Live curated AI and search news feed

Spotted an ad in an AIO - appreciate that it's set apart from the organic part of the response

Search Engine Land published this article last month on a "Search Everywhere Optimization" framework labeled "F.A.C.T.S." (Freshness, Authority, Consistency, Trust, and Semantic Relevance). It models Google's E-E-A-T framework to help identify which priorities can actually influence AI visibility. I think it's a helpful (and memorable) tool for quickly filtering with opportunities may actually be relevant.

searchengineland.com/why-the-f-a-c-t-s-model-is-the-key-to-search-everywhere-optimization-484207

This might have already been discussed and I might be forgetting it. But if you’ve ever done a search for a local service and saw the button for “Have AI get prices” it actually has AI call those businesses to get prices and availability, then delivers it via email. But the business that it recommends is not always the one that ranks best. But this might be added incentive for local businesses to have humans answering phones if this becomes a more common thing in the SERPs.

Also, I kind of hate the idea of AI robo-calling a bunch of businesses. Feels gross.

But anyways… I tried to replicate it with a few local businesses (Meridian, QuickQuack) but I didn’t have any luck getting the button to show up. So your mileage may vary.

The EU Commission classified ChatGPT as a "Very Large Online Search Engine" under the Digital Services Act. Now it will have to conform to DSA obligations for search engines by January 2027.

It also classified Reddit & Roblox as "Very Large Online Platforms"

This article shares study findings & analysis of Q1 & Q2 GBP performance at large - unsurprisingly it seems like Google Maps is trying to keep users on Google Maps and satisfy their local search intent without them needing to visit business websites or click to call.

Worth a quick read, but this chunk is the gold:

> Two ranking systems and reviews as the connective tissue

>

> Traditional Maps rankings still rely on proximity, relevance, engagement, and prominence. The signals behind AI Mode and Gemini differ: web context, entity matching, brand authority, and review sentiment are layered on top of the Google Business Profile.

>

> One system determines whether you appear on the map. The other determines whether Google’s AI trusts what it knows about your business enough to answer a customer’s question directly, without a click.

>

> Reviews are becoming the raw material for that second system. Google now prompts reviewers with structured tags such as atmosphere, price, and cleanliness, rather than relying solely on free text, and also encourages customers to review businesses they’ve visited.

>

> It’s building cleaner data so its AI can answer questions without sending users to a website first — a plausible explanation for direction requests rising while calls and website clicks decline.

The author is the co-founder of GMBapi.com which is a local SEO software platform.

Google is testing a feature that asks searchers to click "Continue" to see more search results. It's another way to thwart scrapers but I hope they can come up with less annoying methods.

Rank tracking projects in Ahrefs are showing 0 keywords with a message, "Add keywords to track your ranking progress in organic search results." Ahrefs posted an update about the issue an hour ago: lnkd.in/p/g-h7_fXU

Allegedly the RankMath plugin for WP sites has a new security issue - apparently when a user accesses Help & Support in the plugin it automatically creates a WordPress Application Password with Administrator-level permissions - the password is then shared immediately with the plugin owner and AI agents can then access/act on the site :grimacing:

This is cool! Now you can connect ebooks to Gemini Notebook ("more products joining soon")

Salesforce + Claude = Claudeforce

Google updated their favicon documentation:

> *What*: Updated the favicon documentation to specifically list out the supported favicon file formats.

> *Why*: To be clearer about which favicon file formats are supported by Google Search. Previously, the documentation linked to an external reference that evolved over time and caused ambiguity about which favicon file formats are actually supported in Google Search. Google Search's supported file formats haven't changed; this update explicitly lists them in the documentation.

This is the line that was added:

"Google Search supports the following favicon file formats: BMP, GIF, ICO, PNG, JPEG, PPM, and TIFF."

Google Search Central updated how their Site Reputation Policy works, *but only for users in Europe:*

• The policy itself is the same
• Outside Europe, Google applies the manual action and the affected website section is penalized in search results
• Inside Europe, Google *does* *not* apply the manual action. Instead, Google treats the website section as if it were separate from the rest of the domain, so it stops benefiting as much from the main site's reputation/authority.

It's mostly for sites that have third-party content intended to get a boost from the domain’s authority: coupon sections, affiliate content, sponsored editorial, white-label directories, etc.

It's a really painfully worded announcement. It basically boils down to the same thing: the offending website section will lose visibility. They're just saying "it ranks independently from the rest of the site" instead of "we're penalizing it" as a concession "following discussion with the European Commission".

Google Analytics is rolling out dashboards - I'm not seeing it yet, but below is what they announced on LinkedIn and here's the documentation.

