Growth Intelligence Brief #20
Is Reddit done? Is Yellow Pages back? Why did Yelp hit a new record this week?
Welcome to another Growth Intelligence Brief, where organic growth leaders discover what matters and guidance on how to stay ahead of the competition in under 5 minutes. Data window: SEO visibility and AI prompt counts May 11 to June 8, 2026 (28 days, matched windows). Year-over-year comparisons run against June 7, 2025.
Exec Summary
Yelp’s all-time record, Macy’s round trip, and Reddit’s first decline show the same mechanism: Google reallocates shelf space within categories whose demand hasn’t changed.
Yelp posted the highest visibility reading in index history (646.5 on June 1), carrying Local Search to +30.5% in 4 weeks, the strongest vertical move in the index.
Macy’s lost 53.8% of its visibility in 4 weeks, a full round trip of the March gains we flagged in GIB 16. Its AI mentions grew 36.6% over the same window.
Reddit is declining on both dimensions for the first time since AI tracking began in February: visibility -11.7% and AI mentions -10.9% in 4 weeks. X gained 40.9% over the same window.
SaaS AI mentions grew 34.5% (like-for-like) while visibility slid another 3.9% in 4 weeks. The divergence GIB 19 flagged kept widening: the visibility decline slowed, but AI mention growth doubled.
Airbnb (-44.0%) and VRBO (-40.3%) slid into booking season while delivery went the other way: GrubHub +45.1%, DoorDash +43.4%, all in 4 weeks.
A refresher of what the SSI is:
Movers & Shakers
Top 5 Movers (4-week SEO)
Yellow Pages (Local Search) +137.2%. Vis 6.54 to 15.51. The smallest baseline on this list, and a directory written off a decade ago riding the same local routing shift as Yelp.
Shutterfly (Images) +88.9%. Vis 3.83 to 7.23. A full reversal of the slide we flagged in GIB 19 (-32.5% in that issue’s window). It now sits above the 5.98 where that slide began in April.
Serious Eats (Publisher) +55.9%. Vis 44.81 to 69.86. The biggest 4-week gainer with a baseline above 40. Publisher as a vertical was flat at -1.3% in 4 weeks, so this is domain-specific.
X (Social Networks) +40.9%. Vis 210.93 to 297.27, with 5 consecutive weekly gains since May 4. The other side of the Reddit story. Full breakdown in the Double Click.
Yelp (Local Search) +29.7%. Vis 495.71 to 642.78. An all-time index high and 147 raw visibility points added, more than any other domain this month. Full breakdown in the Winner callout below.
Top 5 Shakers (4-week SEO)
Macy’s (Ecommerce) -53.8%. Vis 110.20 to 50.93. Full breakdown in the Loser callout below.
Twitch (Entertainment) -48.2%. Vis 6.82 to 3.54. Entertainment as a vertical gained 7.1% in 4 weeks, so this is Twitch-specific.
Airbnb (Travel) -44.0%. Vis 8.69 to 4.87. 2nd consecutive issue on this list after -24.9% in GIB 19‘s window. The vacation rental story continues in the Bigger Picture below.
VRBO (Travel) -40.3%. Vis 11.88 to 7.09. Moving in lockstep with Airbnb, which points to a category squeeze.
Barnes & Noble (Ecommerce) -32.0%. Vis 27.87 to 18.96. Part of a broad Ecommerce slide: the vertical fell 10.0% in 4 weeks and 24.0% YoY.
Winner: Yelp (+29.7%)
Yelp hit 646.5 visibility on June 1, the highest reading since SSI tracking began in November 2022, and held 642.8 through June 8. The 4-week gain accounts for nearly the entire Local Search move: 147 of the vertical’s 155-point lift. Yelp’s AI mentions grew 39.1% over the same window (13,479 to 18,743), so both dimensions point the same way.
Local Search leads the index in 4-week growth at +30.5%, and its 168.5% YoY gain trails only the far smaller Events vertical. The catch: Angi moved against the vertical, down 18.5% in visibility, while its AI mentions grew 31.1% in 4 weeks. Google is concentrating local real estate on the biggest review aggregator and starving the rest.
Worth watching whether the routing favors Yelp specifically or review aggregators broadly. Yellow Pages at +137.2% in 4 weeks suggests broadly.
Loser: Macy’s (-53.8%)
Macy’s gave back the gift. Visibility jumped from 48.8 to 102.0 in the single week ending March 16, the cliff that made Macy’s the surprise winner of GIB 16 and GIB 17. Now the round trip: 110.2 on May 11, then 4 straight down weeks to 50.9 on June 8, putting Macy’s back near its February baseline.
The decline outpaces the market around it. As a vertical, Ecommerce fell 10.0% in the same 4 weeks, so Macy’s dropped at 5x the vertical rate. But its AI mentions grew 36.6% over the same window, to 20,613, among the largest retail AI footprints in the index.
Algorithm-gifted visibility is a rental.
