May 2026 Update Analysis: the new gap between presence and weight
Less intense than in March, but still interesting signs for understanding the trajectory of visibility. Google wrapped up the May 2026 Core Update on June 2, twelve days after the official start of the rollout, and data from the SEOZoom Observatory indicate a more subdued shift, without the aggregate jolt we had observed in the previous core update.
However, a more layered dynamic is emerging: the continuous shifts in organic rankings do not always move in the same direction as the AI Overviews. Some domains lose estimated traffic in traditional SERPs and gain ground in Google’s AI responses; others increase their keyword coverage but lose ground on the most important queries; still others appear in more AI Overviews but are cited less often as the primary source.
Thus, the May 2026 Core Update goes beyond simply tracking who’s rising and who’s falling; it concretely demonstrates just how much more complex it has become to assess visibility as Google distributes attention across organic results, generative surfaces, cited sources, summary answers, and various SERP formats. The update caused less of a stir than the one in March, and to interpret it, one must look at where visibility is being divided.
What the May 2026 Core Update Was Like
Google’s May 2026 Core Update is the second broad core update of the year, the fourth algorithmic event recorded on the Search Status Dashboard in 2026, and it arrived six weeks after the previous one ended—a pace that left websites virtually no time to adjust to the recalibrations.
In terms of official communication, Google maintained its established framework: a note on the Dashboard at launch (Released the May 2026 core update. The rollout may take up to 2 weeks to complete), one upon completion (The rollout was complete as of June 2, 2026), no blog post on Search Central, and no mention of the sectors or types of sites affected. Interpretation remains based on data analysis.
Complicating matters further is the broader context: the release came two days after Google I/O 2026 (May 19), during which Mountain View unveiled AI Mode as a globally available interface with over one billion monthly users, Gemini 3.5 Flash as the default model for AI Search features, the Information Agents, and a new Search box architecture. The coincidence is temporal, not causal—the development cycles of a Core Update and a product release follow separate paths—but it fits into the same narrative of a Search that never stops changing (as do rankings).
Although the international SEO industry described it as a substantial release, here the impact was less significant. Fewer spikes in the aggregate data, greater selectivity within individual sectors, and a redistribution affecting the long-standing giants of consultation and reference—many have gained keywords but lost estimated traffic volume, a sign that they’ve gained visibility on secondary queries while losing ground on the more high-value ones.
Analysis in Italy: SEOZoom Data
The update’s rollout began on May 21 at 8:40 AM PDT (5:40 PM Italian time) and ended on June 2 at 5:40 AM PDT (2:40 PM Italian time), for an effective duration of 11 days and 21 hours—effectively 12 days, the same as the March 2026 (March 27 – April 8).
However, this wave of volatility never reached the same magnitude as the previous release and was concentrated in just a few specific spots on the SERP. Specifically, monitoring via the SEOZoom Observatory shows that the average for the period was 9.41%, compared to a peak of 14.80% reached in March.
The sensor remained in the “Normal-High” range throughout the rollout. The current value at the end of the rollout is 9.70%. To put this in perspective: in March, all major sectors were above 13%; in May, no sector exceeded 11.88%. While two months ago the impact was already visible in the overall trend—higher volatility, more widely dispersed sectors, and more pronounced average growth compared to the previous period—and had scaled back dictionaries, encyclopedias, and general-interest portals, here the adjustment continues with a lighter but more surgical touch.
Sectors on the Move and Those That Remain Stable
The vertical breakdown as of the end of May 2026 places eight sectors in the “High” range:
- Travel and Tourism: 11.88%
- Computers and Consumer Electronics: 11.51%
- Art and Entertainment: 11.39%
- Internet and Telecommunications: 11.15%
- Vehicles: 11.06%
- News, Media, and Publications: 10.91%
- Retailers and General Merchandise: 10.79%
- Real Estate: 10.71%
At the top of the “High” range is Travel and Tourism, at 11.88%—a sector that had reached 15.69% in March and has since seen a 3.8-point decrease in volatility, while still maintaining its lead.
In the “Normal-Low” range: Food & Groceries (8.99%), Law & Government (8.88%), Bargains & Gifts (8.65%), Finance (9.13%), and Restaurants & Nightlife (9.01%).
Well below the overall average and at a significant distance was Health: 7.55%, the lowest value in the basket, once again. It had already emerged in our specific study as one of the most tightly controlled sectors in Italian SERPs, with above-average stability and a stricter selection of sources. Even in the May Update, it remains at the bottom of the volatility rankings, but the domains show very different trends.
