fell, impressions held.
Your pages are still shown but clicked less, which points at AI answers. Search Console’s Generative AI performance report shows which of your pages appear in them.
Suspect 3: AI, and the AI reportStill not sure, or more than one suspect.
Ask for the free Cause Check. We check your site from the outside and email the leading suspects, with dates and example URLs, within one business day.
Free Cause Check
Every confirmed Google update since December 2022
| Update | Type | Rollout | Days | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 2026 spam update | Spam | Sep 24 – Oct 8, 2026 | 14 | Google’s notice |
| August 2026 spam update | Spam | Aug 18–21, 2026 | 3 | Google’s notice |
| June 2026 spam update | Spam | Jun 24–26, 2026 | 2 | Google’s notice |
| May 2026 core update | Core | May 21 – Jun 2, 2026 | 12 | Google’s notice |
| March 2026 core update | Core | Mar 27 – Apr 8, 2026 | 12 | Google’s notice |
| March 2026 spam update | Spam | Mar 24–25, 2026 | 1 | Google’s notice |
| February 2026 Discover update | Discover | Feb 5–27, 2026 | 22 | Google’s notice |
| December 2025 core update | Core | Dec 11–29, 2025 | 18 | Google’s notice |
| August 2025 spam update | Spam | Aug 26 – Sep 22, 2025 | 27 | Google’s notice |
| June 2025 core update | Core | Jun 30 – Jul 17, 2025 | 17 | Google’s notice |
| March 2025 core update | Core | Mar 13–27, 2025 | 14 | Google’s notice |
| December 2024 spam update | Spam | Dec 19–26, 2024 | 7 | Google’s notice |
| December 2024 core update | Core | Dec 12–18, 2024 | 6 | Google’s notice |
| November 2024 core update | Core | Nov 11 – Dec 5, 2024 | 24 | Google’s notice |
| August 2024 core update | Core | Aug 15 – Sep 3, 2024 | 19 | Google’s notice |
| June 2024 spam update | Spam | Jun 20–27, 2024 | 7 | Google’s notice |
| Site reputation abuse policy takes effect | Spam policy | From May 5, 2024 | Google’s blog | |
| March 2024 core update | Core | Mar 5 – Apr 19, 2024 | 45 | Google’s notice |
| March 2024 spam update | Spam | Mar 5–20, 2024 | 15 | Google’s notice |
| November 2023 reviews update | Reviews | Nov 8 – Dec 7, 2023 | 29 | Google’s notice |
| November 2023 core update | Core | Nov 2–28, 2023 | 26 | Google’s notice |
| October 2023 core update | Core | Oct 5–19, 2023 | 14 | Google’s notice |
| October 2023 spam update | Spam | Oct 4–19, 2023 | 15 | Google’s notice |
| September 2023 helpful content update | Helpful content | Sep 14–28, 2023 | 14 | Google’s notice |
| August 2023 core update | Core | Aug 22 – Sep 7, 2023 | 16 | Google’s notice |
| April 2023 reviews update | Reviews | Apr 12–25, 2023 | 13 | Google’s notice |
| March 2023 core update | Core | Mar 15–28, 2023 | 13 | Google’s notice |
| February 2023 product reviews update | Reviews | Feb 21 – Mar 7, 2023 | 14 | Google’s notice |
| December 2022 link spam update | Link spam | Dec 14, 2022 – Jan 12, 2023 | 29 | Google’s notice |
| December 2022 helpful content update | Helpful content | Dec 5, 2022 – Jan 12, 2023 | 38 | Google’s notice |
Frequently asked questions
How do I know if Google penalized my site?
Open the Manual actions report in Search Console. A penalty, which Google calls a manual action, is listed there and in the Search Console message center; with none, Google says the report shows a green check mark (Manual actions report). A drop without one usually comes from an algorithmic update, a problem on your site, AI answers taking clicks, or a change in demand. The checker above tests the first and flags the third when clicks fell while impressions held.
How do you recover from a Google penalty?
For a manual action, fix the problem on every page the report lists, then select Request Review and describe your fixes. Google reviews the request (Reconsideration requests).
For an algorithmic update there is nothing to request. Google’s core updates guide suggests improving your content “in meaningful ways”, and says “there’s no guarantee” that changes will have a noticeable effect. For what to check first, see the Google suspect.
What is Google’s latest update, and how do I check for new ones?
The latest confirmed ranking update is the September 2026 spam update, which rolled out September 24 – October 8, 2026 (14 days), according to Google’s Search Status Dashboard, checked October 23, 2026. Google posts each confirmed update on the dashboard when it starts and when it ends. Our update calendar adds what each one means for a drop.
How long does a Google update take?
Since December 2022, confirmed rollouts have run from about a day (the March 2026 spam update) to 45 days (the March 2024 core update). The core updates since 2025 took 12–18 days. Google suggests waiting at least a full week after a core update completes before you compare your numbers (Core updates).
Why did my traffic suddenly drop?
Google’s guide to traffic drops lists the usual causes: an algorithmic update, technical problems that stop Google crawling or indexing pages, security or spam issues, seasonality and changing interest, site moves and migrations, and reporting glitches (Debug drops in Search traffic, last updated December 10, 2025). We group them into three suspects: your redesign, Google and AI. The date the drop started is the first clue, and it’s what this checker tests.
If my drop matches an update, was it Google?
Not necessarily. A match is a coincidence in time. In 2 of the 4 public cases from Google’s help forum we checked in October 2026, the update date alone would have blamed Google for something the site did (the four cases). Check your old URLs and your noindex tags before you settle on an update.
Can a tool check for a Google penalty from the outside?
Not for a manual action: only your own Search Console shows one. A tool that takes just a domain estimates your traffic from third-party data and matches its dips to update dates. Your own Search Console export holds your real clicks, which is why this checker uses it.
Does my Search Console data leave my browser?
No. The file is read and analysed by code running on this page, in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, stored or sent to us, and there is no sign-up or email address to give.