May 2026 Google Search Observations

[Micha]

Things are really up and down right now. Traffic is suddenly back, and so are sales (even though yesterday was a holiday here). Sistrix says our rankings are improving nicely again. Let's see how long it lasts this time.

The only thing that’s been stable for days: less spam.

[edited by: not2easy at 11:19 am (utc) on May 2, 2026]
[edit reason] New month, new thread [/edit]

[Chris travel 30]

I started using Ecosia-Search today as I feel Google Search more and more useless for what I am researching. And honestly: It feels so good to see real websites again. There are some sponsored snippets and sites above the organic results as well, but it feels so clean and satisfying :D ...

[Martin Ice Web]

I don´t realy get it.
When analyzing the current website in top #10 :
All of them
-do not have canonical tags implemented (or is showing to the current site) even if this site are close product-pages
-they do have copied the manufacturer description 1 on 1
-they do have the manufacuter pictures
-they use AI to inflate the text with nonsense and wrong information

As I know this is all that someone shouldn´t do because it would trigger googles algo to downgrade the ranking.
All the clean websites that focus on real information and giving real information are gone.

[Micha]

It’s honestly getting more absurd by the day. In my niche, there are countless finance websites giving very questionable advice while not even using canonical tags or other basic SEO techniques recommended by Google. Cheap AI translations are everywhere now as well. And on top of that, broken websites are becoming more common too. I’ve never landed on so many non-functioning websites through Google as I do now.

[RedBar]

Traffic well-up at the moment thanks to The Netherlands outperforming the USA. Yes we supply the NL but not usually with this volume and it's not for a specified project since it is across all widgets.

My US SERPs display 90+% localised results with the occasional, maybe 1:20, major export producer. In one way this is good for me since that producer is usually me however, there has to be an however, I am not getting much traffic from these rankings BUT, most notably, the AI result in many cases IS my information with a link to my site however the volume of click-thrus are so low it may as well not be there.

So, I've done everything correctly, I'm ranking #1 in many cases for the AI result yet derive almost zero traffic ... That's a massive incentive for me to continue isn't it ALL you AI scraping companies?

[Martin Ice Web]

We had 2 days of "good" traffic and this night bahm biggest hit ever.

For me it seems that google is switching between datacenters, because the drop comes within a second.

[Chris travel 30]

Here, it hit a little since monday. I guess the update took some time to kick in. It is not that bad, we are not at zero. But the drop is significant atm. Normally, it comes back when the update is coming to an end. I do follow every guidelines, fully transparent, no unusual quirks on our sites, everything clean, no link buying, all organic - I hope G will appreciate it in the future :D ...

[Fluff_Nutz]

Google will never appreciate websites, despite them being the main fuel in running the WWW. I always see this situation as a football scenario. Whilst players are the main asset, like websites. After all its our content in those LLM AI's. But only one asset wins. It's officially put me completely off soccer/football, as I can never unsee it.

But I know we would all like to wake up from this, as if some kind of big long nightmare. I have only been at this for 2-3yrs and, as it seems, missed out on everything.. Got a small taste when I first started. Money was great, sadly not any more..

As June quickly approaches, I am, once again ending the month where I started. Once AGAIN no growth at all. Despite staying consistent and doing everything that is expected. I even spend hours each day editing and making sure all is good for any potential viewers. I take good stride and effort into this messed up mess. I know I shouldn't but its also passion too, as well as business. But its so tiring.

No company or entity is out there to help, which is wrong. Businesses over here are dying each and every day. Many of which rely on web traffic. I diverse and still cannot escape G's manipulation. Nothing seems to work. I even cater and write for viewers. G just owns too much monopoly that nothing works and no one escapes..

Sucks.. Feels wrong and incredibly frustrating.. I no longer think anything good will come out of this, so I have, now, diversed ONCE AGAIN. This time away from relying on SEO. Who knows it it will work or not but I'm tired boss. I have expectations each month, which is never allowed to be met. Traffic can be great one day and immediately killed the next, why? I'm tired of being stuck at the same traffic each and every month

It's funny as the G CEO mentioned in an article I read recently something.. something... all AI and sites will co-exist. Blah.. blah.. Yea, seeing is believing..

