u/DigitalNomads_HQ

Early observations on the May 2026 core update and directories are getting hammered

Update started rolling out \~48 hours ago and the data is already messy.

I’ve been tracking a well-known Australian directory site that was sitting position 1-3 for basically every “near me” query you can think of. Plumbers, electricians, mechanics, cleaners, the lot.

Snapshot from the last 48 hours:

•	“plumber near me” → position 1 to 6, lost \\\~3,400 clicks    
•	“cleaners near me” → position 1 to 10    
•	“car detailing near me” → position 3 to 15    
•	“hairdresser near me” → gone from page 1    
•	“gardening services near me” → gone

75.5% of their “near me” terms declined.

My read: Google’s not interested in middlemen for local intent anymore. If someone searches “plumber near me,” the options are (a) show a directory that scraped 50 plumbers off the web, or (b) show the actual plumber with 200 reviews and 15 years of trading history. Google already has Maps, Business Profiles, and AI Overviews handling that surface. The directory doesn’t add anything to the equation.

This looks like information gain in action. The question Google seems to be asking every page: does this add something the rest of the web doesn’t already have? Aggregator/directory content struggles to answer yes.

If you run an actual local business, this is probably good news. GBP is back to being the most important piece of your digital footprint.

Still rolling out so take all of this with a grain of salt. Curious if anyone else is seeing similar movement on directory sites in their verticals, or whether it’s specific to local intent SERPs.

Hope this early insight is helpful for you all!

48 hours in and it’s pretty wild out there.

Been watching an Aussie directory that was basically squatting on position 1-3 for every “near me” search you can think of. Plumbers, sparkies, mechanics, cleaners, all of it.

Today? Not so much.

Quick look at the damage:

•	plumber near me: 1 → 6, down about 3,400 clicks  
•	cleaners near me: 1 → 10  
•	car detailing near me: 3 → 15  
•	hairdresser near me: gone  
•	gardening services near me: also gone

75.5% of their “near me” terms tanked in 48 hours…

Honestly it makes sense.

Someone searches “plumber near me” and Google’s got two choices.

Show a directory that scraped 50 plumbers off the internet, or show the actual plumber with 200 reviews and 15 years on the tools.

Google’s already got Maps, Business Profiles and AI Overviews doing that job. The directory is just sitting in the middle adding nothing.

Feels like the information gain stuff people have been talking about for ages is finally showing up properly. Google basically asking every page “do you actually add anything new here?” and aggregators are coming up short.

If you run a local business this is probably a good day. Your GBP just got way more valuable again.

Still rolling out so could swing around.

Anyone else seeing directories get smacked in their niche or is it just local stuff so far?

Day two of the rollout, I pulled rankings on three of our clients in the same category. One jumped four positions on its main commercial query. Two competing agencies on that exact term fell six and eight places.

Same query, same intent, same fortnight. Only thing that changed was the algorithm.

Spent the next three weeks pattern-matching that result against the rest of our accounts and our competitive set. Pattern held everywhere.

The sites that climbed read as run by real, named humans, under a real brand, drawing on real first-hand experience. The sites that fell didn't.

Calling it ABE: Author, Brand, Experience. Not a new theory. What changed in March is that Google made it pass-fail.

Author. Agency content has lived under the founder byline for years. Every post, every guide, every methodology, one name. We weren't immune. I was on ~90% of what we published.

A 200-post archive bylined to one person reads as one person running a content production line, not an editorial team. The fix isn't backfilling fake bylines. It's letting the people who actually do the work put their names on the work. Our head of dev knows more about Core Web Vitals than I do. A piece on Web Vitals belongs under his name, not mine.

Real authors leave a trail. LinkedIn history on the topic, comment threads, verifiable credentials. Manufactured ones don't.

Brand. Most agencies confuse brand with branding. Branding is the logo and the colour palette. Brand is the shadow your business casts across the rest of the web. What other people say about you when you're not in the room.

Our strongest brand signals weren't the ones we'd worked hardest on. Reviews, awards, partnership pages, third-party directories. All filed under "overhead" at the time. Turned out to be the highest-leverage SEO work we were doing. A competitor can clone your service page in an afternoon. They can't clone six years of accumulated reviews, awards, and citations.

Experience. Separates content written about a topic from content written from inside it. Vocabulary is the same. The detail isn't.

You notice it the way a chef notices the difference between a menu by someone who cooks and one by someone who consulted. Specifics only the person who did the work would know. Decisions that were judgement, not process. The calls that nearly went wrong.

For a quality system trying to tell content drawn from real practice apart from content assembled from other content, Experience is the highest-confidence signal of the three.

TLDR: After March, the cost of pretending went up sharply. Volume-based ranking is closing as an arbitrage. Sites ranking through Author, Brand, Experience held or gained. None of it is copyable, which is why it compounds.