> We redesigned the reporting workspace around a central "+ Create" button in Reports so you can build, customize, and organize your core performance insights in seconds :rocket: As we roll out this update across all accounts over the next few weeks, here’s a preview of what’s new inside your reporting UI:

>

> :dart: One-click creation: Start building dashboard views directly from Reports.

> :three_button_mouse: Drag-and-drop flexibility: Easily resize columns, arrange metrics, and reorder cards with total design freedom.

> :bar_chart: In-dashboard funnels: Access funnel visualizations directly inside your standard dashboard, no separate exploration required.

> :pushpin: Instant publishing: Save and publish straight to your Left Navigation for quick access every time you log in.

>

> Keep an eye out as we introduce AI-powered prompt capabilities to build reports for you automatically in a future drop :eyes:

This article says ChatGPT has a new Shopping tab pinned in the left sidebar. I'm not seeing it in any version of ChatGPT yet but I'll keep an eye out - can't wait to see first-hand what the Shopping landing page and dedicated search are like.

People were sharing screenshots of this last month and now it seems to have progressed from test to rollout - Google is using google.com/goto as a passthrough URL in Search results. It's been confirmed by a Google spokesperson who told Barry Schwartz:

> "We have a long history of deploying technical measures against evolving forms of abuse, and we regularly take steps to protect our services and users."

The idea is they want to make it harder for third parties to scrape Google SERPs. So far I am only seeing this happen when I am logged out Incognito. Just hover on a search result and look at the URL preview.

Claude Cowork desktop app has a built-in browser now. If a task requires browsing a website it'll open in a side panel and Claude will do its thing: navigating, reading, and interacting with web pages.

Anthropic says if you're using Claude Cowork on a web page that's already open, then you should stick with the Claude in Chrome extension.

> The built-in browser is for handing web tasks to Claude while you keep working: gathering research for a report, or collecting this month’s invoices from a vendor portal. Claude in Chrome is for the page you already have open, with the accounts you're already signed in to, such as updating your CRM, working through your inbox, or editing the doc in front of you.

It's rolling out now and will be enabled by default.

Google announced Gemini 3.5 Transcribe:

• Their most precise speech-to-text model yet
• Converts raw audio into accurate, polished, formatted text
• Background noise, complex jargon and "disfluency cleanup" (erasing um, like, uhh) are no problem

It's available in the Gemini API for developer use but for the rest of us it's available in the macOS Gemini app and coming soon to Chrome, so you can talk in any web field to reply, draft, or prompt Gemini in Chrome by talking.

This seems like it will result in longer, more conversational prompts/queries which may or may not lead to a website visit. When you use Gemini in Chrome, even if you are already on a web page, it does use Google Search (including citing sources) to generate responses.

I tried it out in the macOS app and the UX takes some getting used to, but it's definitely accurate!

Generative UI in AI Mode & AIO means searchers have even less incentive to click through to web pages with certain tools (now that Google can whip up mortgage calculators etc on demand).

The pages at biggest risk of irrelevancy have formula-based tools Google can easily recreate.

Time to get creative and come up with tools that do things Google can't replicate on its own yet:

• Logged-in workflows that use a customer's specific account info
• Tools integrated with an additional source (like pulling live carrier rates for shipping costs, an inventory checker that connects to your actual warehouse system, an internal product database that checks for compatibility, etc)

The article also points out that if you had a calculator page just generating traffic but no leads, you're probably better off focusing on the pages that do generate leads (if you can't make a tool that does).

Helpful concise rundown of things to check after the switch from Content API to Merchant API in GMC - attribute rules, supplemental feeds, and tracking can all be affected.

Google Scholar (Labs) has a new feature called Quick Read:

• Search your question in Google Scholar
• Click Quick Read next to a result & it opens a side panel with Answers, Approach, Consideration

Makes research go faster!

As of yesterday there's one memory across Claude Cowork & chat

Barry Schwartz dug into this as well - apparently you can still get PDFs to show up reliably in SERPs with filetype:pdf appended to your query, but it's more work than it used to be

Promotions in Google Merchant Center now have an Event section. You can create a promotion that's tied to an event like a special occasion, anniversary, holiday, and it doesn't have to be tied to a specific product or product category (but you can still add those).

Starting at the end of January 2027, the new minimum size for product images in Google Merchant Center will be 500px per side. (Google _recommends_ 1500px per side).

Don't be worried if you see an email from Google Search Console about a "new owner" on your GSC account... which is already an owner of the account. Everybody's getting them (I'm seeing them too). Not acknowledged by Google yet but it's gotta be a bug.