What Foreign Analysts Noted
Outside Italy, the May 2026 was viewed as a major update. Barry Schwartz (Search Engine Roundtable) called it pretty significant and described the weekend of May 30 as super volatile. Glenn Gabe summarized on his channels: March was meh, but May is big. Lily Ray reported big surges over the weekend for a portion of the domain sample she monitors.
Independent trackers recorded volatility in waves, with two distinct waves: a first cluster of changes in the two days following the launch (peaking on May 23), a second cluster around May 28–30 with a trend reversal—sites that had grown in the early days gave back some of their gains—and a new surge of volatility in the 24 hours leading up to the rollback. Those who looked at the data on May 26 saw a different picture than those who viewed it on the 31st, and yet another different from the stabilized picture after the update concluded. A one-week post-rollout buffer period, as Google itself suggests, remains the most reliable practice to avoid making overly impulsive and risky changes.
Some analyses of the US/UK database counted nearly 9,000 domains with measurable movement—5,039 winners, 3,845 losers—a scale similar to that of the “heaviest” broad core updates over the past three years.
Aleyda Solis has identified a pattern she calls an intent-destination reset: within each query cluster, the update appears to have favored a specific type of destination (canonical reference, transactional marketplace, official source) while penalizing sites that fall just outside that source type. Documented cases in the UK database: Cambridge.org +40.9% / YouGlish −69.6% (same family, linguistic reference, opposite outcome); Amazon.co.uk +21.3% / Amazon.com −54.6% (local version gaining ground as the global version loses it).
Christian Ott (SEO-Kreativ, DACH region) added a third data point: the spread between desktop volatility (at the lower end throughout the rollout) and mobile volatility (at the higher end) for Google Germany.
Winners & Losers of the Update: What the SEOZoom Data Reveals
The aggregate volatility data indicates that the May update disrupted Italian SERPs less than the March update did; where and how this occurred is revealed by the sectors and then the domains.
In fact, a clear divide emerges between coverage and organic value, which have moved in opposite directions on many domains—some sites appear in more SERPs but lose weight on the queries that generate traffic, while others lose overall presence but improve on the queries that matter. We have therefore witnessed a redistribution that places greater emphasis on the quality of rankings than on their quantity.
The ranking of the top Italian sites captures this split: on one hand, domains with a very recognizable function are rising—such as localized reviews, vertical information, product listings, business content, pharmaceutical e-commerce sites, and official sports sources. On the other hand, large editorial aggregators, reference portals, directories, and sites with very broad coverage are falling behind—often still present for many queries but carrying less weight in high-volume searches.
“Those who dominate win; those who merely cover lose” is a useful formula for interpreting the direction of this update—to be read as a statistical verdict—because on Google today, the number of keywords a domain ranks for matters less than the weight of the keywords on which it remains truly competitive.
In our analysis, we isolated a sample of Italian domains showing significant changes over the period, cross-referencing ranked keywords, estimated organic traffic, Zoom Authority, and behavior within Google’s AI Overviews. When sites with high Zoom Authority shift—even by just one point—it’s never a minor event.
We excluded from the sample cases that fall into categories too “noisy” to be interpreted as signals of the update—scheduled sporting events, industry dynamics (adult, gambling, crypto) governed by specific filtering logic, anomalies on individual keywords, navigational fluctuations on international brands, and recoveries from extreme starting points. What remains is a meaningful sample.
The Top Winners of the May 2026 Core Update
Generally speaking, the winners include localized versions of global brands, vertical editorial portals, product databases, and specialized e-commerce sites. The winners are those whocover a narrow yet deep scope and emerge stronger precisely on the identity-defining queries of their respective sectors. This is evident in the business sector with PMI.it, in the health sector with MeaFarma and Dica33, in the tech sector with GSMArena, in the reviews sector with the Italian version of Trustpilot, and on institutional soccer sites such as Inter and LegaSerieA.
- trustpilot.com
The Italian version of Trustpilot is one of the clearest indicators of this trend: +42,996 keywords, +6,775,926 estimated visits, and a +2-point increase in Zoom Authority. The domain is gaining ground in SERPs where users seek confirmation before making a decision: reviews, reliability, and opinions on companies, e-commerce sites, services, and platforms.
The data becomes even more interesting when compared to trustpilot.com, which has lost ground in the Italian database during the same period. Brand visibility is shifting toward the localized version, which is better suited to the language and market. This is a trend also observed on the international front—particularly in the comparison between Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com in the United Kingdom—and here applied to the world of reviews: when a search query seeks trust and context, the local site carries more weight.
