Live from Momentic Studio, this news feed is curated by the Momentic team so you can stay up to date on LLMd, AI, search, SEO, GEO, AEO, AI search, frontier AI models, and relevant tools. Updated in real time.
Google Search Central announced a new shared AI training control in robots.txt:
> Instead of managing separate instructions for every AI developer, website owners will be able to use a shared 'policy token' within robots.txt to set broad preferences across participating AI providers.
>
> Existing company-specific controls will continue to function alongside this new joint signal.
Shopify created a financial incentive for AI shopping agents to recommend products from Shopify's product catalog
MS Clarity made clarity.js 4.5% faster with no loss of functionality or compatibility, using an automated AI experiment loop. Great news for anyone concerned that adding Clarity to their site might slow it down. Their blog post goes into excruciating detail about what they tried and what finally worked.
Gemini Notebook added tons of free textbooks you can use as sources. Previously you could add etextbooks that you bought, and now free textbooks from providers like OpenStax and Open Textbook Library are available. Just click "Add sources" and choose "Textbooks" - you can filter by topic, level, and country (just U.S. and India for now).
Now in the Gemini app you can generate, preview, and edit files directly in the chat (docs, PDFs, slides, sheets, code, more)
MKE DMC, Milwaukee's IRL Digital Marketing Club, got a mention in this Search Engine Land article about why local meetups are important in SEO.
Lily Ray has been tracking B2B software prompts and noticed ChatGPT is starting to include disclaimers/warnings about the sources of ranking & review content in its answers.
For example, self-promotional top 10 listicles that rank the publisher's product first might be presented with a cautionary statement like: "Because this ranking is published by the vendor itself, I would treat it as one input rather than an independent verdict."
Her LinkedIn post has a bunch of verbatim ChatGPT excerpts like that one.
Google announced:
Resoneo (a digital marketing/consulting firm in Paris) somehow got their hands on new "internal Google schemas" and published a deep dive into how every single tiny, nuanced user behavior on SERPs shapes what shows up on them.
Discussions in Discoverable Servers on Discord are going to become indexable in Search. Server admins can opt out of this. Users have the option to make their messages non-indexable using Discord's privacy settings.
> By giving admins the option to make certain channels discoverable from the web, we can help more people find and benefit from the knowledge shared in Discord communities.
Google has been sending out emails to GBP owners/managers to let them know a Facebook/Meta Messenger link has been automatically added to the listing. I checked and we're seeing a bunch of these emails across a variety of Google Business Profiles. The links open a direct chat conversation in Facebook Messenger.
Flagging this article by Dana DiTomaso that walks through how she's removing bot traffic from GA4.
Shopify moved their Knowledge base (which holds facts about your store for AI agents, such as contact info, return policy, gifting, shipping, brand info, etc) under admin. Shopify site owners can now find it at Sales channels → Agentic → Knowledge base (Knowledge Base used to be a standalone app).
Up to 1K facts automatically moved with it. Stores with over 1K facts will need to add them in the new location. Deadline is Jan 15, 2027.
Here's the Shopify help page with more details on using knowledge base.
Google updated their documentation titled Prevent user-generated spam on your site and platform
Here's what changed:
What’s new, via Atlas.
Google’s AI Overviews nearly doubled overnight on October 20th, 2026..
We track how AI platforms answer the same prompts every week. Starting Oct 20, the typical AI Overview went from 876 to 1,620 characters, and Overviews appeared on 95% of our searches, up from 87%.
Other changes from last week:
+ Gemini cited Reddit in 24% of answers, up from 15%.
+ Claude’s newer model (Sonnet 5.5) cites about 9 sources per answer. Sonnet 4.6 cited about 14.
+ Wikipedia showed up on 5.8% of Google result pages, up from 2.2%.
+ ChatGPT had no notable changes in Atlas data.
The sources AI platforms pull from are shifting week to week, so we like to keep a close eye on these things.
Data: Atlas by Momentic, about 1,400 answers per platform per week, same prompts both weeks, US, Oct 19 to 25.
SISTRIX analyzed 96K+ URLs and concluded that well-structured pages get cited in AI 2x more:
> • 48,527 pages from the SISTRIX AI Index that were cited by ChatGPT, AI Mode or AI Overviews, each compared directly with a non-cited page from the same domain
> • Almost all positive signals can be traced back to two principles:
> ◦ *Make it easy for AI systems to extract content*, for example with a table of contents, Article and FAQ schema, questions as subheadings, tables and lists.
> ◦ *Show that a real person is behind the content* and maintains it, for example with an author box, a last-updated date and source references.
Canva has its own image model now: Craft
Mike King responded to multiple studies/articles published this week about how GEO/AEO is basically a distraction because at the end of the day it doesn't compare to Google Organic Search if your goal is more website visits & conversions. He doesn't say that's wrong, but his take is that even though attribution is lacking in AI Search, things like brand exposure, familiarity, and influence/persuasion are still valuable, and you gotta look at AI Search like a brand channel not a performance channel. You can't use SEO KPIs (like website visits & conversions) to measure its value.