Really awesome resource with a really awful title (better: "How to decide which 3rd-party citations your brand should go after")

The best part is a copyable spreadsheet with a detailed what/where/why breakdown.

There's another error/more missing data in GSC, this time in the Crawl Stats report (Settings → Crawl Stats). Data is missing for August 15 & 16. This happened most recently last October. So if you notice it, it's not just your website it's a bug on Google's end. I can confirm I am seeing this too.

If you're a Mac user you can use Apple Messages with ChatGPT now. Here's the plugin documentation. It's available for all plans, but only in the ChatGPT desktop app for macOS.

They announced it on X and it includes a video example where someone is asking ChatGPT to tell them which messages they need to reply to and then using the suggested reply.

Google Search Central made this post on LinkedIn (no corresponding blog, at least not yet) about a change in how they're parsing JSON-LD structured data going forward.:

> To bring our parser up to JSON and other standards, we changed our JSON-LD extraction and are now only applying a single pass of HTML unescaping. Practically speaking, this means that double-escaped entities (like & or ✔) will no longer be unrolled.

>

> If you're using JSON-LD for structured data, be sure to update your code to standard JSON escapes or Unicode hexadecimal escapes (like \u0026).

I had to educate myself about "double-escaped entities" to get why it matters and here's the deal:

Some characters have special meaning in HTML (`&`, `<`, `>`, `"`), so they get "escaped" into a substitute called an _HTML entity_ so browsers don't misread them:

• `&` → `&`
• `<` → `<`
• `>` → `>`
• `"` → `"`
• checkmark :heavy_check_mark: → `✔`

Escaping is normal and automatic. But sometimes it happens _twice_ ( `&` becomes `&` ) and that's bad because it no longer reads right.

Google used to do multiple passes of HTML-unescaping when reading JSON-LD structured data, which let it find & fix characters that got accidentally escaped twice. Now it won't. Going forward, it does a single unescaping pass, so double-escaped entities will stay broken.

Google's recommended fix: update your code to use standard JSON escapes (no doubles!) or Unicode hex escapes like `\u0026`.

Double-escaping can happen when schema is auto-generated by a CMS plugin, GTM, or custom JS. So if you run an ecommerce or content-heavy site with auto-generated schema, check your raw source code for double-escaped entities and fix any you find. Otherwise the affected schema can be unclear (defeating the purpose of creating it!) or fail to qualify for rich results.

The August 2026 Spam Update is over already (as of 3:49am CST)! Google had said when announcing it that "it may take a few days" but it was barely even 3 days. The most recent previous spam update in June only took 2 days. Maybe the start of a new trend? Time will tell.

Google announced 3 new personalization features for Search, Discover & News.

1. New 'Preferred Sources' button. The previous iteration, when clicked, sent users to Google's source preferences tool The new version adds the site it's embedded on as a Preferred Source, then immediately brings the user back to the web page they clicked it on.
2. Discover Feed Controls (in the Google app). Click any three-dot menu in the Discover feed to adjust want you want to see more or less of, on the fly.
3. Customizable News Audio (in the Google News app, on Android). Curate the daily audio news briefing by selecting topics.

Ahrefs launched a new model for organic traffic. For now, it's opt-in only. Here's what they're saying about it:

> *Adaptive organic traffic model (opt-in)*

> We’ve launched a brand-new model for organic traffic estimates that assigns refreshed weights to SERP features, including AI Overviews, and the calculations behind those are updated monthly. Ready to test? Go to _Site Explorer → Settings → Organic traffic model_ and select _Adaptive_. what you think!

>

> We’re taking our time to make sure the new model performs as we expect, so for now it’s opt-in only.

> For some sites you’ll see only minimal changes, while for others the difference will be more pronounced.

> If you switch to the adaptive model, you’ll see updated stats across Site Explorer, except for backlink reports and the “Top organic competitors” widget.

> Historical data is also affected, though anything earlier than February 2025 uses the state of the model as it was in that month.

> You can use the new model in our API by passing the `traffic_mode=adaptive` parameter.

Just a reminder that the Content API for Google Shopping was deprecated as of yesterday, and if you haven't done so already, it needs to migrate to the Merchant API. You can check in Google Merchant Center under Settings → Data Sources and then see what it says under the Source column.

Here's Google's documentation on migrating to Merchant API, and here's a link where you can apply for extended access to Content API.

SEO Roundtable reports widespread complaints about favicons missing from Google SERPs. I've seen this for at least one client too. Always a good idea to check and make sure it's not a website issue of course. But if you're noticing a missing favicon with no cause, it could be a bug on Google's side.

