The May 2026 Core Update was announced on 21st May 2026, following the March Core Update. It is currently rolling out and is expected to take two weeks to complete. Data, analysis, examples and rankings for affected domains are shown below in this article.
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- Google’s status page for the Core Update Start date: 21.05.26.
- For detailed information and data on all previous Google updates, see the SISTRIX update tracking page
- Information from Google on Core Updates about these broad changes to search algorithms and systems.
- The previous Core Update was in March 2026.
SISTRIX Google Update and Feature Update Radar
The daily view on SERP updates can always be viewed in our Google Update Radar which shows the current level of movement relative to the last 90 days. The radar graphics are an indicator of SERPs changes across 1 million SERPs every day. Graphs for UK and US are shown below:
The differences between the, normally close-tracking, US and UK radar is interesting to see here. We’re seeing movements across EU countries too. NL, ES, FR, for example.
The feature radars (also available on the SISTRIX radar pages linked above) are not showing any major changes.
Daily Updates
26th May 2026
Some candidate domains have been seen in the data. The examples below show changes starting on the 23rd May (crawled data from 22nd May)
The following example is from Google UK data for a well known brand.
Data and Analysis
Data analysis, including lists of winners and losers, will be provided as soon as reliable data is available.