Google AI Mode used to let you export to Google Docs from the three-dot menu, but not anymore.
Walmart is launching AI Profiles (next month) so customers can authorize AI agents with a dedicated profile inside their Walmart account and see what the agent purchased separately from their own purchases. And there will be controls like how much an agent can spend and when purchases need approval.
They're also launching (in beta) the Walmart Agent Gateway which will make it faster and easier for agents to shop walmart.com rather than using a web browser or app like human shoppers do.
GBP performance reports have expanded - SEO Roundtable says they're testing it but I'm seeing it across multiple accounts already.
You still access it by clicking performance, and then you get:
Moz & Profound have a partnership now - Moz data is in the Pages feature of Profound (brand authority, domain authority, link data, keywords, grounding queries, topics, search intent)
Google Merchant Center now supports conversational attributes - they're data attributes designed to facilitate discovery in "the conversational commerce era"
New attributes in the product feed:
It's the shortest announcement page ever so I'm just putting all of it right here:
> Key benefits
> • *Optimize your presence:* With new experiences like AI Mode, people are searching with a lot more detail and nuance, so having this additional information available allows users to get answers to a whole new range of questions.
> • *Build on your existing feed:* These attributes complement your existing product data feeds, allowing for clearer answers to common questions, recommended complementary products, and more.
> • *Share more data easily:* Conversational attributes allow you to leverage product data you may have already prepared for other platforms with minimal operational overhead to help scale your product data.
Search Engine Land did a helpful writeup of what each one does and how to use it.
Google created "Google Business Home" (in beta) and is rolling it out slowly, sending emails to GBP owners.
Sounds great, I loved having a dedicated portal for managing profiles back when it was called Google My Business, but then they switched it so you would just access/manage your listing directly in Search.
SEO Roundtable shared an example of the email to keep an eye out for, plus screenshots of the new Business Home. Looks helpful - hope we get a chance to use it soon!
SEJ published a helpful writeup of a recent interview with Google CEO Sundar Pichai (you can watch the full interview on YouTube). The gist: he envisions Google Search evolving from a tool that finds information into an AI-powered assistant that can research, make decisions, and complete tasks on your behalf. There'll be an underlying (or overlaying?) agentic AI layer that connects Search + Gemini for one continuous, personalized experience. He's talking about the vision here, no specific announcements were made.
Marie Haynes published a blog after analyzing data from 100 websites where she found all LLM traffic amounted to .73% of Google Organic traffic. She argues that preparing for agentic search (including Google's new Universal Cart) is the bigger opportunity.
Anthropic released a research preview of a personal agent called Claude Duet as a standalone app:
You can join the waitlist here.
3 new things Gemini can do:
To no-one's surprise, Yelp added a bunch more AI stuff:
Plus more integrations with ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, Jobber, and Workbiz.
As an end user of multiple local in-home services in recent months, I have come to detest AI systems that answer calls/emails and attempt to be helpful.
On the other hand, we were able to find a local plumber to do a very specific job based on a Yelp review that surfaced in Google Search results and mentioned that exact (and ancient) valve type we needed fixed.
Nothing is 100% good or bad, even Yelp.
Google announced a new "Business landing page" in Gemini - at first I thought this meant a landing page like the kind we talk about for websites. But what they mean is a central hub where small business owners can upload their website, brand kit & whatever else, and connect all kinds of tools and apps (including Google Business Profiles, Workspace, Canva, tons of others) and from there: generate visual brand assets, and get financial insights conversationally by chatting about uploaded spreadsheets/receipts/records.
TIL about JPEG-XL: it's an open-standard image format with better compression than regular JPEG that maintains same or better image quality. Safari was the first browser to natively support JPEG-XL, and now Firefox, Chrome, and Brave do, too (Edge does not).
BUT John Mueller recently gave a heads up that JPEG XL images are NOT currently supported in Google Images or as preview images in Google Discover.
So for now at least, if your site uses JPEG-XL and you want to be eligible for those images to appear in Google Image search and as previews in Discover, serve them through a picture element (which includes a regular img element).
Google Merchant Center added a new section to its fast shipping documentation, to specify what exactly qualifies as "fast shipping" based on which country your listings are available in:
2 OpenAI staffers collaborated on a blog post with 2 Cloudflare staffers to share early results from a research pilot Cloudflare and OpenAI started in July 2026:
Gemini Notebooks now give users more control over Slide Decks & Video Overviews:
You can still have it generate decks/videos directly if you prefer.
Google Merchant Center now supports the `[warranty]` attribute in product feeds. It's optional. Apparently some markets (examples include Quebec and Japan) require a warranty attribute for certain products to be visible in ads & free listings. But if you have the info, why not include it? People like warranties.
