On this page · 11 sections
- What the CMA imposed on 17 June 2026
- The dates that matter between now and 2028
- How the notice clock works
- Will core updates come with advance notice?
- Worked example: reading the notice calendar
- What Google can no longer weigh
- Complaints, appeals and the 50-publisher trigger
- What changes for SEO teams in 2027
- Limits, and notes for India, the EU and the US
- How eCorpIT can help
- References
Summary. On 17 June 2026 the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) imposed its fair ranking conduct requirement on Google, and Google has until 17 December 2026 to comply. From then, organic results shown to people in the UK, including links inside AI Overviews and AI Mode but not ads, must be ranked on objective, non-discriminatory criteria. Google may not weigh whether a site advertises with it, has another commercial deal with it, has opted out of its AI features or has taken legal action against it. SEO teams will notice the clock first: at least 30 business days' notice of a change publishers can act on, such as a new spam policy, and at least 15 business days' notice of a significant change Google can explain. Today updates appear on the Search Status Dashboard as rollout starts. Google must also run a feedback route for material changes, send details to the CMA if 50 publishers complain within 30 business days of a rollout finishing, and is expected to answer manual action reconsideration requests within 14 business days. Its first compliance report is due on 17 January 2027. Whether broad core updates get notice is the open question for 2027: Google classifies each change and must justify the call to the CMA.
About this article. For SEO leads, publishers and agencies with UK search traffic, including Indian and US sites with UK readers. On 1 November 2026 we read the CMA's notice, interpretative notes (version 1, June 2026), final decision and compliance reporting notice, all dated 17 June 2026, with its August 2026 summary, and checked Google's practice against its Search Status Dashboard and Search Central pages. This is general information, not legal advice, and no vendor paid for inclusion. Google has not yet published its notice channel or feedback process, so re-check before you rely on any detail. Researched with AI assistance and reviewed by our editorial team.
What the CMA imposed on 17 June 2026
The CMA designated Google with strategic market status in general search on 10 October 2025, under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. The fair ranking requirement followed the publisher requirement of 3 June 2026 and was imposed on the same day as a data portability requirement. The notice says it comes into force six months after its date, and the CMA's August summary gives Google until 17 December 2026 to comply. It runs until 10 October 2030 unless varied or revoked.
The notice has nine numbered paragraphs, the first of them definitions. The table maps the rest, using the notice and the interpretative notes.
| Notice paragraph | What Google must do | What it means for an SEO team |
|---|---|---|
| 2 and 3 | Covers organic results, results within AI Overviews and AI Mode, and how organic results rank against Google's features, all shown to people in the UK; paid results excluded | Your blue links, Top Stories, Discover and AI answer citations for UK searchers |
| 4.a | Ignore advertising, other commercial deals, AI opt-outs and legal action when ranking | An AI opt-out must not be weighed in your UK rankings |
| 4.b | Apply the same objective criteria to Google's own products as to equivalent third-party ones | Matters to travel, shopping, local and video publishers competing with Google modules |
| 5 | Up to six months' exemption from 4.b while testing a new feature | New features can run outside the self-preferencing rule for up to half a year |
| 6.a | Publish how ranking works: criteria, policies and procedures | A public reference for audits and client reports |
| 6.b | Notice of 30 business days for actionable changes, 15 for significant and explainable ones | A planning window before UK rollouts |
| 7.a | A feedback route for material changes with distortive effects on UK markets | A formal channel, separate from forum threads |
| 7.b | Substantive answers to manual action reconsideration requests | A 14-business-day service standard is expected |
| 8 | Send the CMA details if 50 publishers give feedback within 30 business days of a change taking effect | Coordinated feedback can prompt regulatory dialogue |
| 9 | Alternative dispute settlement for sites manually excluded from the index | An escalation path beyond reconsideration |
Scope follows the searcher, not the server. The interpretative notes accept the location a device reports, and a publisher is any party that makes content available on the web. On our reading, an Indian or US site is covered for its UK results. The notes name People Also Ask, Top Stories and Google Discover as organic surfaces in scope.
