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News & Analysis

SEO & search updates, analysed

When Google, YouTube or the search world ships something, we break down what changed and what it means for you — technical, first-hand, no hype.

Google Discover Customization: What You Need to Know
4 Sept 2026 · Search Engine Roundtable

Google Discover Customization: What You Need to Know

You can customise your Discover feed by tapping the three‑dot menu on a card, selecting “Tell Google what you want,” and then typing the topics or URLs you’d like to see more…

Google’s favicon bug fully resolved on August 23 2026
4 Sept 2026 · Search Engine Land

Google’s favicon bug fully resolved on August 23 2026

The Google favicon bug was a malfunction that prevented Google Search from pulling the correct site‑specific favicon, causing the search results to display a generic globe ico…

Google’s AI Search Clarification: Stick to Traditional SEO, Not GEO
4 Sept 2026 · Search Engine Journal

Google’s AI Search Clarification: Stick to Traditional SEO, Not GEO

Geo in SEO—often called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)—is a marketing label that some consultants use, but Google says there is nothing special you need to do for genera…

Google Merchant Center AI Performance Insights – What You Need to Know
3 Sept 2026 · Search Engine Roundtable

Google Merchant Center AI Performance Insights – What You Need to Know

The report shows how your brand is discovered across Google’s generative AI ecosystem, highlighting performance for conversational queries with shopping intent on AI Mode and…

Google Starts Charging for Missed & Follow‑up Calls on Local Service Ads (Oct 1 2026)
3 Sept 2026 · Search Engine Roundtable

Google Starts Charging for Missed & Follow‑up Calls on Local Service Ads (Oct 1 2026)

Google’s policy takes effect on October 1 2026, and missed calls that occur during business hours will be billed as valid leads when the caller remains on the line for more th…

How .com’s Dominance Is Shifting and What It Means for Your SEO Strategy
3 Sept 2026 · Search Engine Journal

How .com’s Dominance Is Shifting and What It Means for Your SEO Strategy

Wix’s analysis reveals that local extensions beat .com registrations in Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. In addition, Australia (.com.au), Canada (.ca), France (.fr)…

Google AdSense Begin‑to‑Render Impression Measurement Change – What SEO Practitioners Need to Know
2 Sept 2026 · Search Engine Roundtable

Google AdSense Begin‑to‑Render Impression Measurement Change – What SEO Practitioners Need to Know

An impression is now recorded only after the ad has successfully loaded and begun rendering on the visitor’s device, rather than when the ad merely starts downloading. This al…

Microsoft Advertising AI Max Search Term Landing Page Report – What SEO Professionals Need to Know
2 Sept 2026 · Search Engine Roundtable

Microsoft Advertising AI Max Search Term Landing Page Report – What SEO Professionals Need to Know

AI Max can dynamically serve relevant URLs based on a user's query, and the query is recorded in the Search term landing page report. The report shows the exact search term th…

AI‑Ready SEO: What the Latest Audit Reveals and How to Act
2 Sept 2026 · Search Engine Journal

AI‑Ready SEO: What the Latest Audit Reveals and How to Act

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Ask Advisor Shared Memory Announcement
1 Sept 2026 · Search Engine Roundtable

Ask Advisor Shared Memory Announcement

Ask Advisor is an AI‑powered conversational assistant built into Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Merchant Center and other Google marketing products. It lets marketers ty…

Markdown Files and AI SEO: What the Evidence Shows
1 Sept 2026 · Search Engine Journal

Markdown Files and AI SEO: What the Evidence Shows

The short answer is no documented success. A Reddit thread asked whether serving markdown would earn more AI citations, and the consensus was that it “won’t help with getting…

Generative AI Performance Reports in Search Console – What SEO Practitioners Need to Know
1 Sept 2026 · Search Engine Journal

Generative AI Performance Reports in Search Console – What SEO Practitioners Need to Know

The reports list impressions that your pages receive from AI Overviews, AI Mode, and generative AI features in Discover, broken down by page, country, date, and for Search als…

How to Restructure Your Marketing Team & Budget for the AI‑Search Era
31 Aug 2026 · Search Engine Journal

How to Restructure Your Marketing Team & Budget for the AI‑Search Era

AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Mode are now answering buyer questions directly, bypassing traditional SERPs. In June, the author sat in an a…

AI‑Enabled Attacks and Their SEO Impact – What You Must Do
31 Aug 2026 · Search Engine Journal

AI‑Enabled Attacks and Their SEO Impact – What You Must Do

AI agents can locate unpatched software, weak authentication, and misconfigurations faster than humans, then create spam pages, malicious redirects, or cause outages.

AI, Accountability, and the Future of Marketing Teams
31 Aug 2026 · Search Engine Journal

AI, Accountability, and the Future of Marketing Teams

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Google’s August 2026 Spam Update: What Happened and How It Affects Your Rankings
30 Aug 2026 · Search Engine Land

Google’s August 2026 Spam Update: What Happened and How It Affects Your Rankings

The drop was triggered by Google’s August 2026 spam update, which made top‑10 URLs 1.8 times more likely to fall below position 100 compared with a normal five‑day period. Thi…

Your Google Business Profile needs a business continuity plan
25 Aug 2026 · Search Engine Land

Your Google Business Profile needs a business continuity plan

Published: August 24, 2026 at 9:00 am • Read Time: 16 minutes

Google Tag Upgrade FAQ for SEO Practitioners
25 Aug 2026 · Search Engine Land

Google Tag Upgrade FAQ for SEO Practitioners

The upgrade will not change how existing Google tags behave on webpages; each Google destination keeps its own tag and all current automation event triggers remain intact.

The August 2026 Google Spam Update: What Actually Changes, and What to Check
19 Aug 2026 · Google Search Status Dashboard

The August 2026 Google Spam Update: What Actually Changes, and What to Check

The announcement went up on the Search Status Dashboard, not the Search Central blog, and it is short:

What we cover

Search changes constantly, but most of what changes does not matter. We only write when something actually affects how a page gets found — a ranking system update, a change to how Google renders or indexes pages, a new surface that sends traffic (AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, YouTube search), or a shift in how link and authority signals are treated. Product announcements that change nothing for site owners are left alone.

How we analyse an update

Every piece follows the same three steps. First, what changed— the primary source, quoted, with a link, never a paraphrase of someone else's paraphrase. Second, what it means — read against how search actually works, not against speculation on social media. Third, what to do— a concrete action, or an explicit “nothing, ignore this” when that is the honest answer, which it often is.

Where a claim can be tested against data, we test it. We run our own crawler and an open index of 7.1 billion links between 250+ million domains, so statements about authority, link growth or how rare a given link profile is are measured on that index rather than repeated from a vendor's blog post. When we cannot measure something, we say we cannot measure it.

Editorial standards

  • No affiliate links. Nothing on this site is paid placement, including tool comparisons.
  • Primary sources only. If we cannot link the original announcement or dataset, we do not publish the claim.
  • Corrections stay visible. When we get something wrong we mark the correction in place instead of quietly editing.
  • No AI slop. Drafts may be machine-assisted, but nothing is published without a human check of every factual claim.

Start here in the meantime

If you are looking for something to read right now, our evergreen work is a better starting point than update coverage: