10 Key SEO & AI News You Need to Know - May 2026

Are you optimizing your content for the Czech Republic and Slovakia? With Marketing Miner, you now hold a massive competitive advantage - we have fundamentally upgraded our keyword database. But May 2026 wasn't just about data. At the I/O conference, Google confirmed the transformation of search into a conversational platform, released its first-ever manual for AI optimization, wrapped up the month by triggering another core algorithm update, and just yesterday, dropped a massive update to Google Search Console. Grab a coffee, here are 9 SEO and AI updates you can't afford to miss.

1) Marketing Miner Has the Largest and Highest-Quality Keyword Database for the Czech Republic and Slovakia

Introducing our new keyword search volume database for the Czech Republic and Slovakia. At Marketing Miner, we have invested a massive amount of time and capital into new infrastructure, upgraded our algorithms, and integrated AI.

The result is the largest and highest-quality keyword database for the CZ and SK markets, even when stacked against global SEO tools. While they split their focus across hundreds of markets, we concentrate on being the absolute best on our home turf. When compared to Ahrefs (for queries with a monthly search volume over 10), we surface significantly more terms:

Gain a massive competitive advantage in your content creation and uncover search queries your competitors don't even know exist. For more detailed information, check out our dedicated article: The Largest and Highest-Quality Keyword Database for the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

2) Google Search Console Finally Introduces Generative AI Impressions Reporting

If you’ve been wondering whether your SEO efforts are actually landing you in Google's generative features, you finally have a way to see that data directly from the source. As announced by Google Search Central, a brand new "Generative AI" report is rolling out under the Performance tab in Google Search Console. While it currently shows only impressions (without clicks, rankings, or CTR), this is a massive leap forward for SEOs.

To fill in the missing pieces, you can perfectly combine this data with Marketing Miner’s AI Visibility Tracking. While GSC tells you that you were seen, Marketing Miner shows you exactly where you ranked, your Share of Voice, and covers other critical platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

Generative AI report in Google Search Console

You can filter the data in GSC by pages, countries, devices, and dates to see exactly which of your pages Google’s AI models find most relevant for grounding their responses in AI Overviews, AI Mode, and AI features in Discover.

The rollout is starting primarily in the UK (largely driven by the Competition and Markets Authority pushing for better attribution and transparency), but it will eventually be available globally. Alongside the report, Google has also introduced a highly discussed opt-out toggle right in GSC. This gives site owners a simple, accessible way to prevent their content from being used to power AI features (an easier alternative to the google-extended robots.txt tag).

For a deep dive into how to analyze this new reporting, we highly recommend checking out Marie Haynes' breakdown of the new GSC features.

Track your cross-platform AI visibility

3) Webinar Recording: Live AI Visibility Audit of 3 Websites – Pavel Ungr & Tomáš Novák

Our May webinar focused on AI visibility auditing is successfully wrapped up! Together with Pavel Ungr, we put three real-world websites under the microscope and looked at how they perform in the eyes of AI assistants and search engines.

Missed the live stream? Or want to rewatch the practical walkthroughs and tips on how to optimize for AI search and get cited more frequently by ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews? We’ve got good news. The full recording is available online (in Czech):

4) Google Launches the May 2026 Core Update

Barely had the March turbulence settled when Google rolled out another core algorithm update. According to the Google Search Status Dashboard, the rollout of the May 2026 Core Update officially began on May 21, 2026, and the full rollout will take about two weeks. According to Google's statement on LinkedIn, the goal of this update is to better and more accurately surface relevant and satisfying content across all types of websites.

As this is a broad core update, top SEO experts already noticed significant volatility and sharp drops or spikes in keyword rankings and organic traffic by the end of May. As reported in detail by Search Engine Roundtable, the algorithm hit numerous websites hard late in the month. This update globally reassesses how algorithms perceive the quality, trustworthiness, and helpfulness of pages compared to their competitors.

What does this mean for your projects? During an ongoing rollout, we recommend avoiding hasty technical or content changes on your site. Wait until Google officially confirms the completion of the update, and only then dive into strategic adjustments based on stabilized data.

Marketing Miner TIP: Track your rank movements for tracked keywords within your Marketing Miner projects and analyze which of your pages are benefiting from these shifts and which are losing visibility. Furthermore, we automatically add annotations for all major algorithm updates directly into your estimated monthly traffic graphs in Marketing Miner. This allows you to accurately evaluate the impact of the update on your site. Don't forget to monitor your competitors' dynamics as well - if any of them see a sudden surge, audit the structure and depth of their content. This will give you valuable insights into how Google currently assesses quality and relevance in your niche.

View sample project for rank tracking

5) Upgraded ChatGPT Product Visibility Analysis in Marketing Miner

Want to know which specific products and merchants ChatGPT is recommending to your potential customers? We’ve upgraded our AI Visibility Tracking tool in Marketing Miner - specifically the analysis focused on product visibility within ChatGPT.