Sub-attributes are `[duration]`, `[duration-unit]` (months or years), and `[mileage]` (for vehicles, obvs). Documentation here.
Congratulations to users of AI Mode with Personal Intelligence activated: you now get ads that "are even more helpful for you"
Rank Math has disclosed that some copies of Rank Math SEO PRO version 3.0.123 contained malware. Here's what to do if your website downloaded it.
Apparently OpenAI says removing utm tagging on its links was a bug, and they've been fixing it this week.
I checked a couple of GA4 accounts with big enough numbers that get a decent amount of sessions from ChatGPT and in one of them I definitely see the dip and maybe some early signs of recovery starting 10/14 but only time will tell. Hope it's true!
Google published a new blog today saying they're giving AIO & AI Mode clearer inline links, context about sources, timely articles (from Discover, as carousels), and more prominent "Dive Deeper" links at the end of AI responses (there's a thumbnail & snippet in addition to the favicon/source name).
I tried a variety of different prompts in AI Mode and couldn't get anything like the blog examples to show up, but it will be fun to see them in the wild eventually.
Google launched Universal Cart today (in the U.S.):
So where can you use it? So far, big retailers & Shopify merchants.
> Try these simplified checkout experiences with merchants like Nike, Sephora, Target, Ulta Beauty, Walmart, Wayfair, and many Shopify merchants. Either way, you will receive direct confirmations and customer support from the merchant, and they will remain the seller of record.
She's not alone in saying this but Lily Ray created probably the most exhaustive article detailing why a significant Google core update is coming any day now. The TL;DR has everything you need to know, but the whole thing's an interesting read if you want more historical context.
Ibrahim Anjro created and shared a totally free knowledge base that includes 2,228 claims from Seach Central Live Europe 2026 (Sept 30 - Oct 2 in Barcelona). Each claim has its own link, and if a claim isn't backed by existing documentation it's labeled "not in docs."
The knowledge base also includes a media kit for content teams, developer kit, interactive topic map & more.
Google Merchant Center now requires a `store_address` attribute for all products you want to appear in *Local inventory ads* and *Local free listings*.
The documentation has the minimum requirements and file format examples for each data source type.
There have been multiple articles published recently about Google creating "poisoned SERPs" as one of the ways they're trying to foil rank trackers and scrapers.
DemandSphere made the most clear, helpful, and succinct writeup.
For a deeper dive, check out the Nozzle report.
SEO Roundtable offers helpful context with a broad overview and what people are sharing on socials.
Takeaway: Sudden or drastic ranking drops in third-party tools might be measurement issues, not real visibility losses.
Google Tag Manager Help published new release notes about optimizing GTM containers:
> Optimizing Google Tag Manager containers
>
> This release introduces a new capability to Google Tag Manager containers to send data directly to Google measurement products. This results in faster website performance, improved data collection, centralized settings management and user access directly in your GTM container.
>
> Previously, Google Tag Manager loaded extra javascript (gtag.js) to send data to a Google destination, which could cause latency in measurement transmission. The Google tag that was loaded also had its own settings and permissions, which sometimes made troubleshooting difficult, and could result in fragmented diagnostics.
>
> There is now a clear relationship with destinations and tags. This change makes diagnostics more consistent and easier to troubleshoot.
>
> Learn how to Optimize your Google Tag Manager container to use destination tags, and supported Google destinations
If you're seeing less traffic attributable to ChatGPT and more from Direct, this could be why: around October 9th, ChatGPT stopped using UTM parameters on links
Bing Webmaster Tools added a new (beta) feature to the AI Performance report: Topic Portfolio
Still only grounding queries, not actual queries/prompts. Still no clicks. It's meant to show topics where your site is strong and where there's room to grow.
Currently there are 3 filter bubbles for predefined date ranges, and you can download the table data. Hopefully better controls will come with time. You can also give thumbs up/down feedback on topics.
> Dashboards and Motion are off by default, and you can turn them on in Organization settings → Artifacts.
> Docs, Slides, and Design turn on by default October 15, or you can turn them on today.
Google published new documentation about the UGC Fresh Data Program. Looks like they want to make it easier and faster for popular forums and social platforms to appear on SERPs.
This statement stood out: "Content submitted must be as fresh as possible, ideally sent within minutes."
> The UGC Fresh Data Program is an initiative designed to help platforms display fresh, high quality, and authentic user-generated content (UGC) across various features on Search. Through this program, approved platforms can use a dedicated data ingestion pipeline to send content and interaction signals to Google. This proactive approach helps ensure that fresh content is processed and quickly updated in Search, so people can easily find useful first-hand perspectives from your platform.
The September Google Spam Update concluded this morning, after a total run of 13 days and 16 hours - much longer than the previous 2 spam updates which only took about 2 days each!
