Google’s May 2026 Core Update: AI Spam Gets Smoked, Local SEO Shifts, GSC Breaks

Google just released its May core algorithm update. Right now, we're seeing improvements to Google's scaled AI detection algorithms. We're seeing major Google search console glitches. Local SEO is getting impacted. And there's just general madness in the SEO community. If you don't know, Google core algorithm updates are always crazy. Google is literally updating its core algorithms. So what we see in the search engine results pages could change a lot. There's always a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt during core algorithm updates. And you know, this one is no different, but we're going to make sense of it. This update is a 2e rollout. It started on May 21st, but we have been seeing disturbances for days leading up to this. Lots of people were DMing me or posting in communities or sharing comments saying, "Is there an update? Is there an update? My organic traffic is going haywire. What is happening? There has to be an update." And then several days later, Google announces this update. This update is called the Google May 2026 broad core update. And it is broad. It's affecting lots of different things within Google. Like I said, Google may have improved their scaled AI spam detection algorithms. And this is from Gogg and Gotra literally on the day that the update dropped. Go said, "Out of all the AI content hyperscaling domains that I have been tracking, AML Corp Blog subfolder seems like it has gotten a manual action today. everything that they have been scaling in this subfolder over the last couple of months. AI generated content is no longer showing up in the search results. So, ALM Corp's entire blog has been dropped from Google. If you just search ALM Corp blog, nothing shows. If you search their exact subfolder in Google, nothing shows. And by I mean nothing shows, when you search their blog, you don't get their blog. You get their homepage, you get Reddit, you get their blog actually in another language, but you don't get their English blog. And when you look at the organic traffic that this blog was getting, it is a crazy spike up. One of the just most dramatic spikes in organic traffic. Crazy increase in organic traffic. And when you look at the content, it's really, really, really bad. And it's all AI. It's huge blocks of long paragraphs with very few to no images. I'm actually seeing no images. And it's AI generated. It's it's AI text, really dense, thick to read, no images except for all of the heading images which are entirely AI and it's all over the place. Tons of different topics. Paul McCartney live, LinkedIn expands ad performance, Nike KD19 times nocta. This is I mean this is crazy. Whoever works at ALM almcorp should be listening to this podcast because they would not have done this. I I really can't believe this. And you know what I was saying earlier? Maybe Google has increased its spam detection algorithms, but this one is making so many mistakes. Any rudimentary AI spam detection algorithm could probably detect this. This is just wild how bad this is, how atrocious this is. like it it is flying in the face of all the known SEO best practices, but it did drop again around the time that this May core algorithm update released. So the drop because this this worked for a bit. This scaled for a bit. This drop might be due to this core algorithm update. I mentioned at the start that it looks like local SEO is getting impacted. This is from the digital marketing subreddit. User Digital Nomads HQ wrote this. Early observations on the May 2026 core update, and directories are getting hammered. The update started rolling out around 48 hours ago, and the data is already messy. I've been tracking a well-known Australian directory site that was sitting in positions 1 through three for basically every near me query you can think of. Plumbers, electricians, mechanics, cleaners, the lot. Here's a snapshot from the last 48 hours. They dropped from position one to position 6 for plumber near me, losing 3,400 clicks. They dropped from position one to position 10 for cleaners near me, dropped from position 3 to position 15 for car detailing near me, just entirely gone from page one for hairdressing near me, and entirely gone for gardening services near me. 75% of their near me terms declined. Google's not interested in middlemen for local intent anymore. If someone searches plumber near me, the options are A, show a directory that scraped 50 plumbers off the web, or B, show the actual plumber with 200 reviews and 15 years of trading history. Google already has maps, business profiles, and AI overviews handling that surface. The directory doesn't add anything to the equation. This looks like information gain in action. The question Google seems to be asking every page, does this add something the rest of the web doesn't already have? aggregator/directory content struggles to answer yes. If you run an actual local business, this is probably good news. Google business profile is back to being the most important piece of your digital footprint. Still rolling out, so take all of this with a grain of salt. Curious if anyone else is seeing a similar movement. One commenter, proud response 855, said, "Been watching this roll out, too, and the local business owners I work with are basically celebrating right now. One electrician client went from page three to position two for his main keyword overnight. The directory thing makes total sense though. Why would Google send someone to a site that just lists 20 plumbers when they can show the actual plumbers's Google business profile with real photos, recent reviews, and direct contact information. Directories were basically just an extra step in the user journey that didn't need to exist. So local is all over the place. local directories could be hurting. Now, I could actually see directories being relevant in situations or aggregators being relevant in situations where brands are doing a very poor job of giving details on themselves. You see that all the time, brands that don't know how to do SEO, they don't have a lot of information on themselves out on the internet. Not very often. directories and aggregators. They might put more information or more information in a clearer way about these brands than the brands have themselves, making it easier for users to understand what a brand is about. And in that situation, a directory could be really valuable. There was another comment in a different subreddit in the local SEO subreddit about this Google May