By Matt G. Southern
Publication Date: 2026-02-23 21:20:00
NewzDash published an analysis comparing Discover visibility before and after Google’s February 2026 Discover core update, using panel data from millions of US users tracked through its DiscoverPulse tool.
It compared pre-update (Jan 25-31) and post-update (Feb 8-14) windows across the top 1,000 domains and top 1,000 articles in the US, California, and New York.
For transparency, NewzDash is a news SEO tracking platform that sells Discover monitoring tools.
What The Data Shows
Google said the update targeted more locally relevant content, less sensational and clickbait content, and more in-depth, timely content from sites with topic expertise. The NewzDash data has early readings on all three.
NewzDash compared Discover feeds in California, New York, and the US as a whole. The three feeds mostly overlapped, but each state got local stories the others didn’t. New York-local domains appeared roughly five times more often in the New York feed than in the California feed, and vice…
