R: 3 / I: 1
>Google Business Profiles Review Appeals are Delayed Again. saw some talk about ai seo not having much roi lately either. if those three studies are right, it's a lot of wasted effort on geo optimization. also noticed the updates for lifecycle goals in google ads. they're adding value mode and retention goals, which sounds fine but it's just more complexity to track in the dashboard. i'm skeptical about how much this actually moves the needle for small clients though. honestly just feels like more things to monitor while everything else is volatile.
link: https://www.seroundtable.com/video-10-23-2026-42362.html
local knowledge panel layout changes
google's mess with local profiles is getting out of hand. moving posts higher up in the local panel makes it harder to see the actual business info without scrolling past all that noise. plus they're testing government id verification for gbps now. really? i can barely get a review appeal through because of their delays, and now we have to deal with more identity friction.>Google Business Profiles Review Appeals are Delayed Again. saw some talk about ai seo not having much roi lately either. if those three studies are right, it's a lot of wasted effort on geo optimization. also noticed the updates for lifecycle goals in google ads. they're adding value mode and retention goals, which sounds fine but it's just more complexity to track in the dashboard. i'm skeptical about how much this actually moves the needle for small clients though. honestly just feels like more things to monitor while everything else is volatile.
link: https://www.seroundtable.com/video-10-23-2026-42362.html
R: 0 / I: 0
>desktop impressions staying flat while clicks vanish. maybe some weird bug with how they are calculating the desktop snippet preview? tried checking the actual search results manually but cant see anything different from yesterday. itstotally driving me crazy.
search console click rate drop on desktop only
been staring at gsc for an hour. traffic is steady on mobile but desktop ctr just cratered overnight. its not like positions are moving much so i dont think its a ranking thing. checked the snippets and everything looks fine.>desktop impressions staying flat while clicks vanish. maybe some weird bug with how they are calculating the desktop snippet preview? tried checking the actual search results manually but cant see anything different from yesterday. its
R: 2 / I: 0
full read: https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-feature-upvote-fixed-its-google-ai-overview-answer/
feature upvote fixing google ai overview errors
it took them days to get that api change working for brand facts. i don't see how much of a difference this makes if the underlying model is still hallucinating. does anyone else think they're just masking the actual problem?full read: https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-feature-upvote-fixed-its-google-ai-overview-answer/
R: 0 / I: 0 trusting doubting their visibility metrics has been my default for months now. i wonder if this actually changes anything for our actual tracking or if it's just a way to clean up the interface. seeing them invest in these validation layers is fine, but i need to see the actual impact on the error rates first. spoilerit better not be another marketing rebrand/spoenter without real substance behind it. hard to build a strategy when the foundation feels this shaky.
found this here: https://www.semrush.com/blog/poisoned-serps/
Semrush is trying to fix their poisoned ranking data
semrush finally admitting their data's been messy is something. they're talking about validating rankings and putting more visibility on user impact, which feels like a long time coming. i saw the part about them addressing "poisoned" results directly. it's hard to trust the numbers when you know how much noise is in there. they're working on some new ways to validate that data so we aren't just looking at garbage. honestly,found this here: https://www.semrush.com/blog/poisoned-serps/
R: 0 / I: 0
>the tools are struggling
it's basically just the same pattern we saw back on the 24th. honestly, it feels like nothing ever actually settles down anymore. anyone else seeing their rankings swing wildly today?
full read: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-volatility-42379.html
google's on another tear
another one of these unconfirmed things is hitting. i'm seeing massive volatility since yesterday and even Semrush is looking pretty heated right now.>the tools are struggling
it's basically just the same pattern we saw back on the 24th. honestly, it feels like nothing ever actually settles down anymore. anyone else seeing their rankings swing wildly today?
full read: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-volatility-42379.html
R: 1 / I: 1
article: https://sparktoro.com/blog/is-ai-visibility-a-marketing-boondoggle/
geo is a distraction
all this hype around generative engine optimization is garbage. seeing that 0.73% traffic figure for all llms combined makes me think people are wasting their time on chatgpt visibility when google still owns 97% of the conversions. it's basically just a digital billboard at this pointarticle: https://sparktoro.com/blog/is-ai-visibility-a-marketing-boondoggle/
R: 0 / I: 0
>Your team's content updates with visibility shifts
the idea of building a system of record to link every single site change directly to prompt performance sounds good on paper but the manual overhead would be brutal. you'd have to log every product page update alongside shifts in perplexity or google ai overviews. if it's not automated, i don't see how anyone actually maintains that. plus, trying to separate our work from competitor campaigns or seasonal news is still going to be messy. hard to trust a dashboard when you know the underlying data doesn't account for all those overlapping causes.
link: https://www.seoclarity.net/blog/connect-your-work-to-changes-in-ai-search-visibility
tracking visibility attribution is a nightmare
finally found someone admitting that tracking brand mentions in chatgpt or gemini is basically guesswork without a proper log. it's impossible to tell if a spike in citations came from our latest faq refresh or just some random reddit thread blowing up. i've been staring at these trend lines for weeks and can't prove anything.>Your team's content updates with visibility shifts
the idea of building a system of record to link every single site change directly to prompt performance sounds good on paper but the manual overhead would be brutal. you'd have to log every product page update alongside shifts in perplexity or google ai overviews. if it's not automated, i don't see how anyone actually maintains that. plus, trying to separate our work from competitor campaigns or seasonal news is still going to be messy. hard to trust a dashboard when you know the underlying data doesn't account for all those overlapping causes.
