May has been another major month for the SEO industry, with Google doubling down on AI-powered search experiences and the wider industry rapidly adapting to the rise of GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation).
What’s becoming increasingly clear is that traditional SEO is no longer enough on its own. Visibility now extends beyond rankings into AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other answer-driven ecosystems.
Below are five of the most important digital marketing and SEO articles published recently that stood out this month.
Google’s New AI Search Guide Says GEO & AEO Are Still SEO
Google officially released new guidance around AI-powered search this month, and one of the biggest takeaways was its stance that GEO and AEO are not separate disciplines, but rather extensions of modern SEO. The documentation also pushed back on several emerging “AI SEO hacks” like llms.txt and excessive chunking strategies, reinforcing the importance of strong technical SEO, authority, and genuinely useful content.
Google Updates Spam Policies To Target AI Manipulation
Google updated its spam policies to explicitly target attempts to manipulate AI-generated search responses, including AI Overviews and AI Mode. The move signals that “recommendation poisoning” and aggressive GEO manipulation tactics are now firmly on Google’s radar. This is likely the first of many steps aimed at protecting trust and quality within AI-generated search experiences.
Google Expands AI Overview Citation Features
Google announced several important changes to how links and citations appear within AI Overviews and AI Mode. The updates appear designed to improve publisher visibility and encourage users to explore sources more deeply. For SEOs, this reinforces the growing importance of being referenced and cited by AI systems – not just ranking traditionally in search results.
AI Search Optimisation Is Becoming The New Visibility Layer
This article provides a strong overview of how AI-first search ecosystems are changing digital visibility. Instead of simply optimising pages for rankings, businesses now need to structure content in ways that AI systems can understand, trust, and cite. Concepts like semantic SEO, entity optimisation, and answer-focused formatting are becoming increasingly important as search behaviour evolves.
Google AI Search Updates – May 2026
One of the better practical breakdowns published this month, this piece looks at how Google’s latest AI search updates affect traffic, citations, and visibility. Particularly interesting is Google’s increasing use of community-driven content and conversational results within AI experiences, which may further shift how brands think about authority and discoverability moving forward.
The search industry continues to evolve at an extraordinary pace. What we’re seeing now is not the death of SEO, but rather its expansion into a broader visibility ecosystem that includes traditional rankings, AI-generated answers, citations, brand mentions, and entity trust signals.
The businesses that will win over the next few years are the ones building:
- strong topical authority,
- technically sound websites,
- genuinely useful content,
- and brands that AI systems consistently recognise and trust.
SEO, GEO, and AEO are rapidly converging – and May 2026 may ultimately be remembered as one of the months where that shift became impossible to ignore.
