What You’ll Learn
- Why Google rolled out two major algorithm changes in 2026, and what each one actually does to your practice websites.
- What DSOs should expect to see in their rankings, traffic, and Google Business Profiles over the coming months.
- The specific things your marketing team should keep an eye on, so you’re not caught off guard by the next update.
Google changes its search algorithm thousands of times a year, but most of those tweaks are invisible. A handful of times a year, though, Google rolls out something bigger: a broad core update or a spam update. In 2026, DSOs have had to pay attention to both. If you manage marketing for a multi-location dental group, or you’re an office manager wondering why your practice’s Google ranking suddenly moved, this article breaks it down in plain language.
What Exactly Is a Google Core Update?
Think of a core update as Google recalibrating its sense of what makes a webpage genuinely helpful. Google doesn’t target specific sites or punish anyone directly. Instead, it re-weighs the signals it already uses (things like expertise, trustworthiness, and how well a page actually answers a search question) and reshuffles rankings based on that new math.
If that sounds like tech jargon, don’t worry. Here’s the simple version: Google is trying to get better at putting the most useful page in front of the person searching. Sometimes your practice benefits from that shift. Sometimes a competitor’s page benefits instead, and yours slides down a few spots. Neither outcome means your website is “broken.”
Google’s most recent core update rolled out in May 2026 and finished on June 2. It followed an earlier core update in March 2026, and multiple SEO trackers described the May rollout as more noticeable than the one before it, with visible ranking movement across many industries, dental included.
What Is a Spam Update, and How Is It Different?
A spam update is a different animal. Where a core update is about rewarding quality, a spam update is about enforcement. Google uses this type of release to sharpen its automated spam-detection system, known as SpamBrain, so it can catch things like AI-generated content stuffed with keywords, doorway pages built purely to funnel traffic, or manipulative link schemes.
The most recent spam update hit in late June 2026. Google rolled it out over about two days, starting June 24 and finishing June 26, and it’s getting extra attention because of timing. Just weeks earlier, on May 15, 2026, Google had quietly expanded its spam policy to explicitly cover manipulating generative AI responses in Search, things like stuffing content with fake citations or building biased “best of” lists meant to trick AI Overviews.
That policy change happened before this rollout, so many in the SEO world are reading the June update as Google’s first real enforcement sweep against those AI manipulation tactics. Google didn’t announce any brand-new spam categories with this release. It’s an upgrade to the existing rules and to SpamBrain, not a new rulebook.
Here’s a quick side-by-side to keep the two straight:
| Feature | Core Update | Spam Update |
| Purpose | Re-ranks content based on overall quality and helpfulness | Detects and demotes sites that break spam policies |
| Who’s affected | Any site, even well-built ones, as rankings shift | Mainly sites using manipulative or low-value tactics |
| Recovery approach | Improve content quality over time; recovery is gradual | Fix the specific violation; recovery can happen faster |
| What it means for DSOs | Watch traffic trends across all locations, not just one | Audit thin, duplicated, or AI-manipulated location pages regularly |
Why This Matters More for DSOs Than for Solo Practices
A single dental office has one website to manage. A DSO might have dozens, sometimes hundreds, of location pages, and that scale cuts both ways. On one hand, a strong, group-wide approach to your DSO marketing strategy can compound into a serious competitive advantage across every location. On the other hand, if your group has been using templated, thin, or duplicated content to save time, that’s exactly the kind of pattern both updates are designed to catch.
Google’s guidance has consistently pointed toward one theme: original, well-attributed, genuinely useful content wins, while mass-produced or copy-paste content loses ground. That applies just as much to a 40-location DSO’s blog as it does to a single-practice website. It’s worth asking whether your AI-friendly DSO websites are actually built for both human visitors and AI crawlers, since hidden or thin content hurts a group on both fronts.
3 Signs Your DSO’s Web Presence May Need a Second Look
- Your location pages read like templates. If every city page says the same three sentences with only the city name swapped out, that’s a scaled content pattern Google is actively de-emphasizing.
- Your blog content lacks a real author. Pages attributed to a generic “team” byline with no bio or credentials carry less weight than content tied to a named, credible expert.
- Your reviews are stale. A large historical review count matters less than steady, recent activity, so if your locations haven’t earned new Google reviews lately, that’s worth fixing regardless of any update.