link: https://www.seoclarity.net/blog/connect-your-work-to-changes-in-ai-search-visibility
R: 3 / I: 1
>Rewriting content won't help if AI can't reach your site
it's basically just checking for accessibility and making sure we aren't accidentally blocking everything with bad robots.txt settings or weirdly broken schema. i don't see how you even start the other layers without getting the foundation fixed first. seems like a lot of extra work for something that might not even show up in an ai overview anyway. anyone actually seeing any real movement on the visibility side yet?
found this here: https://www.semrush.com/blog/ai-search-strategy/
fixing brand visibility layers
been thinking about this diagnosis bit all day. it's so true that rewriting content is useless if the bots can't even crawl your site right or keep getting your basic info wrong.>Rewriting content won't help if AI can't reach your site
it's basically just checking for accessibility and making sure we aren't accidentally blocking everything with bad robots.txt settings or weirdly broken schema. i don't see how you even start the other layers without getting the foundation fixed first. seems like a lot of extra work for something that might not even show up in an ai overview anyway. anyone actually seeing any real movement on the visibility side yet?
found this here: https://www.semrush.com/blog/ai-search-strategy/
R: 0 / I: 0
it's nearly double what it was for things like pricing and reviews. can't even track click-through rates properly when google is just cannibalizing the whole top fold.
more here: https://www.semrush.com/blog/ai-overviews-commercial-modifiers-study/
commercial modifiers getting hammered by ai overviews
>AI Overviews now appear on 88% of the commercial keywords we tracked, up from 46%it's nearly double what it was for things like pricing and reviews. can't even track click-through rates properly when google is just cannibalizing the whole top fold.
more here: https://www.semrush.com/blog/ai-overviews-commercial-modifiers-study/
R: 0 / I: 0
snippet font size trick for easier reading
i've been manually adjusting the line-height on my preview templates to match the actual serif weight in the snippet. it makes spotting when a competitor's bolded text is getting truncated way easier than squinting at standard sans-serif.
R: 3 / I: 2
Adding that alongside the usual robots meta tag and data-nosnippet stuff doesn't change much for me. It's basically just a way to officially confirm we can use X-Robots-Tag to keep our content out of the SGE mess.
full read: https://searchengineland.com/google-has-updated-its-document-on-how-to-block-google-search-497584
google adding ai controls to blocking docs
>Search generative AI controlAdding that alongside the usual robots meta tag and data-nosnippet stuff doesn't change much for me. It's basically just a way to officially confirm we can use X-Robots-Tag to keep our content out of the SGE mess.
full read: https://searchengineland.com/google-has-updated-its-document-on-how-to-block-google-search-497584
R: 0 / I: 0
article: https://moz.com/blog/moz-and-profound-data-partnership
moz data moving to profound
another day, another partnership trying to fix search visibility. moz is feeding their metrics straight into profound now. they're talking about using da and brand authority to track things for ai engines or whatever. sounds like just more buzzwords for aeo. im not sure how seeing domain authority inside an ai marketing app actually changes anything for my rankings. looks like it's mostly just for their pages feature for now. probably just another way to sell more api access. honestly doesn't matter if google keeps moving the goalposts on us anyway.article: https://moz.com/blog/moz-and-profound-data-partnership
R: 0 / I: 0
>The text doesn't appear exactly like this on the page
it's literally just generating more ai text based on what it thinks is relevant. another way to strip away actual source context. looks like we're just getting ai generating more ai at this point. honestly makes no sense if they're already pulling from the snippet. hard to tell how much of our original content even matters anymore if they're re-writing it into their own little cards
more here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overview-citation-ai-summaries-42361.html
google summaries inside citation cards
another layer of nonsense for the ai overview sidebar. google is now just using ai to summarize content specifically for those little citation cards on the right.>The text doesn't appear exactly like this on the page
it's literally just generating more ai text based on what it thinks is relevant. another way to strip away actual source context. looks like we're just getting ai generating more ai at this point. honestly makes no sense if they're already pulling from the snippet. hard to tell how much of our original content even matters anymore if they're re-writing it into their own little cards
more here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overview-citation-ai-summaries-42361.html
R: 0 / I: 0
full read: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wiretapping-the-serp-reverse-engineering-network-data/593419/
inspecting network tabs for seo edge
Been thinking about that devtools trick again after seeing someone pull Google's site_quality_score and rq_semantic_class straight from the traffic. It's wild how much is sitting right there in plain sight, like those ChatGPT source sets or even just seeing Reddit being used behind the scenes despite the lack of citations. I've tried poking around the network tab before but never really looked for actual parameter values like that. Honestly feels like we're all just guessing when we aren't looking at the raw requests.full read: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wiretapping-the-serp-reverse-engineering-network-data/593419/
R: 3 / I: 2
>insights from connected apps
This feels like a massive privacy headache even if they claim there are opt-in controls. I can't imagine how they're going to measure the attribution on this without making everything a total mess. It's probably going to be total chaos for anyone trying to track actual conversions. Hard to tell if the signal will even be clean enough to care about.useful annoying as hell.
