GrowthAgents AI

Tag: Google Search Console

  • Another Google Update Is Coming. Here’s What To Do

    Another Google Update Is Coming. Here’s What To Do

    Is Google’s next core update already overdue? Based on Google’s own update history, the honest answer is: it’s due, not early. Google’s last core update ran from May 21 to June 2, 2026, and as of October 6, 2026, that is 138 days with no core update since. That gap already runs longer than Google’s typical pace between updates.

    Is Google Overdue For Another Core Update?

    From 2022 to 2025, Google averaged about 3.3 core updates per year, roughly one every three to four months. A firm that has gone 138 days without a core update is not ahead of that pace. It is behind it.

    What Is Happening Right Now?

    Google’s September 2026 spam update began September 24, 2026, and as of October 6 it was still listed as active, about 12 days into the rollout. Google itself said the process could take up to two weeks.

    Does An Active Spam Update Mean A Core Update Is Coming Next?

    Not reliably. A spam update does not reliably predict that a core update is next, but it does not make one less likely either. Google has a history of running the two close together. In March 2026, a core update began just three days after a spam update.

    Why Has 2026 Been Such An Active Year?

    Google announced four spam updates in 2026 alone, in March, June, August, and September. Compare that with one spam update in 2023, three in 2024, and one in 2025. By that measure, 2026 has been an unusually active year for Google algorithm activity, core updates included.

    What Should A Small Firm Actually Do About It?

    Stop trying to guess Google’s calendar. Every time rankings move, it is tempting to scroll for “which update hit me” and start rewriting pages around a theory. With four spam updates and no core update in over four months this year, there is always a plausible update to blame, which makes guessing easy and useless at the same time.

    Use the quiet stretch instead. The clearest advice on this comes from the source itself: watch Google’s Search Status Dashboard and official announcements, and treat the gap between updates as a measurement window for auditing content quality, rather than scrambling to explain a swing after it happens.

    For a small firm, that means building a running baseline in your own Google Search Console before the next update lands, not after.

    • Pull current traffic, impressions, clicks, and average position by page, and save a copy outside Search Console’s rolling data window.
    • Date it. When the next update is confirmed, you compare against this exact snapshot, not memory.
    • Audit your weakest pages now, while nothing is moving, instead of during a scramble later.

    Why Look Beyond Rankings At All?

    Rankings on a results page are the measure Google’s updates move most directly, and they matter. But a growing share of people ask an AI assistant for a recommendation instead of scanning a results page. Citation Share, the share of AI-assistant answers in your market that name your firm directly, is a separate visibility signal, one that does not rise or fall with any single Google algorithm change. It is worth tracking alongside your Search Console baseline, not instead of it.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Should I rewrite my site every time rankings move?

    No. Rankings fluctuate for ordinary reasons, and in a year with this many updates, there is almost always something to blame whether or not it actually caused the move. Check your baseline, traffic, impressions, clicks, and position over time, before you change anything.

    What is Citation Share?

    Citation Share is the percentage of AI-assistant answers in your market that mention your firm by name. It is a visibility metric your firm can track, not a guarantee of any outcome tied to a particular update or platform.

    Is this legal advice?

    No. This is informational commentary on search industry trends, not legal advice. Talk to your own counsel about matters specific to your firm.

    See where your own site stands before the next update hits: run it through SiteScan, a free tool that grades five pages and shows a before-and-after score in about two minutes, no card required.

  • Marketing Spend Is Up. Law Firm Accountability Isn’t.

    Marketing Spend Is Up. Law Firm Accountability Isn’t.

    <p>Law firm spending is climbing fast. Marketing budgets, tech stacks, knowledge-management tools — all up. Accountability for that spending hasn’t moved at the same pace. That gap, not the latest AI-native competitor or algorithm update, is the real risk sitting in front of your firm right now.</p>

    <h2>How much are firms actually spending?</h2>
    <p>A lot more than last year. A <a href=”https://xira.com/p/2026/09/30/law-firm-marketing-spending-rises-but-accountability-gap-widens/”>September 30, 2026 industry report</a> pulled together several surveys, and the pattern holds across all of them. The Wells Fargo Legal Specialty Group surveyed more than 140 firms and found average revenue at large U.S. firms rose 12.4% in the first half of 2026, while expenses rose 9.6% over the same period, as <a href=”https://xira.com/p/2026/09/30/law-firm-marketing-spending-rises-but-accountability-gap-widens/”>reported September 30, 2026</a>. Revenue is outrunning expense growth. Firms are willing to spend to keep it that way.</p>