- Pmi.it
The portal dedicated to small and medium-sized enterprises shows the strongest growth in the sample: keywords +51.3%, estimated traffic +53.2%, ZA +2. The site is a vertical publication focused on taxation, regulations, business management, and incentives—practical content with a strong informational focus. PMI is gaining ground across the board in taxation, regulations, business management, and incentives, without spikes in individual search queries. This is the vertical editorial specialization model that recent data releases have consistently rewarded the most: a narrow scope, covered in depth. The corresponding underperformers within the same business sector are AgendaDigitale (–2 million in estimated traffic, ZA –3) and Money.it (–621,000, ZA –7): specialization wins out, while generalist coverage loses ground.
- Dica33.it
The pharmaceutical information portal gained +11.1% in keywords, +36.4% in estimated traffic, and ZA +1. These are highly significant figures within the Health sector, which, at the aggregate level, is the most stable in the sample. The site is growing by building on its long-standing focus on medical and pharmaceutical information: active ingredients, symptoms, diseases, dosages, and medications.
- Meafarma.it
The pharmaceutical e-commerce site is growing across all metrics: +13.6% in keywords, +15.9% in estimated traffic, ZA +1. Consistent growth, spread across the entire scope—product pages, brand+active ingredient queries, and searches for over-the-counter medications. This is a continuation of a trend already glimpsed in the March analysis of the Italian online pharmacy segment, which is consolidating its position in SERPs while also driving the advancement of service- and transaction-oriented domains.
Together with MeaFarma, this is proof that a redistribution is taking place within the Health sector—and it is not driven by aggregate volatility, but by net changes across individual domains.
- GSMArena
The international vertical database for smartphones gained +14.6% in keywords and +136.6% in estimated traffic, with a ZA of +3. The domain is the quintessential product page in the tech sector: for every phone launched, there is a page with all the technical data, and for years it has been one of the most prominent references for brand-specific queries such as “technical specifications [model],” as well as for comparisons of processors, cameras, and battery life. The May update has reinforced the importance of tech-product queries on specialized sources, and GSMArena benefits from this more clearly than anyone else. The counterexample is HDBlog.it, an Italian consumer tech publication: same subject area, opposite outcome. Apparently, within the broader tech sector, a vertical database is growing while a consumer editorial portal is losing ground. For product queries, Google seems to give more weight to structured, immediate results focused on data and specifications. GSMArena isn’t gaining ground because it’s “tech,” but because it accurately addresses a very recognizable set of search queries.
- Inter.it and LegaSerieA.it
The official website of the Nerazzurri club gained +680,598 estimated visits, +2,987 keywords, and a ZA of +1—growth spread across both metrics. LegaSerieA.it shows the largest shift within the sports segment of the sample: +3,422,454 estimated visits, -10,076 keywords, and a ZA of +1. The loss of coverage on LegaSerieA is as significant as the gain in volume—the domain has become more selective in targeting high-intent queries (schedule, standings, matches), while dropping out of a flood of secondary queries. The overall picture is that of a soccer SERP that has strengthened institutional sites—official clubs, governing bodies—where users seek direct and up-to-date information.
The Main Losers of the May 2026 Core Update
On the flip side, the losers reflect the consistent continuation of the direction that March had signaled. General-interest news publishers, historical reference portals, directories, and industry-specific editorial hubs: domains that thrive on broad coverage and neutral informational content, and which continue to give way to more specialized, official, and transactional sources. Repubblica and AdnKronos ended the period down; MyPersonalTrainer is the standout example that encapsulates the nature of this update; PagineGialle is the “purest” loser in the sample; and Sapere.Virgilio continues the downsizing of all-in-one portals that has been ongoing for over a year.
- My-Personaltrainer.it
The most prominent consumer health portal on the Italian web ends the period by gaining +62,086 keywords, equal to +4.3% in coverage, but loses 5,784,786 estimated visits, with a -1 point drop in Zoom Authority.
The number of keywords is growing, but organic traffic is declining. For a site focused on wellness, nutrition, training, symptoms, ailments, and remedies, this divergence is decisive: the domain remains extremely broad, appearing in more SERPs, but is losing ground on the queries that generate the most estimated traffic. This is the clearest summary of the May Update in Italy: broad coverage and organic value can take different paths.
- Repubblica.it
Repubblica ends up with -76,625 keywords, -3,977,856 estimated traffic visits, and -1 Zoom Authority point. This is the sharpest decline among the major Italian news outlets in the sample, and it is not an isolated case in the industry.