What new data can you find here, and how will it help you drive more sales? To give you even deeper insights into how AI interprets e-commerce, we’ve added several major features:

• Shopping Fan-outs - before ChatGPT recommends products to a user, it often needs to look up additional details online. It does this via "Shopping Fan-outs" - background search queries sent to Google Shopping to pull user reviews, technical specs, tests, or recommendations. You can now see these exact queries directly in Marketing Miner.
• Merchant Insights - for every product, we now clearly display data on the e-commerce stores and merchants that ChatGPT mentions in its recommendations.
• New Visual Charts - we’ve introduced intuitive charts for Brand Visibility, Brand Share of Voice, Product Visibility, and Merchant Visibility. You can instantly see your market share and how you stack up against the competition.

View sample ChatGPT product visibility report

Marketing Miner TIP: Look for recurring patterns in Shopping Fan-outs to understand how AI assistants evaluate products and what information they look for. Then, integrate these insights into your product descriptions. This will boost your chances of being recommended by AI in the future.

6) Google Releases Official Guide on Optimizing Websites for AI Search

In mid-May, Google released its first-ever official guide: Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search. This new documentation is tailored for site owners, developers, and SEOs, clearly defining how to optimize your content to surface in AI-driven search experiences.

If you want to ensure AI engines don't overlook your copy and products, this guide provides answers across several critical areas. Google places extreme emphasis on creating valuable, unique content that doesn't just replicate hundreds of other pages. It offers actionable tips for serving local, shopping, image, and video content, alongside guidelines concerning AI agents.

Crucially for the SEO community, Google officially busts the myths surrounding GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) in this guide, confirming that classic, high-quality SEO practices remain the strongest foundation for success in the AI era as well.

Track your AI visibility with Marketing Miner

7) Video Tutorial: Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up Recurring AI Visibility Tracking in Marketing Miner

Traditional search is no longer enough for businesses. To succeed today, your brand, products, and services must be actively recommended by AI assistants. Want to keep tabs on what ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity are saying about you, how you compare to competitors, and which sources the AI pulls its data from? With recurring AI Visibility Tracking in Marketing Miner, you can find out in just a few clicks.

To help you squeeze the maximum value out of this data and turn it into real business outcomes, we’ve recorded a practical video guide (in Czech). We'll walk you through the entire tool, show you how to set up recurring tracking for your project in under a minute, and share 3 real-world use cases on how to leverage the gathered insights.

You can also explore our detailed blog post for a step-by-step walkthrough of the recurring AI visibility tracking tool and its configuration.

8) Study: The Most Visible SEO Agencies and Consultants in AI Search across the Czech Republic

At Marketing Miner, we love hard data. That’s why we conducted an extensive study in May to see how the Czech SEO scene holds up in the eyes of artificial intelligence. We used the same methodology for both surveys: testing 5,000 prompts across 5 major AI models (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and AI Mode). In total, we executed 25,000 checks per category right within Marketing Miner.

Based on this data, we’ve put together a leaderboard of the TOP 10 most visible SEO agencies appearing in AI recommendations in the Czech Republic, alongside the TOP 10 most visible SEO consultants in AI search who have built the strongest personal brands in the digital landscape and are actively recommended by AI models.

9) Google Officially Kills Off FAQ Rich Results

If you’ve invested time over the past few years implementing FAQ structured data, we have bad news: its era has officially come to an end. As of May 7, 2026, Google has completely deprecated FAQ rich results. While you can leave the schema markup on your site, those expandable drop-down accordions will no longer surface in the SERPs.

Source: Glenn Gabe on X

As Barry Schwartz pointed out over at Search Engine Roundtable, this isn't a total shock to the community. Google continuously tweaks its support for rich results, having already announced restrictions for FAQs back in 2023. Now, however, they are removing this format, which had been running since 2019, for good.

10) Google I/O 2026: AI Mode Surpasses 1 Billion Users, Natural Conversations Take Center Stage, and Gemini Omni Debuts

In mid-May, the highly anticipated Google I/O 2026 developer conference made one thing crystal clear: the era of traditional search as we’ve known it for a quarter of a century is coming to an end. On stage, Sundar Pichai announced that the integrated AI Mode surpassed the 1 billion active user milestone in less than a year since launch, while AI Overviews now reach 2.5 billion people every month. You can review the full breakdown of key announcements in the official summary on the Google Keyword Blog.

According to Google, the future of search relies heavily on natural conversation, a shift evidenced by their latest updates. Building on the recent success of the "Ask Maps" feature, Google is expanding natural conversational dialogue to other core services. Users will now be able to interact directly with the video platform via "Ask YouTube". This allows you to find videos that perfectly match your interest or jump straight to the most relevant segment of a video. Google is currently testing this feature and plans to roll it out more broadly in the US over the summer.

Newly tested Ask YouTube feature

Voice capabilities are expanding to productivity tools as well. To generate a document with Gemini, you will no longer need to type out precise prompts. With Docs Live, you can simply brainstorm out loud, and let Gemini handle the rest. Down the road, you'll be able to spin up new documents and edit them directly entirely by voice. Alongside Docs Live, premium subscribers will also see these voice features roll out to Gmail and Keep.

This entire ecosystem is powered by a next-gen infrastructure spearheaded by 8th-generation TPU chips, pushing AI beyond mere text prediction and into simulating reality (so-called "world models"). The Gemini Omni model can generate any output from any given input - starting with video outputs and gradually rolling out support for images and text. Google has launched the first model from this lineup: Gemini Omni Flash.