Google rolled out the February 2026 Discover Core Update from February 5, 2026 to February 27, 2026. The update lasted for 22 days, which is longer than the two weeks time frame initially announced by Google.
Google’s Official Announcement
Google announced the February 2026 Discover Core Update on its LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter) profiles.
Today, we're announcing an algorithmic change that enhances the quality of articles that appear on Discover. We're calling this the February 2026 Discover Core update.
Find out more in our blog post at https://t.co/AqLkmqcoPG
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) February 5, 2026
What Are People Saying?
The February 2026 Discover Core Update did not generate considerable chatter in the SEO community. However, creators who replied to Google’s LinkedIn post reacted positively to it.
Additional Information About the Update
Google published a blog post providing details about the February 2026 Discover Core Update. In the post, Google mentioned that this update will:
- Let users see content from their own countries
- Reduce the presence of sensational and clickbait content
- Show more in-depth and time-sensitive content from sites relevant to the topic
Google added that it will determine the topic relevance on a topic-by-topic basis. This means it gives every site, regardless of their size, to rank on Google Discover.
Google also confirmed that this update will only affect English-language users in the United States, but will expand to other countries and languages in the future.
With that said, this appears to be Google’s first Discover Core update. While Google has periodically released updates to Discover, those updates were typically released as part of a Core update.
Volatilities Observed During the Update
The February 2026 Discover Core Update caused little to no volatility. Creators generally did not report gaining or losing traffic. However, there are speculations that the update will reduce the chances of non-US websites from being shown to US-based users.
Updates to the Google Discover Documentation
Google also updated its Discover documentation with tips for ranking on Discover. This includes:
- Provide great user and page experience to users
- Avoid relying on sensational content tactics to attract traffic
- Avoid using clickbait or misleading titles, snippets, and images
- Use highly-relevant titles and headlines for your Discover content
- Provide timely content that tells a good story or provides unique insights
- Avoid withholding information that helps users to understand the content
- Enable the image size using AMP or the
max-image-preview:largerobots setting - Use Schema markup or the
og:imagemeta tag to specify relevant images - Always include large, relevant, and high-quality images in your content
- Avoid using generic images in your content and logo
- Only use images that are at least 1200px wide
- Avoid text-heavy images in your content
Google also provided specific guidance for images on Discover. Images should be at least 1200px wide, have a 16:9 aspect ratio, and contain more than 300,000 total pixels.
Google also added that it usually tries to crop the images that appear in Discover. However, creators who decide to crop it themselves should ensure it is well-cropped for landscape use.
Creators should also avoid applying an aspect ratio to their images, and should also specify its most important details using the og:image meta tag.
What’s Next – Dealing with This Update
The February 2026 Discover Core update did not appear to cause considerable traffic gains or losses. While some creators started to appear in Discover again, there is little to no complaints about creators losing traffic.
