Table of Contents
Two Keynotes, One Core Update, and Where to Spend Your Attention
The rest of the week, in bite-sized pieces
"I'm getting cold emails saying our 'GEO score' is low and we need their AI search package. Is that a real thing?"
Epic Web Studios
Epic Insights
Edition 21  ·  May 26, 2026

Last Week's Hype, This Week's Reality

You watched the I/O highlights or you didn't. Either way, keynote week is done, the Core Update dropped Thursday afternoon, and now we can see what actually moves the needle for your business. Spoiler: it isn't agentic shopping carts.
The Big Story

Two Keynotes, One Core Update, and Where to Spend Your Attention

Google I/O ran Tuesday, May 19. Google Marketing Live ran Wednesday, May 20. By Thursday afternoon, Google rolled out the May 2026 Core Update. Three major moves in 72 hours, and most of it doesn't need anything from you this week.

Here's why. On Tuesday, Google quietly swapped the model powering AI Mode to Gemini 3.5 Flash in every country where AI Mode runs. AI Mode now reaches 1 billion people a month. AI Overviews reaches 2.5 billion. Pew Research's data is still the cleanest read on what that does to traffic: roughly half as many clicks on traditional blue links when an AI summary appears (8% vs 15% in their 68,000-query study). That's not a new shift. It's just a bigger one now.

The flashier announcements (Universal Cart, Information Agents, agentic ads, the new search box that accepts photos and Chrome tabs) are coming, but most are paid features, summer rollouts, or built for enterprise advertisers first. Your customers in Erie won't experience them at scale this quarter. The features that will reach them are the ones that already shipped, like the Personal Intelligence expansion to nearly 200 countries on May 19.

The honest read from practitioners writing this week (Lily Ray, Glenn Gabe, Marie Haynes): traditional search rank is still the strongest predictor of whether AI search cites you. Ray's analysis put search rank at 9.4 out of 10 as the leading signal. So if a vendor pitches you on a "GEO" or "AEO" package that skips SEO, you're paying for a layer that doesn't exist yet.
What this means for your site
Most of what Google announced is months away from your customers. The thing already changing your traffic is AI Mode and AI Overviews, and the way to influence both is the SEO work you're already doing well.

Your move: Open Search Console, pull your top 10 pages by impressions, and run those queries in AI Mode. The ones that don't surface are next month's content plan.
Quick Hits

The rest of the week, in bite-sized pieces
Core Update Rolling Out. Don't Touch Anything.
Google launched the May 2026 Core Update on Thursday, May 21. Rollout runs about two weeks, and tracking tools are showing meaningful volatility through the weekend. Early reads from Search Engine Land flag thin content and unedited AI text as the heaviest losers.
Your move: Sit tight until rollout finishes around June 4. We'll let you know where you stand and what we can do about it.
Your Links Report Is Lying. Not Your Traffic.
John Mueller confirmed on May 21 that the Google Search Console Links report is broken across accounts, with some sites showing zero links or 80%-plus drops. It's a reporting bug, not a ranking change. Google is investigating.
Your move: If your dashboard looks scary right now, ignore the Links report until Google flags it fixed. Other metrics are still reliable.
Avada Builder Vulnerability Hits a Million WordPress Sites
Avada Builder, running on roughly a million WordPress sites, was disclosed this month with a high-severity SQL injection (CVE-2026-4798) plus an arbitrary file read flaw (CVE-2026-4782). Updates are out.
Your move: If your site runs Avada Builder, update this week. If Epic hosts your WordPress site, no worries, we got you!
When "GEO" Tactics Cost You SEO
Lily Ray's data on 220 sites that doubled down on AI-only optimization (auto-listicles, scaled content, GEO-specific tactics) shows traffic drops of 40 to 95 percent from January through April. Working today isn't the same as working forever.
Your move: Before signing any "GEO" package, ask the vendor for a 6-month traffic trend on the sites they've worked on. Real numbers, not screenshots from January.
Ask Epic

"I'm getting cold emails saying our 'GEO score' is low and we need their AI search package. Is that a real thing?"

No, well...yes, but mostly no!

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) are real ideas. Marketers really are trying to figure out how to show up inside AI answers, not just under them. So when someone says your "score" is low, they aren't inventing the topic.

What they ARE inventing is the score. There is no standardized GEO score the way there's a Lighthouse score or a Core Web Vitals number. Vendors build their own metric and use it to justify selling you the package.

Here's what the practitioner data actually says. Lily Ray, who tracks this seriously, found that traditional search rank is the strongest predictor of whether an AI tool cites your site, scoring 9.4 out of 10 in her analysis. SEO fundamentals (good content, a fast site, clean structure, real reviews) are what gets you cited. Your customers don't care whether the path is called SEO or GEO. They just want to find you. Fix the basics first.
What Epic's doing for you this week
This week our team is patching Avada Builder on the WordPress client sites that run it, watching ranking dashboards across the client roster without making reactive changes during the Core Update rollout (we sit on our hands intentionally during these), and documenting which Marketing Live announcements have actual shipping dates worth tracking. If anything affects your account in a way that needs your eyes, you'll hear from us directly. Otherwise, nothing for you to do this week.
Your 15-minute self-audit

The Core Update No-Move Checklist

When a Core Update is rolling out (and one is rolling out right now), the biggest mistake is to react. Run through these three questions before you touch anything on your site.

  1. Has it been less than two weeks since May 21? If yes, don't make ranking-driven changes. The algorithm is still moving and your numbers are noise.
  2. Is the change one you'd make anyway, Core Update or not? Routine content updates, plugin patches, and obvious bug fixes are fine. Skip the rewrite-everything panic.
  3. Did one specific page drop while the rest held? That's a real signal worth investigating after rollout ends. Note it now, act in June.

Thanks for reading! Got questions? Ideas? I'm all ears. Share your thoughts with me and help shape future editions of Epic Insights.

— Kristy Freeman
Epic Web Studios
k.freeman@epicwebstudios.com
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814.746.6987  ·  epicwebstudios.com

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