SEO News Recap: Google Discover & Core Updates, Bing AI Performance Metrics, Web MCP & UCP (Agentic Commerce)

Jack Chambers-Ward hosts a solo episode of Search With Candour, recapping the last 6 weeks of SEO news from the Core Updates newsletter.

Jack covers Google’s February 2026 Discover update, a fast March spam update, and the ongoing March 2026 core update.

He then highlights Bing Webmaster Tools, adding AI Performance reporting, Google’s WebMCP new UCP features.

📧 Core Updates: https://coreupdates.com/

🤝 SearchNorwichXL: https://searchnorwich.org/

Google updates

🔗 https://status.search.google.com/incidents/mYbNTqV1ytDc2fA8hUz4

🔗 https://status.search.google.com/incidents/VbnSXAH4SmEcxPtx4YSD

🔗 https://status.search.google.com/incidents/7eTbAa2jWdToLkraZj5y

Bing’s AI performance report

📊 https://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/February-2026/Introducing-AI-Performance-in-Bing-Webmaster-Tools-Public-Preview

📊 https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en/blog/post/march-2026/the-ai-performance-dashboard-your-view-into-where-your-brand-appears-across-the-ai-web

UCP and MCP

🛒 https://developer.chrome.com/blog/webmcp-epp

🛒 https://block.github.io/goose/blog/2026/03/17/webmcp-for-beginners/

🛒 https://ppcnewsfeed.com/ppc-news/2026-03/google-publishes-help-page-universal-commerce-protocol/

🛒 https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/shopping/ucp-updates/

Chapters

00:00 SEO news rundown

00:47 Google Discover Update

02:42 March Spam Update

03:43 March Core Update

05:15 Bing AI metrics debut

06:55 Inside AI Performance Report

11:03 New Bing AI metrics

14:42 WebMCP explained

18:06 UCP Agentic Checkout

20:43 UCP new features

22:45 Walmart vs ChatGPT conversions

25:02 Wrap up and next steps

25:44 Newsletter and event plug

27:16 Final thanks and teaser