Google's August Core Update - "Core Update Notes" Part 3 - HCUX Sites, Tremors, Site Reputation Abuse, YMYL, Links, and more.
SEO From The Front LinesShow Notes
This is Part 3 of "Core Update Notes" for the August broad core update. I cover an update on September Helpful Content Updates sites (HCUX), tremors I'm seeing during the update, sites violating Google's Site Reputation Abuse spam policy, how YMYL sites can surge even with a fraction of the links of competitors, how Google will eventually catch up with sites heavily publishing AI-generated content without human involvement, how LinkedIn pulse and advice are dropping with the August core update, and more.
00:00 "Core Update" notes for August 30th
00:51 An update on sites impacted by the September helpful content update (HCUX)
02:38 Algorithm update "Tremors" - or changes pushed by Google during the core update
05:00 Site reputation abuse - big drops and some surges
07:07 YMYL site impact - not always about the links...
08:26 Links will not (always) save you from a broad core update.
09:28 Pushing the Limits? Google will eventually catch up.
10:42 Recovery from the June 2024 spam update?
11:37 PSA: Domain name changes and migrations DURING broad core updates.
12:36 LinkedIn Pulse and Advice directories dropping.
14:14 Things to Know SERP feature impact.
16:18 Summary of "Core Update Notes" for August 30th 2024
And make sure to check out the other episodes covering "Core Update Notes" from the August core update:
Core Update Notes from August 19, 2024
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4TK7m2NAhw5Kth25f1f0tb
Core Update Notes From August 23, 2024
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3U5ugx08nT6IuFnPPn0jxR
Follow me on X: https://x.com/glenngabe
Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glenngabe/
More from SEO From The Front Lines
In August of 2025, 434 days ago to be exact, I tested AI Search platforms like ChatGPT and Claude to see how well they could render JavaScript-based content. The results were terrible. So I decided to rerun my testing to see how much the AI Search platforms have evolved since then. You would think that ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity would be rendering JavaScript-based content now in order to get a full picture of the content across websites...
Glenn covers four case studies based on Google's August 2026 spam update. The update was powerful and impacted many sites that were violating Google's spam policies. Glenn covers a number of important topics, including 'Scaled content abuse', AI-generated content, programmatic content, 'Thin affiliates', 'Malicious functionality', and more.
The May 2026 Google core update was a powerful algorithm update that rolled out on May 21, 2026 and completed on June 2, 2026. Unlike the March 2026 core update, the May update was extremely powerful and caused a lot of volatility across sites, categories, and countries.
I coined the phrase “Mt. AI” based on seeing many sites scale with AI-generated content, surge in Google, only to crash as Google’s systems pick up what’s going on (or Google applies a manual action to the site for “Scaled content abuse”.) Well, there was a great example of this happening recently, which provided a unique opportunity to see how citations in ChatGPT were impacted in real-time. The website National Today added a new directory recently containing over 850K AI-generated local news articles. And no, they are not a local news site... The site surged in Google and in AI search platforms like ChatGPT. But those articles got noticed... And then Futurism wrote an expose about the situation, Google picked up the issue, and then applied a manual action for “Scaled content abuse”. And as you can guess, the site tanked in Google’s 10-blue links, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. But how did the site fare in ChatGPT? Well, that's the topic of my case study, which I cover in this video. I dug into AI Search visibility for National Today’s /us/ directory where all of the AI-generated local news content resides. Like I would expect, citations dropped heavily in ChatGPT once the manual action was applied. My video contains all of the details. Chapters: 00:00 When “Mt. AI” crumbles, ChatGPT citations follow suit. 00:52 Scaled content abuse with 850K AI-generated news articles. 01:27 “Mt. AI” and the problem with scaling AI-generatedcontent heavily. 03:14 Google applies a manual action for “Scaled content abuse” 03:54 The site drops in AI Overviews and AI Mode. 04:24 What happens with ChatGPT when a site tanks in Google? 05:52 Examples of citations dropping in ChatGPT. 08:05 Some ChatGPT citations did remain (for now). 09:14 Summary: Don’t become the next “Mt. AI”. Beware.
“What do I need to do in order to be visible in AISearch?" I get that question a lot. So the "Gabeback Machine" is back, but with an AI Search twist :) In this video, I cover my blog post titled, “Straight From the (AI) Source: Is AEO/GEO different than SEO? Google, Microsoft, and others explain how to be visible in AI search [Quotes, videos, articles, and more]”. There's a lot of debate about how to make sure you are visible in AI Search. Some say AEO/GEO strategy and tactics are different than what you should be doing for SEO, while others say what you do for SEO should cover AI Search. Well, just like I did when covering Google's site-level quality evaluation, Iwanted to provide a central place where site owners could find all of the information that the various AI search platforms have explained about how to be visible across AI search. Join me as I cover quotes, videos, articles, and more covering what Google, Microsoft, and others have explained about SEO versus AEO/GEO. There is some great information directly from the source. I also plan to update my post as we learn more from the various platforms about AI search visibility.