The dates that matter between now and 2028
These dates come from the two CMA notices and the compliance reporting notice.
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 3 Dec 2026 | Publisher requirement in force, including its anti-retaliation rule | Publisher notice |
| 17 Dec 2026 | Fair ranking requirement in force | CMA notice and summary |
| 17 Jan 2027 | First compliance report (17 Jun to 17 Dec 2026) due | Compliance reporting notice |
| 3 Mar 2027 | Page-level AI grounding control in force | Publisher notice |
| 17 Jul 2027 | Second report (18 Dec 2026 to 17 Jun 2027) due | Compliance reporting notice |
| 17 Jul 2028 | First 12-month report (18 Jun 2027 to 17 Jun 2028) due; annual thereafter | Compliance reporting notice |
| 10 Oct 2030 | Last day of the designation period, unless extended | CMA notice |
For each material change, the compliance reporting notice requires Google to explain whether and why it was actionable or significant and explainable, and to describe at a high level the changes it judged not material. The CMA expects to follow a report with a notice requiring Google to publish a summary or non-confidential version; no date is set.
Expect little classification evidence from the first report: its period ends on the day the rule starts. The second, due on 17 July 2027, is the first that can show how Google sorted real changes under the rule.
How the notice clock works
Two kinds of material change
The notice defines a material change as either of two things.
- Actionable change. A change to ranking criteria, policies or procedures that publishers can respond to, to avoid or reduce its effect on their ranking. The interpretative notes expect that action to be specific and discrete, and possible within a reasonable time. Minimum notice: 30 business days, about six weeks.
- Significant and explainable change. Any other change that may cause significant ranking shifts and that Google can explain. The notes rule out minor, everyday or general ranking improvements and expect Google to be able to say what is changing and why. Minimum notice: 15 business days, about three weeks.
The CMA's final decision gives examples. Introducing the site reputation abuse policy or the back button hijacking policy, or changing how the SafeSearch default works, would likely have been actionable. Introducing BERT or the intelligent Search Box, and the February 2026 Discover core update, which changed how locally relevant content surfaces based on a site's country, would likely have been significant and explainable.
What a notice must contain depends on what is changing, not on the category. For policies and procedures, the CMA expects the nature of the change, its purpose and key specifications and, where possible, the types of publisher affected. For key ranking criteria, it expects the outcome or objective, not the proxy signals behind ranking scores.
Three details decide when the clock starts and what you will see.
- Introduced means the start of UK rollout after Google takes a formal launch decision. Pre-launch tests limited to a small subset of UK search traffic are outside the requirement.
- Google can hold back some detail. A notice need not cover minor everyday improvements, information that could enable manipulation or undermine the change's aim, or commercially sensitive material. If it withholds commercial information, it must tell the CMA why.
- The periods are a floor. The final decision says more notice would be valuable where a change is likely to have wider impact, though the rule does not require it.
The CMA's consultation proposed at least 30 business days. Google argued for 30 on actionable changes and 15 on the rest, and a few respondents wanted longer on major changes, including three to six months. The CMA adopted Google's split as a minimum.
Will core updates come with advance notice?
The CMA documents do not answer this directly.
Current practice is visible in Google's list of ranking updates. The March 2026 core update began on 27 March (12 days and 4 hours), the May 2026 core update on 21 May (11 days and 21 hours) and the September 2026 spam update on 24 September (13 days and 16 hours). Each was posted as rollout began. The May entry went up three minutes after the start and says only that the update was released and may take up to two weeks. Google's core updates page promises notice when updates happen, not before, and says smaller core updates go unannounced because they are not widely noticeable.
The case for notice. Google's own page describes core updates as significant, broad changes, and the CMA counted a Discover core update as significant and explainable. Had the rule applied to the May 2026 core update, a 15-business-day notice would have been due by 29 April 2026, allowing for the 4 May bank holiday.
The case against. The category requires that Google can explain what is changing and why, and excludes general ranking improvements. The May dashboard entry states no purpose, and Google's core updates page describes these updates in general terms, as serving its aim of presenting helpful and reliable results. Google could argue a given update is a bundle of general improvements.
