Google Quietly Updates Discover Playbook: What New Clickbait and Page Experience Rules Mean

Key Details

The documentation update is listed on Google's official documentation updates page. Google says it has added more detail on how sites can increase the likelihood that their content appears in Discover.

The revised recommendations now separate guidance on titles and clickbait into two bullets. One advises publishers to:

"Use page titles and headlines that capture the essence of the content."

A second bullet instructs sites to:

"Avoid clickbait and similar tactics to artificially inflate engagement."

The current version explicitly uses the term "clickbait," which was not present in the earlier wording. Previous guidance only referred to "tactics to artificially inflate engagement" without naming the tactic. The updated text also adds a reference to "sensationalism tactics" when describing content Google advises publishers to avoid.

A new recommendation asks sites to "Provide an overall great page experience," linking to Google's page experience documentation. This page experience bullet does not appear in the archived version of the Discover documentation cited in previous coverage. Sections covering image requirements, traffic variability, and performance monitoring remain unchanged.

Summary of notable documentation changes

• Split guidance on titles and clickbait into two separate bullets.
• Added an explicit reference to "clickbait" in engagement guidance.
• Updated wording to mention "sensationalism tactics."
• Introduced a recommendation on overall page experience, linking to existing Search guidance.
• Left image, traffic fluctuation, and performance monitoring sections unchanged.

Background Context

The revisions follow a February core update that Google described as focused on Discover. In its blog post announcing the update, Google said it would show more locally relevant content and reduce sensational content and clickbait.

Google also stated that the core update aims to highlight more original content from sites demonstrating expertise. According to the announcement, the update is rolling out to English-language users in the United States over approximately two weeks, with expansion to all countries and languages planned in the coming months.

Past Google changes have often been accompanied by Discover documentation updates. Earlier revisions added Discover to Google's helpful content system documentation and expanded explanations for traffic shifts from the service. Page experience has been part of Google's Search guidance since 2020, but it was not previously listed in Discover-specific recommendations.

As with other core updates, Google points site owners to its standard core update guidance for broader advice on evaluating and improving site quality.

Source Citations

• Get on Discover documentation
• Google Search documentation updates page
• Google page experience documentation
• Google Discover-focused core update blog post announcing the update