Here is the big Google Webmaster Report for August 2026, including of course the ongoing Google search ranking volatility; we saw volatility on August 1st into August 3rd and then on July 24th, 18th, July 11th and more. Also, Google added Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite to Google Search, such as for some (not all) AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Google had a very big earnings release, showing they just keep making money and search is breaking records. The EU then fined Google $1 billion, which is not much considering Google made $120 billion in the previous quarter alone. Google lost is lawsuit against SerpApi, which is a big win for SEO tools.
Despite Google saying it sends billions of clicks to websites through AI Search but we are not convinced. Many large publishers are considering blocking Google Search completely. I mean, we are now seeing about half of searches have AI Overviews on them.
Google Search Console announced the ability to see Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X data in Search Console and then later rolled out those platform properties to everyone. More and more are see the generative AI controls in Search Console. Google's page indexing report is laggy and there are more issues with Search Console.
Google announced a redesigned image search home page and stuffing AI-generated images in AI Overviews. Plus, we have a ton of SEO news, see below and on the local side, we had plenty of ongoing bugs.
If you missed last month, you can read the July 2026 Google Webmaster Report.
Here are the bigger stories from the past month:
Google Algorithm Updates:
- Google Search Ranking Volatility July 24th Through The Weekend
- Google Search Ranking Volatility This Weekend - Around July 18th & 19th
- Google Search Ranking Volatility Around 7-Eleven
- Google Search Using Latest Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
- Google Search Console Now Shows You Instagram, TikTok, X & YouTube Content Search Performance
- Google Platform Properties Now Fully Live
- Google Search Generative AI Controls Rolling Out Beyond UK Sites
- Google Page Indexing Report Delays Providing Static Data
- Google Request Indexing Issue With Robots.txt Files?
- Hack: Google AI Performance Reports For Platform Properties
- Google Review Snippets Prohibits Fake or Undisclosed Incentivized Reviews
- Google: Discovered vs Crawled Not Indexed Quality Issues & AI-Generated Content
- Blocking Internal Search Results Not In Google Guidelines Anymore But...
- Google Search Doesn't Publish Precedence For Metadata In Conflict
- The Problem With unavailable_after - Google Might Not See Updated Dates
- Google Updates Its Crawl Budget Doc: Every Site Starts On Conservative Crawl
- Google: You're Better Off Without Lastmod Dates When They Are Incorrect
- Google: Significant Differences With A/B Tests Can Show In Search Results
- Google Reaffirms Include Canonical On Canonical Page Itself
- Google: Canonicalization Issues May Take Up To Two Weeks To Resolve
- Google Adds Product Category & Sale Duration To Merchant Listing Doc
- Google: Cloudflare Content Signals Robots.txt Directive Has No Effects
- Google Renamed NotebookLM Useragent To Google-GeminiNotebook
- Google StoreBot Accessibility Issues Help Document Updated
- Google To Merge Google Shopping Ads & Free Listing Policies To One Policy
- New Google Reviews Bug: You Have No Reviews Yet
- Google Local Reviews Go Missing For Many Businesses
- Google Maps Review Not Posted Email Notice
- Another Google Local Bug: Google Local Review Replies Not Displaying
- Google Business Profiles Products Are Stuck In Pending Status
- Google Business Profiles New Collected Info (Visuals)
- Google Business Profile Dashboard In Blue
- Google Business Profiles Appeals Adds Evidence Uploads In Workflow
- Google Business Profile Restrictions & Penalties Are Additive
- Google Image Search Home Page Goes From Simple Search Box To Gallery
- AI Image Generation Now Within Google AI Overviews
- Google Tests google.com/goto Tracking URLs In Search Results
- Google Related Searches Based On Your Browsing
- Further Exploration Found In The Wild Within Google AI Overviews
- Google Tests New Local Places Layout Design
- Google Ad Revenue Up 14.5% With Revenue Up 24% - Biggest Quarter Ever
- EU Fines Google $1 Billion Under DMA For Anti-Competitive Search Dominance
- Google Lawsuit Against SerpApi Over Scraping Search Results Dismissed
- Large Publishers Strongly Considering Blocking Google Search Completely
- Google: We Send Billions Of Clicks To Websites Weekly Through AI Search
- Google Search Broke All Usage Records With Highest Usage Yesterday
- Google Hotel Search Updates In EU Based On DMA
- Almost Half Of Google Searches Have AI Overviews & Climbing
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