core update. This one commenter I am Anishkumar Singh said just saw this too second core update already in 2026 and we're not even halfway through this year. 2 weeks roll out means rankings will be choppy for a bit so it's worth telling clients not to panic if they see swings this week. Is anyone already noticing movement in the local pack results or is it too early? As I mentioned at the start, Google search console is also going crazy. Search Engine Roundtable has an article, Google Search Console links report is broken. And it says, and lots of people, lots and lots and lots of people have been reporting this across X, across Reddit, everywhere. Search Engine Roundtable says, "It looks like the Google Search Console link report has gone haywire and is broken pretty badly. Tons of SEOs are seeing zero links in the report, whereas others are seeing huge drops in the link counts in the report. It is not uncommon to see fluctuations, even significant ones, in the link report. I've been keeping a log recently over here, but this is big. So, looks like something significant broke in the code or data where tons of links are dropping out of the report. And this is meaningful because you want to have a lot of backlinks, a lot of links to get authority within Google so you can rank well. Lots of SEOs check this report constantly. But this does not mean that the links disappeared. They most likely didn't. This means that there's a glitch within Google Search Console. At the same time as this May core update, lots of people are literally just seeing no data in their Google Search Console for their links. Going into Search Engine Roundtable's blog post about this core update, the commenters on the update touch upon the backlinks disappearing within Google Search Console, but there's also general chatter just on this core update. I'm going to share that. But before I share that, I want to give a warning which is that I don't think I have ever seen a comment section of search engine roundt that has been SEOs who have been positive about them getting traffic, especially with core updates. The core update comments are always jokes or just we're all dead. SEO is dead. Everything's done. This is the worst. But I mean, this is some of the streets within SEO. So, we want to just see what the communities are saying. And this is some of the things that they are saying. Just in time for me officially coming back to work after a severe burnout and nervous breakdown. First official day back and the traffic tanks. Now that's what Google calls a warm welcome. Somebody else said Google organic has been dead for a few years now. Another person said we should just call it the final nail in the coffin update like someone mentioned in the comments because from here on out I doubt any of us would care about SEO anymore. Not that I care because I stopped publishing articles for a long time since, but paid ads isn't doing anything, too. This line is totally dead. I'm telling you, the comments are always negative within Search Engine Roundtable around core algorithm updates. Personally, I've actually noticed a slight uptick for my websites within Google Search Console. Neither my bottom offunnel nor top offunnel content has seen much volatility. And I've always had the bottom ofunnel content be more stable where I have actually experienced volatility on the top offunnel stuff. Top offunnel is informational content. So that could be like how to humanize chatebt content. That would be an example of a top offunnel search within Google. How to humanize chatbt content. That's people looking for an answer not looking to use anything. Or transactional bottom off ofunnel would be searches like voice notes for dentists or emergency roof repair Austin. Those are people literally looking to use a tool or get in touch with a business. That is bottom offunnel content. Bottomunnel content is great because when you do it properly, it's completely stable. I always see bottom offunnel content be completely stable. I saw it through Google's helpful content update. I've seen it through every major core update. Bottom of funnel focuses on finding searchers who are literally looking to go to a business to use a tool to buy something to take an action especially identifying keywords that are going undertargeted where you don't have other businesses vying for the same search terms. That part isn't an aspect of bottomunnel, but that's the way that I do bottom ofunnel. And a lot of bottom offunnel terms are just that way naturally because there's less people at the bottom of the funnel. Because there's less people, there's less search volumes. And because there's less search volumes, less marketers bother to target these keywords. So there's less content on the internet for bottom offunnel searches with that has the most intent. And that makes it easier to rank for these keywords, but then also have stability with your rankings because nobody else is targeting the keywords. I have an entire course on this method of SEO. It's called Compact Keywords. It's a thing on my shirt. I spent a year making it. I update it several times a month. Last week, I updated it twice. And it is entirely on how to find searchers looking to take action to become customers, users, or call a business. How to make pages that rank and convert these searchers at the same time. How to build links, how to do a technical audit. So much in this course. If you haven't checked it out yet, you will love it. It's at compactkeywords.com. These are four reviews I got on the 21st. One person said, "If you are tired of SEO advice that sounds smart but never translates into actual customers, this is the one. It is built around how buyers actually search, not how marketers wish they would search. Buy it." Somebody else said, "I completed the course, but I would say it's the correct way to do SEO." Another person said, "Consise and straight to the point." And the last person said, "I bought the course earlier today and I'm on the onpage SEO videos. This is a super comprehensive SEO course. Great work." Thank you everybody for those reviews. Thank you everyone who's gotten the course so far. Again, that is at compact keywords.com. That is everything for this episode of the Edward Show. This is my daily search engine optimization podcast. 1,054 days in a row doing this show. No days missed. If you watch this on YouTube, thank you so much for watching. If you listened on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, thank you so much for listening and I will talk to you again tomorrow. Bye now.