Google updates

When a ranking drops, the first question is often whether Google changed something. SEOComet reads Google’s Search Status Dashboard every few minutes and sends an alert when Google starts or finishes an update. It’s on every plan.

You get one alert when an update starts and one when it ends.

Which updates

Go to Alerts and find Google updates. Under Send alerts for there are three choices:

• Core updates: Google’s broad changes to how it ranks results, a few times a year.
• Other ranking updates: spam, Discover, reviews and any other update Google announces.
• Search incidents: problems Google reports with crawling, indexing or serving results.

Core updates and other ranking updates are on to start with. Search incidents are off.

The owner and people who can edit all sites can change these. People who can only view don’t have Alerts in their sidebar.

Where the emails go

Under Send them to:

• Everyone’s email sends to everyone in the account at their verified email. It’s on to start with. People with access to selected sites only don’t get it.
• And these channels adds any of your alert channels: email, Slack or a signed webhook. None are picked to start with, and a channel that’s turned off gets nothing. On Free, channels are email only.

These settings are separate from your alert level. Google updates aren’t incidents, so the alert level and per-site alerts don’t change who hears about them.

The newest few alerts sent are listed under the settings.

## Without an account You don’t need an account to hear about Google updates. On the [Google updates](/google-updates) page, enter your email and pick **Core updates only** or **Every ranking update**. SEOComet sends a link to confirm your address first, and nothing is sent until you confirm. Every email has an unsubscribe link.