Firefox has a new (Beta) feature called "Smart Window" - seems kinda similar to Google's Web Guide and they're promoting it as an AI-infused results page + assistant with more privacy and flexibility.

Google announced a new feature for Google Trends:

> We designed new interactive maps for clearer data storytelling. :world_map: Instantly spot regional trends, capture visual insights for your audience, and explore the 'where' behind every search with our new, intuitive maps.

>

> This experience is being rolled out gradually.

> Try it out at → trends.google.com/explore!

I'm not seeing it yet myself but will be keeping an eye out.

Eli Schwartz asked a question on Google Search Central's LinkedIn post about the August 2026 Spam Update, and John Mueller answered.

Q: “Why after 26 years does there need to be an update to get rid of spam instead of it just happening on its own with existing algorithms?”

A: “We have lots of systems that update continuously (most of them update automatically), but when we make bigger / broader changes to the systems, we try to announce them so that it’s easier for folks if they see a big jump in their metrics.

That said, it’s sometimes hard to find a good balance between giving some transparency & causing unnecessary worries.”

Google announced the August 2026 Spam Update within the past hour. They haven't done back-to-back Spam Updates since March/June of 2024. Nothing special about the announcement, just the usual message:

> This is a normal spam update, and it will roll out for all languages and locations. The rollout may take a few days to complete. More information about spam updates can be found at: developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/spam-updates

> We'll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete.

You can make a copy of a Gemini Notebook now! I hope they extend this capability to NotebookLM.

Google confirmed there's a logging error in the new Generative AI in Search report in GSC.

Starting on August 13, impressions fall sharply. Looks like an annotation has automatically been added to the report, which is nice. Google says "This issue affects data logging only and is ongoing."

YouTube is changing how they count views starting August 24:

• A view is counted as soon as the video starts - no minimum watch time
• Engaged views will be a separate metric in YouTube Analytics (advanced mode)

So a view will be more like an impression. View numbers will go up, but mean less.

Google Research published a study effectively saying:

• Even when LLMs have all the facts they need to answer a question, pretty often they still get it wrong
• It's not a knowledge problem, it's a recall problem
• LLMs are way better at subject-object facts, and when you flip the question to ask about the object first (like on Jeopardy) they fail more

> Our results suggest that recall is tightly coupled to the conditions under which a fact was learned. When the query diverges from the training-time context, phrasing, or ordering in which the fact was encountered, recall becomes harder.

> the fact appears to be encoded, and even recognizable, but difficult to recall when the query direction departs from how the fact was encountered during training. The reversal curse is a recall problem.

*Clarity, directness → Creativity, variety*

There are no official AEO implications drawn in this research but it seems smart to stick to basic "What is A?" "A is B" type phrasing for in web content to make it easier for machines to get it right.

Apple Maps now sells ads - not a stretch to predict it will impact organic visibility for businesses on Apple Maps since Local Ads in Google Maps pushed organic listings lower on the screen

SERP Alert shared on LinkedIn that they're seeing a dip in organic in GMC analytics around 8/11 - I checked a handful of the GMC accounts we monitor and am seeing a similar pattern. No Google confirmation or comment yet but good to be aware of.

Google Sheets has a new feature: Sheets canvas. Turn your spreadsheets into "custom, interactive mini-apps" by prompting to visually organize, edit & navigate data in whatever layout you want. Rolling out starting today! Try it out when you see it: Look for the "Create canvas" option in the Gemini side panel in Sheets.

Google Business Profiles have a new option: Report owner response. Users can now tell Google if they feel a business owner's response to a review is problematic in some way.

Oh hey there's another Gemini model - but only for Enterprise/AI Pro/Ultra.

> Gemini 3.7 Flash, our most intelligent workhorse model yet for coding and agents.

Good at:

• Debugging
• Issue resolution
• First-pass code accuracy
• Layouts & apps in fewer prompts
• High design adherence to reference input
• Reasoning & accuracy
• Processing complex documents

MS Clarity added a new AI Scrape-to-Referral Ratio card in the Bot Analytics dashboard. The idea is you can see which (if any) AI-referred sessions include scrolling, conversion & other engagement signals (or if they just scrape and bounce). That way you can determine which AI traffic sources are worth something.

Gemini announced the next apps it will connect to:

• Otter.ai, Wix, Granola
• Ticketmaster, Fever, GetYourGuide, Localiza
• iHeartRadio, Pandora
• Angi, Thumbtack, Zocdoc

Rolling out "over the next few weeks" - this documentation has the full list of connected apps.

Google Sheets now does a better job importing tables & pivot tables from Excel