Google is now judging your content across multiple systems at once.
The March 2026 core update is still within its rollout window, and impact is continuing to arrive in stages rather than all at once. That means stable rankings today do not guarantee stability tomorrow. Google is still recalibrating which pages deserve visibility.
Action: Check whether your secondary pages and long-tail queries are losing impressions first. If your top keywords hold but overall visibility narrows, Google is already reducing your exposure before making more obvious ranking changes.
Check whether your secondary pages are losing impressions. This is the first sign of the Core Update Drift we are tracking across Perth industries. If your primary rankings hold but overall visibility narrows, Google is already reducing your exposure before making more obvious ranking changes.
Googlebot is not just crawling your site. It is deciding how much of it is worth reading.
New clarification confirms Googlebot fetches up to 2MB of a page. Anything beyond that may not be processed properly, yet can still be treated as “indexed”. This means heavy templates, bloated scripts, and buried content are now direct SEO risks.
Action: Audit your key templates. If your strongest content sits behind excessive code or layout elements, you are increasing the chance that Google never fully processes what makes your page valuable.
Google is tightening control over where your traffic comes from.
Gemini traffic is growing, Search Live has expanded globally, and Google is testing AI-generated headline rewrites in traditional search. This signals a shift: Google is not just ranking your page, it is controlling how and where users interact with it.
Action:
Review your titles and key content sections. If Google can rewrite or summarise your page more clearly than you can, you are handing over control of your click-through rate.
PunkFox Take
Google is no longer running one search system.
It is running three:
A ranking system, a processing system, and a presentation system
That is why SEO is getting harder to diagnose.
A page can:
Rank well, be partially processed, and be rewritten or bypassed by AI
Ben Murphy is an SEO specialist with over 15 years of hands-on experience helping businesses grow through transparent, data-driven search strategies, having launched and scaled one of Manchester’s leading SEO agencies before relocating to Perth in 2025 to bring his proven methodology to the Australian market. Known for long-term client retention, measurable results, and a partnership-first approach, Ben now leads PunkFox with a focus on delivering senior-level expertise, honest guidance, and sustainable organic growth for brands across Perth and beyond.
