Google Releases Core Update Targeting Discover Feed

Google has released what it calls the February 2026 Discover core update, a broad change to the systems that surface content in the Discover feed.

Google says the update is initially limited to English-language users in the United States, and it plans to expand it to more countries and languages in the future.

Google announced the update on the Search Central Blog and posted it to the Search Status Dashboardas an incident affecting ranking.

What’s New

The update applies to Google Discover, the interest-based feed that surfaces content such as articles and videos.

Google says its testing showed that people found the Discover experience “more useful and worthwhile” with the update. The blog post lists three goals for the change.

The update targets locally relevant content by showing users more content from websites based in their country. It also aims to reduce sensational content and clickbait in the feed. And it prioritizes “in-depth, original, and timely content from…