Who decides. Google classifies each change. It must report the changes it judged not material, with a high-level rationale, and the CMA may raise a material change on its own initiative, including ones made before the rule started. The Professional Publishers Association (PPA) says the CMA will judge compliance mainly on Google's processes rather than ranking outcomes, and criticised that choice on 22 June 2026.
The likely categories below are our judgement, except where the CMA gives the example.
| Familiar Google change | Likely category | Minimum notice | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| New spam or site policy, such as site reputation abuse | Actionable | 30 business days | High: CMA example |
| Discover core update with a stated purpose | Significant and explainable | 15 business days | High: CMA example |
| Broad named core update | Significant and explainable, or not material | 15 business days or none | Low: depends on Google's classification |
| Unannounced smaller core update | Probably minor | None | Medium |
| Spam update enforcing existing policies | Not addressed | Unclear | Low |
| New AI search feature that changes organic ranking | Material if it meets either test | 15 or 30 business days | Medium: testing exemption covers 4.b only |
Our reading: expect advance notice for new or changed policies and for named system changes Google can describe. Treat broad core updates as uncertain until Google publishes its first notices, and plan for both outcomes.
Worked example: reading the notice calendar
The notice does not define business days. The arithmetic below assumes Monday-to-Friday working days, excluding the England and Wales bank holidays on GOV.UK: 25 and 28 December 2026, 1 January 2027, 26 and 29 March 2027, and 3 May 2027. The scenario is illustrative, not a forecast.
- An actionable change. Google publishes notice of a new spam policy on Monday 4 January 2027. Counting 30 business days from the next working day, the earliest UK rollout is Monday 15 February 2027, 42 calendar days later.
- A significant and explainable change. Google publishes notice on Monday 1 February 2027. Fifteen business days on is Monday 22 February 2027, 21 calendar days later.
- Early-2027 launches. On a plain reading, a material change starting UK rollout on Monday 18 January 2027 needs notice by Wednesday 2 December 2026 if actionable, or Wednesday 23 December 2026 if significant and explainable, although the rule starts on 17 December. The CMA documents do not address this overlap. If the clock could run only from 17 December, the earliest such rollouts would be Tuesday 2 February and Tuesday 12 January 2027. Watch Google's channels from late November.
- The feedback window. Suppose that change finishes rolling out in the UK on Friday 5 March 2027. The 30-business-day window then runs to Tuesday 20 April 2027, because Good Friday and Easter Monday drop out. If the 50th distinct publisher files on Monday 12 April, Google must send the CMA details as soon as practicable and, counting from that date, by Tuesday 4 May 2027.
- A manual action. A reconsideration request received on Monday 1 February 2027 should get a substantive answer by Friday 19 February 2027 under the CMA's expected 14-business-day standard, barring exceptional cases such as complex legal or technical issues.
What Google can no longer weigh
Paragraph 4.a bars Google from weighing, when ranking UK results, whether a publisher advertises with it, has other commercial or contractual arrangements with it, has opted out of its content being used for Google's search AI features or any service outside general search, or has exercised contractual or statutory rights against it.
The opt-out item overlaps the publisher requirement, whose paragraph 9 bars Google from penalising sites for using the AI controls, for example by downranking them in the rest of Search. So from 17 December 2026 a UK-facing site can switch off AI Overviews grounding, block Google-Extended training or, from 3 March 2027, opt out page by page, and Google may not weigh that choice in its UK rankings. Google says separately that its Search Console control is not used as a ranking or inclusion signal for other parts of Search.
That is not a promise of stable rankings: the CMA accepts that Google may not be able to control every second-order effect of the controls on its ranking algorithm. Our guide to the page-level AI Overviews opt-out covers how to use that control.
Paragraph 4.b is the self-preferencing rule. Google's own products must be ranked on the same objective criteria, such as relevance, quality and user context, as equivalent third-party content. The notes say the design of a feature such as the Flights module is out of scope, but how that module ranks against organic results is in.