Broadening the scope of analysis, it should be noted that Repubblica was among the winners of the December 2025 Core Update, then showed negative signs in March, and now confirms a new decline.
In addition to what we might call “crashes,” it’s worth noting the pattern of continuous recalibration that has now lasted for three consecutive updates. For Italian general-interest news publishers, space in Google’s organic SERPs has shrunk, and the way they are positioned in contemporary search has changed.
- Adnkronos.com
The site lost 22,902 keywords, 872,884 estimated visits, and 3 Zoom Authority points. This is the most consistent decline among the news outlets in the sample: a consistent drop across all organic metrics, with the decline in ZA being the largest in the news portfolio. AdnKronos covers news, breaking news, press releases, and real-time news coverage. This decline indicates a loss of ground on queries with higher organic value and reduces the influence of a source that typically appears in many informational searches.
- Hdblog.it
The consumer tech portal ends up with 33,427 fewer keywords, 2,054,407 fewer estimated visits, and a Zoom Authority (ZA) of -2—the largest decline in the Italian tech sector within the sample.
Compared to the breadth of HDBlog—which is a general-interest tech publication (covering industry news, reviews, and comparisons)—Google appears to prefer the vertical focus of GSMArena: for queries regarding specific models, technical specifications, and comparisons, the emphasis shifts toward more structured results that are closely aligned with the product. HDBlog remains a recognizable player in the Italian tech scene, but the May Update reduced its estimated organic value during the observed period.
- Paginegialle.it
The historic Italian directory is the most extreme case in the sample. The site gained 751,313 ranked keywords—the largest growth in coverage we’ve ever recorded, over three-quarters of a million new keywords—and during the same period lost 1,482,659 estimated traffic visits, with a ZA of -1. It is clear that PagineGialle has entered a vast number of secondary queries (likely local name-based searches, where its territorial presence has opened up new opportunities) while losing ground on those that generate traffic.
The “old-school” generalist directory model—which the December 2025 Core Update had already begun to scale back—continues to seek a new balance within the SERPs of contemporary search, which are increasingly oriented toward direct, local, vertical, or transactional results.
- Sapere.Virgilio.it
The reference section of the Virgilio portal gained 92,284 keyword rankings and lost 526,792 estimated visits, with ZA remaining stable. This follows the same pattern as PagineGialle, albeit on a smaller scale and within a different thematic scope—definitions, meanings, and quick-reference content. The domain is expanding its coverage even as it loses ground on historical informational queries, following a model—encyclopedic and definitional reference—that the March update had already scaled back for the major players in the sector. Sapere.Virgilio carries on the legacy of that same shift, within an “all-in-one” universe—email, weather, news, knowledge, recipes—that Italian SERPs continue to downsize.
What’s Happening in AI Overview
The organic landscape is only half the picture. The other half lies in Google’s AI Overview, and the snapshot from May 2026 tells a different story.
Of the 41 Italian domains analyzed in depth in our sample, 36 are growing within AI Overview and 5 are declining. The generative landscape is expanding: more keywords covered, more total mentions, and more domains involved. The overall trend is consistent with what Google outlined at I/O 2026, with AI Mode surpassing one billion monthly users and AI Overviews serving around 2.5 billion responses globally. AI Overviews are no longer a supplementary feature. They are a standalone destination for visibility, and this release clearly demonstrates that.
The data that stands out across the sample is the misalignment between organic search and AIO. Only three sites lose ground on both fronts—PagineGialle, Fanpage, and translate.google.it. While the latter is an example of a site strong in navigation and falls outside the scope of editorial content, the only clear losers of this release, on both fronts, are PagineGialle and Fanpage. All other organic losers are actually AIO winners. Repubblica.it loses 3,977,856 estimated visits from organic SERPs and sees an +81.5% increase in visibility in AI Overviews. AdnKronos loses 872,884 estimated visits and grows by +85.8% in AIO. Humanitas.it loses estimated organic visits and grows by +90.1% in AIO. This is not automatic compensation: it is a redistribution of the domain’s weight between two areas that Google treats with independent logic.
MyPersonalTrainer.it is the most striking example: in organic search, it loses 5,784,786 estimated visits while gaining 62,086 ranked keywords. In AI Overviews, it sees a +192.5% increase in visibility, with +7,335 keywords appearing in generative responses and a total of +31,882 mentions. Its presence within AI Overviews grows in proportion to what the site loses on traditional SERPs. The domain has scaled back in one area and expanded in the other.