What Should DSOs Expect to See Happen?
In the weeks following a core update, it’s normal to see rankings move up and down more than usual before things settle. Some locations may gain visibility while others dip, even within the same practice group. That’s expected behavior, not a sign of a technical problem. Google itself has said there’s nothing specific to “fix” after a core update if your content was already built with patients in mind.
The spam update behaves differently. Because it targets specific policy violations, its effects tend to show up quickly, often within a day or two of the rollout, and they tend to be sharper. If a location’s traffic dropped suddenly right around a spam update’s rollout dates, that’s worth investigating for thin content, duplicate pages, manipulative backlinks, or content that leans too heavily on gaming AI search engines that generate answers instead of links.
5 Things Your DSO Marketing Team Should Watch Going Forward
- Search Console trends by location, not just an aggregate number across the whole group.
- Author attribution on blog and educational content, especially anything written with AI assistance.
- Review velocity, meaning new reviews coming in consistently on your Google Business Profile, not just total review count.
- Duplicate or near-duplicate content across multiple location pages.
- AI Overview appearances, since answer engines increasingly pull directly from Google Business Profiles and structured content, and if you’re not in those AI Overviews, patients may never see you at all.
Where AI Assistants Fit Into This Picture
Both updates are happening at the same time patients are increasingly asking AI assistants where to find a dentist instead of typing a search query. Tools like ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Perplexity pull from many of the same signals that core and spam updates are recalibrating, including content originality, author credibility, and up-to-date local information. Understanding GEO in the age of AI assistants is becoming just as important as traditional keyword-based SEO for any practice that wants to stay visible.
How to Prepare for the Next Update
You can’t predict exactly when Google will release its next core or spam update, but you can build a website that holds up regardless. That starts with treating every location page as its own piece of content worth writing well, not a copy-paste exercise. It also means keeping your team’s expertise visible: real names, real credentials, and real patient outcomes woven into your content.
Solid fundamentals in dental SEO and a general focus on SEO for dentists matter more after an update like this, not less. Multi-location groups that restructure their content, schema, and local signals for SEO built for DSOs tend to hold up better as Google increasingly favors AI Overviews over traditional blue links. If your team hasn’t yet adjusted content for how AI assistants surface local providers, comparing GEO versus SEO for DSOs is a good place to start.
AI Overviews are reshaping SEO for practices in a way that pairs well with the core and spam update conversation, since both forces are pushing in the same direction: reward substance, penalize shortcuts. That also means making sure your website works to attract both patients and bots, since AI crawlers now read your site the same way a human visitor would.
The Bottom Line
Two updates in one stretch of 2026 can feel like a lot to track, but the underlying message from Google has stayed consistent for years. Build content for the people reading it, keep your practice information accurate and current, and don’t rely on shortcuts across your locations. Practices and DSOs that were already doing that work had far less to worry about with either update.
Now that you understand what changed, it’s a good time to pull up your own Search Console data and see where your locations stand. Pick one location page that hasn’t been touched in a while and give it the attention it deserves this month.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What’s the difference between a Google core update and a spam update?
A: A core update re-evaluates content quality broadly and can move rankings up or down for almost any site. A spam update specifically targets sites violating Google’s spam policies, like thin AI content, manipulative links, or (as of the June 2026 update) attempts to game AI-generated search results, and tends to affect a narrower group of sites more sharply.
Q: How long does it take for rankings to recover after a core update?
A: There’s no fixed timeline. Google has said recovery often happens gradually and sometimes only becomes visible after a future update, especially if you’ve made real improvements to content quality in the meantime.
Q: Should DSOs worry if only some locations lost rankings after the update?
A: Uneven movement across locations is common and doesn’t necessarily point to a technical problem. It’s worth reviewing the specific pages that dropped for thin content, outdated information, or missing local signals before assuming something is broken.
Q: Does having AI-assisted content on our website put us at risk?
A: Not automatically. Google has said AI-assisted content that’s substantially edited by a named human expert and adds real value can perform well. The risk comes from publishing AI content at volume with no editing or attribution, not from using AI as a drafting tool.
Q: What’s the single most useful thing a DSO can do right now?
A: Audit your location pages for duplication and stale content, and make sure recent, genuine patient reviews are still coming in across all your locations. Both are within your control regardless of what Google changes next.