[Chris travel 30]

@Fluff_Nutz seems like we are in the same boat. Passion for what I am doing is what keeps me going. The money still comes in and I can afford a living from it. Feedback from readers keeps me going, and I love what I am doing. But, and I totally agree with you in this, man - I am damn tired. Sometimes it is just too much, to keep up with everything that keeps changing. It feels like every week there is something new. For me, this feeling started since AI is "the big thing".
Personally, I would like to think beyond AI, having an eye on what will be "the next big thing". It's a trend-society. Now the hype is AI, next might be quantum computing, or, as someone here mentioned a while ago, gardening as we will all be unemployed.
Keep your head up and take some off-screen time if you can.

[christianz]

@Chris travel 30

Might as well get in on the gardening bubble early, because AI trend seems to be entering the rug-pull cashout phase with Anthropic and OpenAI exit-scamming with IPOs. SpaceX also calls itself "AI company".

Back on topic - the latest Core Update is bat#*$! bananas crazy. They seem to be ranking based on everything but the actual website or content. I am supposed to believe that AI is useful for business when biggest AI company (Google) itself can't make AI that can spot spam from real content.

[BigKat]

I am supposed to believe that AI is useful for business when biggest AI company (Google) itself can't make AI that can spot spam from real content.

It demonstrates AI is more hype than anything else. If AI were so great, all the states allowing AI data centers to be built would be using the technology themselves and they're not. I'm sure a lot of politicians are getting rich, along with the AI companies, but that's about it at this point.

[bgweb]

The big problem with AI is that it is still spewing out far too much information that is simply wrong. I use the "cricket test" to try and quantify this, but it probably won't mean much to people in North America and most of Europe. However, the key points are very simple to grasp.

Cricket is a sport rich in detailed statistics, and one I happen to know well, having followed it for much of my life. The number of times AI will throw out something like, "Player X scored Y in match Z" and be wrong is horrific.

Now apply this scenario to businesses that are making decisions, and you quickly realise that unless due process is followed and rigorous checks are in place, the potential problems remain huge.

[MrSnuts]

@bgweb - IMHO, that cricket test is misleading: You are trying to get an expert response from a general purpose chat LLM, that rather qualifies as a misunderstanding of the tool than as a sign of the tool being no good. Ask it to assist you researching certain players scores in time frame A based on the reliable data to be found somewhere you define as reliable source, plus ask it to double check any answers against a second reliable source before answering, and the result will be different, promised. "the potential problems remain huge" is correct, it takes people who know how to avoid those, and who know when not to rely on AI.

Good brand mentioning appears to be key for AIO inclusion. I know brand-as-ranking-signal has always been viewed skeptically or as possibly unfair in the webmaster community, but there is some value to the brand concept. Consumers simply get bonus reassurance when going to well-established brands, assuming they would not be as well established if they were no good at all.
That may be objectively wrong in some cases, but protects from complete fallout, too (think of buying some item and having to choose between the cheap remake and a well-known brands product).
What I sometimes wonder is: How come there seem to be a lot of people publishing on the web who have had millions of visitors over the course of a few years, but failed to generate any brand recognition whilst having all that attention. That cannot be disconnected from your publications quality, if millions of people fail to remember your website was a cool thing to visit, what has gone wrong there? I know this is a painful question, but anyone can hardly blame google for missing that opportunity.

Back to traffic changes:
May was extraordinary strong conversion wise, google traffic has re-stabilized at April levels, bot visits are outrageous and CF isn't keeping up with a large portion of them - yet again, overall conversions were great and revenue is up on my project.
Putting in a lot of work cleansing the UI and removing technical dept lately, sometimes "move forward regardless" is a good strategy when google goes crazy.

[edited by: not2easy at 12:01 pm (utc) on Jun 2, 2026]
[edit reason] (quoted post removed/ToS) [/edit]

[Micha]

The Core Update is finished... I hope everyone got through it relatively unscathed

[status.search.google.com ]

[seokees]

I hope this it for the time being. There are cases of drops / hits a day or a few days after a core update, right?

Time for the June 2026 Google Search Observations?

[Micha]

Yes, search rankings are fluctuating wildly again today, and traffic is low. Things will continue to fluctuate a bit over the next few days, and hopefully they’ll finally stabilize.