On the other hand, organic winners tend to be AIO winners as well, though to varying degrees. it.Trustpilot saw a +24.6% increase in AIO visibility, PMI.it a +76.7% increase, MeaFarma a +113% increase, GSMArena a +88.4% increase, and Dica33 a +37.2% increase. For sites that dominate their sector vertically, the update brings growth on both fronts—the organic trend is confirmed by AIO, not contradicted.
Within this general trend, however, there is one figure worth noting that applies to almost the entire sample: the share of “first mentions” is systematically decreasing. MyPersonalTrainer lost 19,785 first mentions (from 32,380 to 12,595) despite an overall +192.5% increase in AIO visibility. Humanitas -6,552 (from 8,674 to 2,122), Sapere.Virgilio -1,923, Apps. Apple -1,246, Dica33 -1,356 (from 1,994 to 638), MeaFarma -762 (from 1,130 to 368), Quattroruote -703, Repubblica -581 (from 1,223 to 642), Comingsoon -448, it.Trustpilot -435, PagineGialle -371. Even among domains growing in the generative space, the privilege of being the first source cited is distributed across a greater number of sources. Google is expanding its AIO presence but reducing the concentration of sources on a single entry.
In the May 2026 release, simply appearing in an AI response is a lower threshold than before. Being the source that opens the response is the new strategic level.
For the Healthcare sector, this point is even more evident. MyPersonalTrainer lost 19,785 top citations and saw a +192.5% increase in visibility. Humanitas lost 6,552 top citations and saw a +90.1% increase. Dica33 lost 1,356 top citations and saw a +37.2% increase. MeaFarma lost 762 top citations and saw a +113% increase. All four healthcare sites in our sample gained presence within the AI Overviews, and all lost top citations. In a sector that, in terms of aggregate organic volatility, is the most stable in the basket—7.55%, as in March and December—the weight of sources is being redistributed within the AI Overviews, to an extent that the organic curve does not reveal.
The sector study we dedicated to Healthcare described a structurally conservative sector in organic SERPs. The three consecutive reports confirm this characteristic. What the May 2026 AIO report adds, however, is that the sector’s organic stability is not reflected in AIO stability. Generative responses are recalibrating the weight of sources in a much more dynamic way than the organic volatility curve suggests—and for anyone working on visibility in the healthcare sector, organic monitoring alone is no longer sufficient to understand how and to what extent the domain is being served by Google.
How to Turn Information into Strategy with SEOZoom
Rule number one: don’t panic. The basic advice for navigating the post-update phase remains to think calmly and analyze the situation with clear-headedness and composure, without letting anxiety or the impulse to “fix everything” cloud your judgment.
To determine whether the traffic on your site is a result of the update or specific dynamics of your domain, start by looking at the aggregate behavior of the SERPs before examining your own. If you immediately attribute what happened to the update, you’re viewing the update through the lens of your own individual experience—and you’ll miss the opportunity to assess its actual impact.
Use the Time Machine by setting the comparison dates to May 20 (pre-rollout) and June 9 (post-rollout, with a one-week buffer). Filter for keywords that dropped out of the Top 10: if you’ve lost generic or off-target keywords, the update has reduced noise. If you’ve lost core keywords in your niche, the issue is structural and requires a review of your content strategy.
Check your Zoom Authority. Fluctuations of one or two points in a month are normal; larger fluctuations signal a reassessment of the domain’s trustworthiness. Always compare the change in ZA with that of estimated traffic: when these two metrics move in opposite directions, that’s the most informative signal. When ZA remains stable while traffic declines, the site has lost weight on the queries that the SERP assigns to it—not on the domain’s technical authority.
Broaden your perspective to include AI surfaces. With AI Visibility, assess the domain’s presence within the generative responses of Google, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. With GEO Audit and AEO Audit, evaluate the brand’s coverage on a map of prompts representative of the industry. This is particularly useful for the May update: many domains experiencing a decline in organic traffic have gained presence in AI Overviews, and focusing solely on organic traffic means attributing an impact to the update that doesn’t actually exist in the real search landscape.
The most granular metric is the data on the “first” in AI Overviews. SEOZoom measures, for each domain, how many times it appears as the first source of an AI response. This is the most sensitive metric, because it reveals not only whether you’re present but also where you stand in the hierarchy of citations. For the sites in the sample—even those showing overall growth in AIO visibility—“first” rankings have systematically declined. This means that presence in AI Overviews is a minimum threshold, and the true key to success is the top position.
