TL;DR Summary:
EU Search Shakeup: Google’s Digital Markets Act changes rolled out across Europe on September 8 and are already reshaping results, visibility, and SERP layouts for EU traffic.Ad Tech Pressure: A federal judge blocked the DOJ’s breakup push but ordered major behavioral remedies, which could still change bidding and pricing inside Google Ad Manager.Data Gaps and Bugs: Google Business Profiles insights recovered after an outage, while Search Console’s Links report remains stale, making reporting and backlink tracking less reliable this month.ICYMI – Digital Markets Act Search Changes Trigger Quality Drop Warning | Week of September 13 2026
There was no confirmed core or broad algorithm update this week. The most significant development was Google’s rollout of Digital Markets Act search changes across the EU on September 8, which Google itself described to Reuters as the biggest quality reduction in Search’s 29-year history. Alongside that, local SEOs dealt with a Google Business Profiles insights outage, and a federal judge issued a partial ruling in the DOJ’s ad-tech antitrust case.
Digital Markets Act Search Changes Reshape EU Results
Google rolled out revamped search results in Europe on September 8 to comply with the Digital Markets Act and a €460M self-preferencing fine issued in July. Google told Reuters the changes represent “the largest reduction in quality of service” in Search’s history. Google also pushed back on the EU’s framing, arguing the changes favor price comparison sites over Google’s own services rather than leveling the playing field as intended. For SEOs and advertisers working in European markets, this means SERP layouts and competitor visibility are shifting now, not on some future timeline. Anyone with EU traffic should expect ranking volatility tied directly to these changes rather than a typical algorithm update.
Ad-Tech Antitrust Ruling Falls Short of Breakup
On September 2, Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected the DOJ’s push to force Google to divest its AdX exchange and DFP ad server, both bundled into Google Ad Manager. She did order Google to adopt “most of the parties’ proposed behavioral remedies.” Under prior proposed fixes, Google committed to sharing real-time AdX bid data with rival ad servers and to deprecating its Unified Pricing Rules, letting publishers set different price floors per bidder in GAM. Publishers running ad-supported content sites should watch for pricing and bidding changes in Ad Manager in the coming months, since these operational shifts affect ad revenue even though the breakup itself did not happen.
Google Business Profiles Insights Data Outage Resolved
Google Business Profiles insights analytics showed no data for the entirety of early September 2026. Barry Schwartz flagged on day eight of the month that data was still missing, and confirmed on September 11 that insights data appeared to be populating again. Local SEOs relying on GBP insights for reporting lost roughly a week and a half of usable data during this window. If you pull monthly client reports, flag this gap explicitly rather than showing a data dip that looks like a performance drop.
Search Console Links Report Still Stuck
Separately from the GBP issue, Google Search Console’s Links report has not refreshed in a month, with the most recent link data dated around August 8, 2026. This is an unresolved bug, not a confirmed permanent change, and Google has not given a fix date. Technical SEOs tracking backlink growth or disavow impact through GSC should treat current Links report data as stale and cross-check against third-party backlink tools until Google confirms a fix.
AI Overviews Interface Tests and a New Ranking Factors Survey
Search Engine Roundtable’s daily recaps between September 7 and 11 noted Google testing a thinner citations panel in AI Overviews and paginated AI Mode follow-up responses with a skip option. Some advertisers also began seeing Gemini-powered AI dashboards in Google Ads, a feature first previewed in May. Separately, a survey by Cyrus Shepard and Dawn Shepard published at Zyppy, cited in the September 10 recap, found content relevance, backlinks, and content quality rated as the most important ranking factors by surveyed experts. None of these are confirmed rollouts to all users yet, so treat them as directional signals rather than settled features.
What to do this week
Check your Google Business Profiles insights dashboard now and export September data before annotating any reports, noting the outage period (roughly September 1–11) so clients don’t misread it as a traffic drop.
If you manage EU-facing sites, pull a September 8 before/after screenshot of your top 10 target keywords’ SERPs to document layout changes tied to the Digital Markets Act search changes rollout.
Cross-reference your backlink data in a third-party tool (Ahrefs, Semrush, or similar) against Search Console’s Links report, since GSC has not updated since roughly August 8, 2026. A tool like Backlink Checker can handle this cross-referencing automatically, tracking new, lost, and toxic backlinks in real time so you’re not relying solely on GSC’s stalled data.
If you run display ads through Google Ad Manager, check your account for early notices on Unified Pricing Rules deprecation or new bid-floor settings tied to the September 2 antitrust ruling.
