Google Search Updates: What UK Firms Should Do Now

Google’s latest search changes are not a reason to panic. They are a reason to look hard at whether your website is genuinely useful enough to deserve visibility.

As of 26 May 2026, Google’s May 2026 core update is still rolling out. It began on 21 May and Google says it may take up to two weeks to complete. This follows a busy few months: a March spam update, a March core update, a February Discover update and new Google guidance on how websites should approach generative AI features in Search.

That sounds like an SEO news story. For manufacturers and ecommerce brands, it is more practical than that. Google is not just changing the order of blue links. It is changing how people search, compare options and make decisions before they ever reach your website.

The old response to a core update was often tactical. Rewrite a few headings. Add more keywords. Publish more blog posts. Remove a few pages. Wait for rankings to recover.

That approach is looking weaker every year, and it looks especially weak now.

What Google has actually changed

Google’s May 2026 core update began on 21 May 2026 at 08:40 US/Pacific. Google has not positioned it as a site-specific penalty. Like other broad core updates, it is a change to Google’s ranking systems, which means the right response is not to hunt for one broken line of code or one magic fix.

The May update follows the March 2026 spam update, which ran from 24 March to 25 March, and the March 2026 core update, which ran from 27 March to 8 April. Google also ran a February 2026 Discover core update for English-language Discover users in the US.

Alongside those ranking changes, Google has been moving Search further into AI-led answers and AI-assisted journeys. Its latest guidance on AI features in Search is blunt: standard SEO still matters. There is no separate shortcut where brands can game AI Overviews or AI Mode with a new technical trick while leaving the underlying website weak.

The message is consistent. Create content that is useful, original, reliable and built for people. Make it easy for Google to crawl, understand and cite. Avoid treating AI Search as a loophole.

For ecommerce and manufacturing websites, that is where the pressure starts.

Why manufacturers and ecommerce brands should care

Many manufacturer and ecommerce websites were built as catalogues first and sales assets second.

That is understandable. If the immediate job is to get products online, the site often starts with product names, specifications, supplier descriptions, basic category pages and a few generic buying guides. It may be technically functional, but it does not always explain why a customer should choose one product, one configuration or one supplier over another.

That is a problem in normal search. It becomes a bigger problem in AI-assisted search.

When Google can summarise simple answers directly in the results, weak informational content becomes easier to bypass. If your page only repeats what every other page says, it gives both Google and the buyer very little reason to treat your site as the best source.

This does not mean manufacturers should stop investing in SEO. It means SEO has to become more commercially honest.

The question is no longer, “Have we written something for this keyword?” The better question is, “Does this page help a buyer make a decision better than the other options available?”

The content Google is making harder to defend

The most exposed content is the content that only exists because a keyword tool said there was search volume.

That includes copied supplier descriptions, thin category introductions, generic comparison pages, basic “what is” articles, bland buying guides and AI-written articles that say the right-sounding things without adding any first-hand value.

These pages may still be indexed. Some may still rank for a while. But they are becoming harder to defend because they do not carry much evidence, expertise or commercial usefulness.

This matters for DTC launches in particular. A manufacturer moving from wholesale or trade-led sales into direct ecommerce cannot rely on a product catalogue alone. Direct customers need more explanation, more reassurance and more decision support than a distributor or trade buyer.

They want to know what fits, what lasts, what performs, what can go wrong, what is worth paying more for and what other buyers have learned. A thin product page rarely answers those questions well.

The content manufacturers can win with

The useful news is that manufacturers have material that generic publishers, marketplaces and low-effort AI content cannot credibly replicate.

They have product knowledge. They know common installation issues, specification trade-offs, material choices, production constraints, warranty questions, customer objections, delivery problems and aftercare patterns. They know which products are often misunderstood and which claims create unrealistic expectations.

That information should not be trapped in sales calls, inboxes and internal product conversations. It should be turned into searchable, useful website content.

For ecommerce brands, the same principle applies. Reviews, returns data, merchandising insight, customer service questions, product photography, fulfilment experience and purchase behaviour can all make pages more useful. A category page can explain real buying decisions. A product page can answer practical objections. A comparison page can help the customer choose honestly rather than simply pushing the highest-margin item.

That is the kind of content that has a better chance of surviving both core updates and AI-led search behaviour.

What to do after the May rollout completes

The worst thing to do during a core update is to panic-edit everything while the update is still moving.

Google recommends waiting until the rollout is complete, then allowing at least a full week before judging the data properly. After that, Search Console should be reviewed carefully. Compare like-for-like date ranges. Segment by page type. Look separately at product pages, category pages, advice content, comparison pages and brand-led pages.

Do not assume every ranking movement needs a fix. Small shifts are normal. Large sustained drops deserve a proper review.

Start with the pages that matter commercially. Ask whether the page gives the buyer useful information they could not get anywhere else. Check whether it has original detail, evidence, examples, clear product knowledge and a sensible next step. Look at whether the page is technically clean, fast enough, crawlable and internally linked from relevant parts of the site.

Be careful with deletion. Removing weak content can be right, but it should not be the default reflex. In many cases, the better move is to improve the page so it earns its place.

AI Search does not remove SEO. It raises the floor.

There is a lazy version of the AI Search conversation that says SEO is dead. It is not.

Google’s own AI Search guidance still points back to the same fundamentals: helpful content, accessible pages, clear structure, crawlability, useful titles, relevant structured data and a site that genuinely serves users.

What has changed is the tolerance for average content.

If AI answers compress simple research journeys, then brands need to give search engines and customers something more substantial to work with. Product knowledge matters more. Proof matters more. First-hand experience matters more. The website has to do more than exist.

For UK manufacturers and ecommerce brands, that is the real opportunity. Most competitors will still respond to algorithm updates tactically. They will chase fixes, publish more thin content and look for new AI SEO shortcuts.

The better move is to build the kind of website that can support modern buying behaviour: useful product information, strong category architecture, honest comparison content, clear proof, clean technical foundations and content that reflects what customers actually need to know before they buy.

Google’s latest updates are not just an SEO event. They are a quality audit.

If your website is still a catalogue with a blog attached, it is time to make it work harder.

If you want to review whether your website is ready for AI-era search and DTC growth, talk to Qoob about building a practical search visibility strategy for your manufacturing or ecommerce brand.

Talk to Qoob about AI-DTC search visibility.