How Google's May Core Update Could Challenge Your Brand Visibility

Relevance Just Outranked Reputation.

Imagine you asked a friend for a restaurant recommendation in a city you're visiting. They could give you a globally popular chain with great reviews, or they could point you to the local spot that everyone in that city actually goes to.

Google took a similar approach with this update.

Post-update analysis showed that pages closely aligned with a query's intent, source type, and market gained visibility. Pages less aligned, even if highly authoritative, lost relevance.

For example, in UK search results, local retailers outperformed global .com versions of the same brands. Amazon.co.uk saw a significant increase in visibility, while Amazon.com declined for UK users. High-authority sources like the New York Times and NIH also saw declines. The update prioritized relevance over stature.

What This Actually Means for Your Content

The biggest takeaway here isn't a technical SEO checklist. It's a mindset shift.

Authority is a starting point, not a finish line. Many brands have invested heavily in building domain authority, and that work still matters after the core update. But recent changes suggest Google is increasingly asking a follow-up question: Is this the best-fit source for this specific query? A high-authority general domain can now lose to a lower-authority niche domain if that specialty is a better match for what someone is actually looking for.

Being close to the source counts. One meaningful pattern from this update: original sources gained while third-party aggregators and secondary sources pulled back. If your content aligns with the primary expertise on a topic, this update is a signal to close that gap. Create content that only your brand, with your specific experience and perspective, could produce.

Your page needs to be the right type of answer. This consideration can be easy to miss. It's not just about covering a specific topic; it's about covering it in the format and depth that match what users expect when they search. A page that summarizes a topic where searchers want an original, in-depth resource will underperform, no matter how polished the writing is.

The Category "Winners and Losers" Narrative Doesn't Hold

A common reflex after a core update is to scan for which categories won or lost, and assume your industry fell into one bucket or the other.

This update doesn't support that idea. Within the same category, results varied widely depending on source type and market fit. An educational site in the UK could see significant gains, while another educational site could lose relevance. Forums pulled back entirely, but large social and visual platforms held steady or even gained ground. Marketplaces across several industries saw mixed results in their own categories.

The lesson: don't assume your industry was entirely helped or hurt. Look at your specific pages and ask whether they're genuinely the best-fit answer for the searches that drive your traffic.

Where to Focus Your Strategy Now

Consider reviewing the following areas in the coming weeks:

Audit your top-traffic pages. For each page that drives meaningful organic traffic, ask: Is this page the natural first destination for this search? Or could a more specialized, original source realistically outrank it? If the honest answer includes specialization, then that page needs work.

Check for market misalignment. If your business serves specific regions or audiences, confirm that your content, signals, and site structure reflect those regions or audiences. Broad, market-agnostic pages can lose out to local or specialized competitors, even when general authority is strong.

Close the gap between content and expertise. The most durable content strategy after this update is one grounded in genuine expertise and original perspective, not just comprehensive coverage of a topic. What does your team know that no one else does? That's where your content should lead.

The Bigger Picture

Each Google core update is a signal for recalibration, not a revolution. The direction of travel should be clear for impacted businesses: Google is getting better at distinguishing between content that merely covers a topic and content that owns it.

For marketers, that means the game is shifting from "how do we rank?" to "how do we become the obvious, best-fit answer?" Those are related questions, but they're not the same question, and the second one leads to a much more sustainable strategy.

At Forthea, we help brands identify exactly where that gap lies and how to close it. If you've noticed ranking shifts after this update, or you want to understand how your content strategy stacks up against where Google is heading, let's talk.