Google May 2026 core update - what are your thoughts?

Diamond Damien

Diamond Damien

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Here we go again!
Announced today Google are at it again, another core update - https://status.search.google.com/incidents/wdAXJk6LRRihEjpzEeWE
Standard wording on the announcement "regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites."
Guidance remains unchanged https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/core-updates
Fundamentals remain https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content
What are you seeing from this update as it progresses? What do you think the impact will be?
How will Googles latest guide move your optimisation?

As Google say:
"Is SEO still relevant for generative AI search? - In short, yes!"
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide#is-seo-still-relevant

Finally:
AI overviews aren't always on the money - always worth digging deeper ;)
1779389660451.png
 
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I'm seeing AI overviews on igaming keywords now. I'm not sure if that's going to be good for legal compliance, they might just be testing things.
 
I'm only growing towards last years levels again. I don't get any ai overviews, as my site is behind an over 18 popup, and ai refuses to go through it.

I expect to just keep growing, don't know what more to say. I have user submissions growing, not sure HOW seo makes any difference to me now with this site i'm running, I'm riding the back of a brand recognition name. Still at number 1 for my 1 keyword! lol
 
The timing tells you everything -> they dropped this one day after I/O showed off the new AI search box that buries the blue links. This isn't a "quality" update, it's Google clearing the runway for the AI SERP and the ad inventory that comes with it. Same recycled "helpful content" line, zero new guidance :rolleyes:, because there's nothing for us to "fix," they've just reshuffled who gets the scraps.

Two things I'm seeing:
  • GSC's link report went sideways at the exact same time, me and loads of people are seeing zero links or massive drops. That's the report breaking, not your links dying. Don't go ripping anything out off bad data.
  • As usual, ~2-week rollout, won't settle till early June. Anyone calling winners and losers right now is guessing.
My take: the operators who treat their links as assets they can steer come out of these fine. The ones praying to the content gods will be back in this thread in June asking what happened. Same as it ever was.
 
i dont use google bro i cant answer i have a bh sites and spending time on g not worth it tbh.. u guys might consider talk a little bit about yandex
 
They have just updated their big update in 25 years making google one big AI chatbot and then launched a update. Tbh this is an interesting move, wonder if they’re seeing people yet want to click on links and their AI overviews are not liked and I don’t see many ads yet in overviews. Too early to say it’s effect but hoping they start sending traffic to bloggers and small independent sites or they’ll lose crucial data to take information from which is required as a different voice in this Agentic ai era
 
My website traffic has dropped drastically; we're almost completely shutting down our AI traffic.
 
I have some old e-commerces (built with wordpress / woocommerce) that i can't run ads anymore, and they sell basically on organic. After the update, they began selling like 4 times more. For context, ever since google began incorporating ai mode to google.com, the sales on those sites dropped to almost zero. But this month it's selling again at the same level or even more than before the whole ai thing.
 
Too Much Traffic Drop this month, Also Sales drop drastically. Don't why this happening, Google changing something big.
 
At this point, constant Google and YouTube updates are just part of the lifestyle for anyone working with Adsense, SEO or organic traffic
I’ve seen this happen so many times already. Every core update starts the same way: panic, traffic graphs everywhere, people saying SEO is dead again
Then a few weeks later, most people adapt and the cycle repeats.
I think the people who survive long term in this space are usually the ones who stay flexible instead of getting emotionally attached to one strategy. Platforms evolve constantly, especially now with AI changing search behavior so fast.
For me, this is why diversification matters more than ever. Relying on one traffic source only is getting riskier every year
And yeah… AI overviews still miss the mark pretty often
Definitely worth digging deeper beyond the summaries
 
AI can only summarise, organise, or analyse information but it can't generate new information. Google pushed hard to replace websites with its AI summaries but soon realised that it needs data to thrive. The big players are not gods. Amazon and Walmart are definitely huge but they can survive on their own even without Google. Favouring them leads to the decline and eventual disappearance of small ecom sites. When only big players survive, the small players shift to social media marketing as Google ruined any chances of ranking for them. The same happened since an year and we can see thousands of businesses migrate to tiktok and instagram from search engines. Google realised it sooner and wants to compensate small players for the losses. Now they are showing small and low authority sites in AI summaries alongside high authority sites.

There is a disruption in keyword rankings this week. I've noticed many of my high impression - low clicks keywords moved up with unusually high clicks. I've researched a little to see that Google started featuring my site in AI summaries and started adding links to my pages.

Earlier the authority sites capped the top layer blocking all visitors from reaching my pages. I had around 10k daily impressions with almost 0 clicks. Now I started seeing 50-100 clicks which is a huge improvement. Google wants websites to survive as it can't live on its own. They might push it harder in this direction as they kept losing people to AI tools and social media instead of their competitors. We might see more such updates in the future and Google might also favour unique voice and distinct content instead of factual information in all cases.

Ive seen a duckduckgo search results page for the same keyword ranking on the first page in Google search results 4-5 days ago. It disappeared after a few hours but tells us a lot about their unconventional approach this time.
 
It’s moving more toward an answer engine now. That’s the scary part for a lot of sites, because you can still be “ranking” and get less clicks if Google answers the user before they click you.

I don’t know if I’d call it a bloodbath yet, but simple info sites are probably going to feel it the most. Sites with real offers, products, communities, or strong brand searches should have a better chance than pages that only exist to answer basic queries.
 
Starblazer said:
AI can only summarise, organise, or analyse information but it can't generate new information. Google pushed hard to replace websites with its AI summaries but soon realised that it needs data to thrive. The big players are not gods. Amazon and Walmart are definitely huge but they can survive on their own even without Google. Favouring them leads to the decline and eventual disappearance of small ecom sites. When only big players survive, the small players shift to social media marketing as Google ruined any chances of ranking for them. The same happened since an year and we can see thousands of businesses migrate to tiktok and instagram from search engines. Google realised it sooner and wants to compensate small players for the losses. Now they are showing small and low authority sites in AI summaries alongside high authority sites.

There is a disruption in keyword rankings this week. I've noticed many of my high impression - low clicks keywords moved up with unusually high clicks. I've researched a little to see that Google started featuring my site in AI summaries and started adding links to my pages.

Earlier the authority sites capped the top layer blocking all visitors from reaching my pages. I had around 10k daily impressions with almost 0 clicks. Now I started seeing 50-100 clicks which is a huge improvement. Google wants websites to survive as it can't live on its own. They might push it harder in this direction as they kept losing people to AI tools and social media instead of their competitors. We might see more such updates in the future and Google might also favour unique voice and distinct content instead of factual information in all cases.

Ive seen a duckduckgo search results page for the same keyword ranking on the first page in Google search results 4-5 days ago. It disappeared after a few hours but tells us a lot about their unconventional approach this time.
Click to expand...

That's not gonna be an issue because people will continue to produce data even if they ain't gaining anything from it. Google knows that.
 
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