    <h2>Where is that money going?</h2>
    <p>Technology and knowledge management, mostly. Thomson Reuters Institute and Georgetown Law’s 2026 Report on the State of the U.S. Legal Market, cited in the <a href=”https://xira.com/p/2026/09/30/law-firm-marketing-spending-rises-but-accountability-gap-widens/”>September 30, 2026 report</a>, found technology spending up 9.7% and knowledge-management spending up 10.5% in 2025. Firms aren’t dabbling. They’re building infrastructure. Clio’s 2025 Legal Trends Report, also cited there, found 79% of legal professionals now use AI in their firms — and growing firms use it at twice the rate of stable or shrinking ones.</p>

    <h2>Does spending more on tech actually pay off?</h2>
    <p>Sometimes. The same Thomson Reuters and Georgetown research, referenced in the <a href=”https://xira.com/p/2026/09/30/law-firm-marketing-spending-rises-but-accountability-gap-widens/”>September 30, 2026 analysis</a>, found firms with a visible AI strategy were 3.9 times as likely to see at least one form of ROI than firms without one. “At least one form of ROI” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. It’s not a guarantee. It’s a correlation between having a strategy at all and seeing some benefit, measured somehow, by someone.</p>

    <h2>So what’s the actual gap here?</h2>
    <p>It’s not that firms are spending blindly. It’s that spending and reporting are growing at different speeds. Budgets scale every year. Verification doesn’t. A firm can raise its marketing line item every quarter and still not answer a simple question: what, specifically, is this money producing that we can point to and prove? Vendors hand over dashboards full of “engagement,” “visibility,” and “ROI” — language that sounds like accountability without being built from anything you can independently check.</p>

    <h2>Why does this matter more now than it used to?</h2>
    <p>Because the stakes are higher. Revenue is up, expenses are up, and the money flowing into marketing and technology is no longer a rounding error. It’s a real decision, made every budget cycle. A managing partner approving another spend increase deserves better than a vendor’s self-reported summary. They deserve numbers they can open in their own account and check for themselves.</p>

    <h2>What should you actually ask your marketing vendor for?</h2>
    <p>Ask for the metrics that live in tools you already control: organic traffic, search impressions, keyword rankings, click-through rate. These come straight out of Google Search Console, not a vendor’s internal reporting layer. If a vendor can’t show you a number inside a system you own, it isn’t proof. It’s a claim.</p>
    <ul>
    <li>Traffic: is organic traffic to your site trending up or down, and on which pages?</li>
    <li>Impressions: is your firm showing up more often in search results for the terms that matter?</li>
    <li>Rankings: are specific pages moving up or down for specific keywords?</li>
    <li>Clicks: are people actually clicking through, and from where?</li>
    </ul>
    <p>Notice what’s missing: which post “produced” a client. No credible reporting system can show you that, and any vendor that claims it can is selling a story, not a dashboard.</p>

    <h2>Frequently asked questions</h2>

    <h3>Does more marketing spend mean more clients?</h3>
    <p>Not automatically. Revenue and expense growth are both up industry-wide, but that’s a market-level trend, not proof that any one marketing dollar produced any one client. Spend and outcome are two separate questions — treat them that way.</p>

    <h3>What’s a reasonable reporting standard to demand?</h3>
    <p>Numbers you can verify in a tool you control, like Google Search Console or your site’s own analytics. Traffic, impressions, rankings, and clicks are provable. “Brand lift” and “engagement score” usually aren’t.</p>

    <h3>Is AI adoption itself the differentiator?</h3>
    <p>Having a visible strategy correlates with seeing some ROI, per the Thomson Reuters and Georgetown data above. But adoption alone isn’t the point. What you can measure from it is.</p>

    <h3>Is this legal advice?</h3>
    <p>No. This is general commentary on industry spending and reporting trends, not legal or financial advice for your firm.</p>

    <p>Before you approve another marketing line-item increase, find out what you can actually verify about the one you already have. <a href=”https://growthagents.ai/sitescan”>Run your site through SiteScan</a> — it’s free, it grades your site across five pages, and it hands you numbers you can check yourself, not a vendor’s summary of itself.</p>