Google and Yandex updates, autumn 2026: what your website should do

Google finished a major core update on 7 September, and Yandex has been assembling its results page with AI since spring. Why search traffic drops and what to check on your site right now.
Autumn 2026 is a rare case of both search engines changing the rules almost at once. If your site's search visits have dipped, the cause is most likely not your site but the way the results page itself now works.
What changed in Google in September 2026?
From 22 August to 7 September Google rolled out a core update — one of the year's largest, preceded by an August spam update. SEO practitioners report stronger filters against doubtful links and cloaked content, greater weight for brand signals, and AI Overviews now appearing in more than a quarter of searches. Google also watches behaviour closely: whether a person returns to the results page or stays on your site.
What changed in Yandex in 2026?
Since April Yandex has rebuilt its results page: the AI-Blender system assembles it in 50 milliseconds, choosing from more than forty block types. Instant AI answers now close half again as many queries right on the results page, and a separate Services section lists providers with ratings and reviews. An informational query increasingly ends on the results page — the visit goes to whoever the AI cites as a source.
Why does search traffic fall, and what does AI have to do with it?
Both engines now answer first and show links second. The winners are sites the AI picks as sources: fast pages, clear structure, question-and-answer markup, confirmed authorship. The losers are slow pages about everything and nothing — they get neither a citation in the AI answer nor a click below it.
What should a website do right now?
Check four things. Speed: a page should open in under a second. Substance: a service page needs prices, timelines and scope, not generic words. Markup: questions and answers, products with prices and images, organisation data — search engines read all of this from structured markup, and without it your site is invisible to AI. Trust: real company details, authorship and sources. This is exactly how our turnkey websites are built — pages open in a fraction of a second, and structured markup plus an AI-readable index file ship with every product.
How do I check my site after the update?
Open Google Search Console and Yandex Webmaster: compare impressions and clicks for the four weeks before and after 7 September. If the dip matches the update dates, the new rules are the reason. An hour of talking to a specialist for 2,100 RUB gets you a plain-words action plan for your particular site.