Introduction

At the current time of writing, May 2025, a significant Google update is underway. It’s been titled the Google May Update.

Therefore, it doesn’t have a fancy title, like we were used to back in the day, say Google Panda updates.

However, we digress.

It’s a significant update, a sizeable Google update that’s underway and impacting many businesses. Some attributes of this update differ from other Google updates, and we will come to what we think is causing that.

 

What is this Google update targeting?

At this point, no agencies will know. Therefore, we don’t know whether it concentrates on evaluating the quality of off-page SEO or on-page. Consequently, we don’t know what the Google update is for and what spam they are targeting.

However, the same SEO rules apply; businesses should follow Google E-EAT guidance and build links using white hat techniques.

If your business is shifted down Google’s ranks, yet you have been following Google’s rule book, you will likely move back up. In search engine optimisation, we call this “ranking flux”. That’s when the rankings are unsettled and jumbled for a while, that’s when Google is testing and refining its algorithm rollout.

 

How much ranking flux are you seeing?

A huge amount.

There have been significant Google updates; often, these take place several times every year. In the past, the largest have been Google Panda and Google Penguin updates. These were rolled out years ago, yet businesses knew what they were for. For example, Google’s quality team could be penalising and de-indexing websites that were building spam links. However, this update is different.

It’s different because, we don’t know what it is targeting, in terms of what spam, what type of websites it wants de-indexed or moved down

Google’s ranks. What makes it odd is that Google is rolling out updates at a rate of knots lately.

 

What makes this Google update different?

It seems to be rolled out a lot, causing ranking flux to pause, then the same all over again.

Therefore the actual time that it is taking to roll out is odd.

A lot speculate that AI is being integrated into the algorithm.

This would make sense, as it’s something big, something being integrated into the algorithm that’s larger than changing the importance of an existing ranking factor. This could be a significant shake-up before Google changes, possibly radically altering how Google’s SERPs appear?

Has it come to an end?

No.

We would say it intensified over the weekend, started here in the U.K. on the 16th, and continues to roll out at the time of writing, the 19th of May 2025.

This seems to be a separate rollout, different from the rollout at the start of May.

What should businesses do to adapt?

Nothing just yet.

As marketing companies, we need to wait for the dust to settle. No one knows why there has been so much ranking flux lately. We therefore need a period after the rollout to evaluate and work out what’s changed, what’s causing the ranking flux and which businesses seem to be negatively impacted, in terms of now ranking lower on Google because of the update.

Is there any early speculation on which type of businesses have been impacted?

We work with websites that are YMYL, yet these haven’t been affected.

Other businesses are moving up and down over the weekend.

Which leads us to speculate that something is being tested, as this seems a like another rollout from one which we had at the start of May 2025.

We will, as always, keep you posted, yet as of the time of writing, 19/05/2025, the update is still rolling out.

 

Who are Walsh & Partners?

Walsh & Partners are a highly experienced search marketing business. The company is owned and managed by Ryan Walsh.
Ryan has over 10 years of experience helping businesses navigate these Google algorithm updates. We work with a broad range of Welsh businesses, and continually grow our client book. Call us today for help and advice regarding improving your business’s search engine optimisation.