Localsearch went from the #3 to the #1 local directory in Australia in 60 days, and held the top spot through a major Google update. Here's what that means for SMBs.
If you've been told that online directories are dead, here's the thing. Some of them are. Ours just had two of its strongest months in years, and held the top spot through one of the biggest Google updates of the year.
Between 1 April and 31 May 2026, Localsearch went from the third-ranked local directory in Australia to number one. Daily organic traffic grew 134.5%. We added 253,000 new business profiles. And when the Google May 2026 Core Update rolled out on 21 May, the one that knocked a lot of aggregator and directory sites around the head, we held. We're writing this because the story behind it tells you something useful about how Australian small businesses are getting found right now. And what you should be doing about it.
What actually happened in 60 days
Two numbers tell the story. On 1 April, Localsearch sat at #3 among Australian local directories. By 31 May, we were #1, peaking at roughly 985,000 daily organic visits the day before the core update hit.
The bigger picture looks like this:
- →Organic traffic: 347,545 → 815,004 (+134.5%)
- →Estimated organic traffic value: $310,049 → $904,176 (+191.6%)
- →Keywords ranking in positions 1–3: up 66.1%
- →Keywords ranking in positions 4–10: up 58.1%
- →Keywords buried in position 51+: down 99.3%
That last one matters. Almost every keyword we used to have languishing on page five or beyond has either climbed into actual viewable territory or been culled. That's not a traffic story, that's a quality story.
The May 2026 Core Update, and why we didn't move
If you're an SMB owner who watches their Google rankings, you'll know the May 2026 Core Update was a nervous one for directory sites. It rolled out from 21 May to 2 June 2026 and continued a pattern Google has been pushing all year: rewarding original sources, downgrading pages that just repackage what other sites already say.
Want to be on the #1 directory?
Get your business listed on localsearch.com.au, Australia's most-trafficked local directory.
Industry analysis after the dust settled was blunt about it. The popular take, "directories and 'near me' pages got crushed", was too simple. What actually got hit was derivative content. Pages that exist to repeat what's been said elsewhere. Pages that don't have a reason to exist beyond ranking.
We took a hit on the peak, daily traffic settled from 985K back to around 815K by month-end. But the standing held. Two months of growth went into the update; one peak got reset. We're still #1 by close to 2× over the next-ranked directory. Here's why that's worth knowing if you're an SMB owner.
What this means for your business
The directory landscape used to be a long, undifferentiated list. List your business on twenty sites, hope something happens, move on. That game is over. Google is consolidating signal, fewer, better destinations now matter more than appearing everywhere.
For a tradie or local service business, that's actually good news. You don't need to manage profiles on twenty platforms. You need to be on the few that Google still trusts to send searchers somewhere useful. Right now, that means:
- →Your Google Business Profile, non-negotiable, and the first thing most customers will see.
- →Your own website, if you have one. If you don't, you're relying entirely on someone else's platform to represent you.
- →The directories that are still pulling real traffic, not the ones that exist on a 2014 SEO listicle.
That third one used to be a guessing game. It's not anymore. If a directory is sending real visitors, you'll see it in your enquiries. If it's not, you won't.
The boring reason we ended up #1
There's a temptation, when you have a graph that goes up and to the right, to act like something clever happened. It didn't. We did three things, slowly and unglamorously, for a long time.
We added net-new businesses, not duplicates. Of the 253,000 new business profiles we added this quarter, 186K landed in the top 10 metros, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide. None of them were duplicates. Every one was a real business that didn't have a profile yet.
We pruned the dead ones. Free listings for businesses that have closed got removed. That doesn't sound like growth work, it's a directory shrinking. But a directory full of dead listings is a directory Google doesn't trust. The cleaner the index, the stronger the signal.
We made the profiles deeper. Categories, hours, services, imagery, the boring data fields most platforms leave half-empty. The richer the profile, the more likely a searcher actually finds what they're looking for, and the more likely they stay.
That's the whole playbook. It's not interesting. But it's why the May update didn't move us.
What to actually do about it
If you've been ignoring your free listings for a few years, the worst thing you can do is panic-create twenty new ones. Here's the order of operations that actually works:
- →Claim and complete your Google Business Profile. This is still the single highest-leverage thing most Australian SMBs aren't doing properly. Fill in every field. Add photos. Respond to reviews.
- →Claim your existing profiles on directories you can name. If you can think of a directory off the top of your head, search yourself on it. If a stale, half-finished version of your business is sitting there from 2019, that's actively hurting you.
- →Check your name, address and phone are consistent everywhere. Google reads inconsistencies as a trust problem. A different phone number on three platforms looks like three different businesses.
- →Add one new profile per quarter, deliberately. Not twenty in a panic. One. Make it complete. Then leave it alone.
That's it. The directory game in 2026 is small, slow, and deliberate. The platforms that survive will be the ones that take quality seriously. The businesses that win on them will be the ones that bothered to show up properly.
The point
Most posts that quote internal traffic numbers exist to brag. This one exists to tell you something specific: the directory landscape just consolidated, hard, and the businesses that benefit are the ones who already did their work. If you haven't, the gap is going to widen.
Pick the three or four places your customers actually look. Make sure your business looks the part on every one. Then get back to running your business. If you want to start with the directory that just took #1, get listed on localsearch.com.au.
