SEO 101 Ep 527: Back Button Hijack Penalties Begin, Core Rollout Over, Review Rules Confuse Businesses

In this episode of SEO 101, hosts Ross Dunn and Scott Fanak discuss several major Google updates and industry shifts. The March 2026 Core Update has now fully rolled out, and the podcast advises focusing on helpful, authoritative, people-first content to recover from any impact. Google is also enforcing penalties for 'back button hijacking' starting June 15th, a practice that interferes with user navigation by redirecting the back button to unintended pages—something the hosts strongly condemn. A significant data correction is underway in Google Search Console, where impression counts have been inflated since May 2025 due to a logging error, and users should expect a drop in reported impressions. The podcast also covers the controversial new Google Review Guidelines that prohibit soliciting reviews mentioning specific staff members, which the hosts find illogical and counterproductive. Other updates include Google testing direct AI mode access from AI Overviews on desktop, the launch of the repeat post feature for Google Business Profiles, and a humorous deep dive into the HTTP 418 'I'm a teapot' error, which revealed a site had blocked all bots for years due to misconfigured settings. The hosts invite listener feedback on how to evolve the podcast format after 17 years.