An analysis of SISTRIX visibility data by Aleyda Solis found a pattern in the final days of Google’s May core update. Sites that best match a query’s intent, market, and result type tend to gain visibility, while sites that deviate from this lose ground.
It measured the visibility of domains in the United States and the United Kingdom between May 26 and June 2, the day Google confirmed that the deployment was complete.
This is data from one tool for two markets, taken at the end of deployment, so other datasets and regions may be different.
Solis says the model is like a reset, where the destination type matters for each query. She mentions that authority still plays a role, but that it alone does not explain who benefits and who does not.
Authority alone did not explain the winners
Some high-authority domains saw declines, including nytimes.com and nih.gov.
Original sources have increased while third-party sources have fallen. For example, in the UK index, cambridge.org rose 40.9% while pronunciation tool youglish.com fell 69.6%.
The education category therefore neither gained nor lost overall. What mattered was what type of source matched the query.
UK results tilt in favor of local sites
Local retailers rose while the .com version of the same brand fell in the UK index.
Amazon.co.uk rose 21.3%, while amazon.com fell 54.6% for UK users. In the US index, the same .com domains remained roughly stable.
The motif aligns with Solis’ earlier work. Her AI search click analysis across 10 markets found that most clicks were directed to local domains rather than global domains by default. She suggests international sites check for poor market rankings and weak country-specific signals.
It wasn’t a general category story
The data does not allow us to consider an entire category as a winner or a loser.
Forums and Q&A sites declined, with reddit.com down 23.8% in the UK, but the biggest social and video platforms remained flat or positive. Large marketplaces like trip.com and Indeed.com have gained traction, so the “lost aggregators” aren’t holding up either.
Solis notes that the forum removal could be a lasting correction or end-of-rollout volatility.
Why it matters
The bottom line is that authority in itself may be too broad a point of comparison.
For every important query, Solis suggests checking what type of result you got after the update, then confirming that your page is of that type and not a weaker echo of a source that already has it.
Her reading of May continues what she saw in the March Core Updatewhich she described as a shift towards stronger default destinations.
Looking to the future
Basic Google Updates Documentation recommends waiting at least a week after the end of a core update before drawing conclusions from Search Console data, which places the first clean reading around June 9.
Different tools measure viewability in different ways and may rank the same domains differently. So consider this an early signal rather than a frozen image.
Featured Image: Asia_K/Shutterstock
