Google released two core updates in the first half of 2026. The March core update started on 27 March and the May core update started on 21 May, and each took around 12 days to roll out. If your rankings moved around in spring, those are the likely reasons.
Core updates aren’t penalties. Google describes them as changes to how it assesses content overall. When your pages drop, it usually means Google has decided other pages answer the question better. The fix is to make your content more useful, not to chase a trick.
What Google Says It Wants
Google hasn’t published a separate rulebook for each core update. Instead, it points site owners to its guidance on helpful, reliable, people-first content. Boiled down, that guidance asks a few simple questions:
- Would someone who came straight to your page feel they’d learned enough to meet their goal?
- Does the content show first-hand experience and knowledge of the subject?
- Was the page written to help people, or mainly to attract search traffic?
- Is it clear who wrote it and why you should trust them?
Local Experience Is Your Advantage
This is where small Sussex businesses can beat national competitors.
A big directory can’t describe the job you did on a listed building in Lewes or the drainage problem you sorted in Uckfield. You can.
We worked with an architects’ practice that didn’t appear in local searches outside its immediate town. That meant it wasn’t showing up for Sussex searches at all. Here’s what we did. We created a dedicated Sussex page, updated the local schema so Google understood where the practice worked, and optimised case studies of jobs it had completed across the area.
Case studies like these show a completed project in a named place, which is exactly the kind of first-hand evidence Google’s guidance describes.
How to Write Local Content That Holds Up
Here’s what we’d focus on:
- Write about jobs you’ve done, with the location, the problem and how you solved it.
- Use your own photos instead of stock images.
- Answer the questions customers ask you, in the words they use.
- Put your name on your content, with a short note on your experience.
- Update older pages when things change, instead of publishing new ones on the same topic.
Where AI Writing Fits In
Using AI to help you write isn’t against Google’s guidelines. Publishing lots of pages mainly to manipulate rankings is, whether a person or a machine wrote them.
If you use AI, treat it as a first draft.
Add your own experience, check every fact and cut anything that doesn’t help the reader.
What to Do After a Drop
Don’t panic and don’t start rewriting everything the day after an update. Wait until the rollout has finished, then compare the pages that lost visibility with the pages that now outrank them. Ask yourself which one answers the question better. Google also notes that some improvements may not show until the next core update, so patience is part of the process.
If you’d like help building local content that lasts, have a look at our Sussex local SEO services.
Strong content attracts links and mentions from other local sites, and those carry weight with Google and AI tools. That’s the subject of the next post: how Sussex businesses build local links and mentions.