Paragraph 5 lets Google set 4.b aside for up to six months while testing a new feature, extendable only with CMA approval. The PPA says this gives Google too much room. Every other part of the rule, notice duties included, still applies to new features.
Google disputes the premise. A spokesperson told Press Gazette that its ranking systems are already fair and transparent and show the most relevant, highest quality results. Google offered to publish an external version of its Fair Wholepage Composition Policy, and the compliance reporting notice asks for links to public versions of that policy and its Honest Results Policy, so look for both around the time the rule goes live.
Complaints, appeals and the 50-publisher trigger
The table draws on the notice, the interpretative notes and the CMA's summary.
| Route | Who can use it | What counts | Clock | What happens next |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Material change feedback (7.a) | Publishers active in a UK market | A material adverse distortive or other adverse impact on a UK market that does not reflect the change's stated purpose | 30 business days after UK rollout completes, for the CMA trigger | Counted towards the 50-publisher threshold |
| Report to the CMA (8) | Automatic | Feedback from 50 different publishers; repeat feedback from one publisher counts once; distinct brands and sites count separately, even in one group | Google reports as soon as practicable, within 15 business days at most | CMA may open regulatory dialogue with Google |
| Reconsideration (7.b) | Sites with a manual action affecting organic ranking | Manual actions under spam and other policies | 14 business days expected | A substantive response |
| Alternative dispute settlement (9) | Sites manually excluded from the index | Manual de-indexing | Not specified | CMA says extending Google's EU Article 6(12) measures to the UK may comply |
Two exclusions narrow paragraph 7.a: objections to the express purpose or policy behind a change, and a ranking change that is solely relative to another publisher. So a complaint that a competitor overtook you falls outside it. On our reading, a complaint that a change pushed independent UK retailers below aggregators, in a way its stated purpose does not explain, falls inside. The CMA's summary also invites comments at searchsms@cma.gov.uk or through trade associations, the natural organisers of a 50-publisher count.
What changes for SEO teams in 2027
- Add a notice channel to monitoring. Google has not said where notices will appear: on 1 November 2026 its documentation updates page did not mention the rule. Until it does, watch that page, the Search Status Dashboard and the Search Central blog.
- Classify each notice the day it lands. Actionable: assign an owner and fix inside the window. Significant and explainable: freeze risky releases and annotate.
- Keep one change log of notice dates, UK rollout start and end, UK metrics before and after, and feedback filed. AI-feature data belongs there too; our guide to the CMA AI Overviews metrics covers that separate obligation.
- Build a feedback evidence pack in advance: UK-filtered Search Console exports, affected query classes, market-level impact and how the effect departs from Google's stated purpose.
- Log reconsideration timing against the 14-business-day expectation.
- Read Google's public compliance summaries. The second should say more about core updates than the first.
- Keep the fundamentals. The rule changes when you find out, not what Google rewards, so our core update recovery playbook still applies.
Limits, and notes for India, the EU and the US
The rule does not cover ads or products outside general search such as the Gemini app, does not require Google to reveal proxy ranking signals, and does not guarantee outcomes. On our reading, a drop after a properly notified, objectively applied change is not in itself a breach.
- India. We found no equivalent Indian rule as of 1 November 2026. Indian exporters and SaaS firms selling into the UK are covered for their UK results only, so filter Search Console by the United Kingdom.
- EU. The CMA says Google may meet its UK dispute duty by extending the measures it offers under Article 6(12) of the EU Digital Markets Act; see our note on site reputation abuse in the EEA.
- US. The CMA rule creates no notice duty for results shown in the US. US sites with UK audiences get the same UK-only protections.
How eCorpIT can help
eCorpIT is a Gurugram-based technology organisation, founded in 2021, assessed at CMMI Level 5 and MSME certified, with senior-led engineering teams working across AWS, Microsoft and Google platforms. Our performance marketing services team can build the notice-monitoring routine, change log and UK evidence packs described above. Talk to us at /contact-us/.
Last updated: 1 November 2026.
