Last night I was up late, working, when I spotted a notification on LinkedIn that Google has announced a May 2026 core update.
They’ve said it may take up to 2 weeks to roll out and it’s the second core update of the year after the March 2026 core update and a March spam update.
Lots of other SEO people are probably reporting this too, so what can I add to the conversation that will help my clients?
Well there are a few things of note with this update:
1. It was Google I/O This Week
Google I/O is an annual developer conference held in the company’s backyard at a cool place call the Shoreline Amphitheatre. I try to attend every year, online only I’m afraid, as it’s a great place to understand what’s gong to hit the Search community in the coming weeks and months. Of course, it’s about all things Google, such as the Android Operating System, hardware, like its Pixel phone, and, of course, my area of interest, what’s happening in Search.
Intelligent Search Box
For the first time in 25 years, Google said they’ve upgraded the search box. It now reacts dynamically to searches, displaying an adaptive interface as it relies more on Search and the Gemini 3.5 model behind it being an “agent”. Its been designed to handle complex queries (The query fan out) and act in a more agentic manner; booking flights, or comparing products or services.
That’s the front-end.
The back-end, affected by the core update, is what feeds the interface, so providing a new way to search is now being backed-up by the data in those Search systems.
How Search is now going to work requires changes to how sites are crawled, indexed, and managed for the new AI powers.
Generative UI and Dynamic Layouts
Again, directly related to the intelligent search box is the manner in which results will be displayed. For a long time now the industry has known the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) no longer list the old “ten blue links”. We’ve had more dynamic results from the Google Knowledge Graph on some queries, but now it’s going to be on steroids.
Google has said it will be able to build tables, charts, whatever serves as an answer to the query, right in the Search box. And to do that, on the fly, only the most appropriate and compliant websites are gong to be pulled in, right?
What I’m saying here is, if your website is fast and well-structured, this is where you’re considered for inclusion. Is schema markup part of this? I would think so, and I have a feeling core web vitals, and accessibility will play their role too. So technical SEO is going to be needed here.
The Universal Cart
This was an interesting announcement that I didn’t pay as much attention to as I only have one small ecommerce website in my portfolio right now, but I need to go back and look into this one a bit more.
But basically, if agentic search is the new thing, and Google’s interface is the tool for the shopping experience, then vendors need to be top drawer.
What I suspect will happen here, as it has been doing across search for some time, is the strengthening of the trust signals as a ticket for inclusion, and the relegation of weak ecommerce websites.
Whilst I offer ecommerce SEO services, I will study this in more detail and come back to you on this one, I’ll be watching closely my client’s website to see what needs to be done to stay ahead in this new update, but visibility and clicks were still strong at the time of this core update.
AI Optimisation Advice
And if you cast your mind back to the week before Google I/O we had the announcement, for the first time ever, of Google’s AI optimisation advice.
You can read my update on the official Google guidance on AI search, and my later reflections. But in a nutshell:
Google has very publicly stated that the following are not cool for AI optimisation:
- LLMs.txt: they say it’s not necessary.
- Chunking: Writing copy so that it is easily digested by and for synthesising into generative AI answers,
- Rewriting for AI: Taking old content and “spinning” it, with chunking, above, in mind, is again not necessary,
- Inauthentic mentions: Actively seeking unnatural links is, as it has always been, a no-no.
- Overfocus on structured data: They said don’t spend too much time on schema.
These are all official guidelines, and Google also put a fork in GEO and AEO as acronyms. They said it’s all still SEO.
Now, as an SEO practitioner who has constantly found success through traditional methods, and supplemented them with all the tactics that have been shared in the community, I agree/disagree with Google.
Doing solid SEO is still what I will be doing for clients. But to dismiss or ignore these other items, I’d be remiss.
I’ve said elsewhere in my reflections that Google can practice differently from what it preaches. The leak from a couple of years back is clear on this. And LLMs.txt may be useful for Claude AI. I’m not going to ignore that.
Chunking is something I’d previously recommended to a client, writing their own copy, but this is still just writing appropriate length sentences and paragraphs isn’t it? It doesn’t need a “fancy” name when good copywriters just do that naturally and instinctively.
Rewriting just for AI? Ain’t gonna do that. I write for humans.
Inauthentic mentions? I write, and if you like it you share or link. If you don’t link, that’s a shame, but I can handle that.
And structured data? Yes, Google officially deprecated FAQ schema for inclusion in SERP data the other week. They’d reduced it down to use for just Gov and health websites. But when schema is a useful part of the semantic web and search, then it’s still – er – useful. Besides, it’s going to still be vital to send strong signals to all these latest updates isn’t it?
May 2026 Core Update
So, the core update will likely take all of this into account. It will be interesting to see the ups and downs in the community, what has won, and what has lost.
From this data we get our understanding for the next phase of doing SEO for humans and to help the AI systems get your information, brand mentions, and products/services in front of humans again.
Call me for a chat about what we can do next or better still leave a message on my form.