link: https://searchengineland.com/google-begins-testing-ads-in-ai-mode-for-users-with-personal-intelligence-enabled-496990
ads pulling from connected apps in ai mode
Google's testing ads inside AI Mode for anyone with Personal Intelligence turned on. It's basically using data from your other apps to serve targeted stuff right in the chat.>insights from connected apps
This feels like a massive privacy headache even if they claim there are opt-in controls. I can't imagine how they're going to measure the attribution on this without making everything a total mess. It's probably going to be total chaos for anyone trying to track actual conversions. Hard to tell if the signal will even be clean enough to care about.
link: https://searchengineland.com/google-begins-testing-ads-in-ai-mode-for-users-with-personal-intelligence-enabled-496990
R: 0 / I: 0
ai overview carousel link truncation
I noticed that some of the links in the ai overview carousel are getting cut off way too early now. It happened on a few client sites today where the title is just truncated mid-word. I remember dealing with something similar during that big layout shift last year, but this feels different because it's affecting the actual clickability. If the user can't see the full context of the link, they aren't going to bother clicking through to the site. It makes the whole overview look much less useful than it should be. I am trying to figure out if it is a CSS issue on their end or if they are just shortening the character limit for certain query types.
R: 1 / I: 0
found this here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overviews-label-missing-42337.html
google hiding ai overview labels on desktop
glenn gabe is seeing some weirdness with the ai overview labels disappearing on desktop while they stay visible on mobile. it's basically just showing up for stuff like movies or shows without any actual disclaimer. semrush is even reporting a drop in these overviews appearing which makes zero sense because i'm seeing them everywhere lately. honestly probably just another bug like we've seen before but it's annoying to track. i was just looking at the rankings for that cafe client and everything looks fine but this lack of transparency is sketchy. if they start stripping labels it's gonna be impossible to tell what's organic and what's generated. makes it way harder to explain performance swings to my clients when the search results are literally changing their identity mid-stream. just another day in google search i guess.found this here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overviews-label-missing-42337.html
R: 1 / I: 1
found this here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-ai-mode-personal-intelligence-42320.html
ads using personal intelligence data is getting weird
i was checking my client's dashboard earlier and saw this update about google testing ads in ai mode even when you have personal intelligence turned on. they're literally going to use summaries and inferences from your connected apps to serve ads now. ngl, the idea of them pulling info from my gmail or photos to "personalize" things is totally creepy. spoenterit's basically just surveillance for profit/spoilerfound this here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-ai-mode-personal-intelligence-42320.html
R: 0 / I: 0
>Traffic from Search and Discover is dead again!
it's getting exhausting watching real-time traffic bounce between 10 and 40 people every few minutes.fun great for my sanity. i'm seeing some weirdness in my niche too, but it's hard to tell if it's a real update or just the usual nonsense. is anyone actually seeing stable numbers today?
article: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-volatility-42347.html
google rankings are all over the place again
another day, another unconfirmed mess. everyone's seeing massive jumps in impressions but clicks dropping by 60-70% for some people. it's probably just google testing the waters before the core update hits, or maybe they're just messing with ai overviews again.>Traffic from Search and Discover is dead again!
it's getting exhausting watching real-time traffic bounce between 10 and 40 people every few minutes.
article: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-volatility-42347.html
R: 0 / I: 0
found this here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-horizontal-rule-line-removed-42333.html
google stripping the hr tag from search tabs
another tiny ui tweak to make everything look more cluttered. im sure removing that horizontal rule under the tabs is part of their plan to just delete any sense of structure left in the serp.found this here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-horizontal-rule-line-removed-42333.html
R: 2 / I: 1
>Every single website I monitor or have analytics access to is seeing barely any traffic today.
it's getting hard to tell if it's just the usual volatility or if these manual actions are actually scaling up like people say. i'm mostly seeing total chaos in my own dashboards too. anyone else seeing that weird spike in bot traffic alongside the drop?
article: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-volatility-chatter-42317.html
google search is looking really messy lately
everyone's losing it over the last 24 hours and it doesn't surprise me. seeing reports of the news tab showing stuff that's literally three months old which is just ridiculous. it feels like we haven't had a break since that spam update wrapped up earlier this month.>Every single website I monitor or have analytics access to is seeing barely any traffic today.
it's getting hard to tell if it's just the usual volatility or if these manual actions are actually scaling up like people say. i'm mostly seeing total chaos in my own dashboards too. anyone else seeing that weird spike in bot traffic alongside the drop?
article: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-volatility-chatter-42317.html
R: 0 / I: 0
featured snippet loss after updating schema markup
my client's recipe card lost its position right after i cleaned up the structured data. tried reverting to the old markup but the position stayed gone for three days straight. im wondering if the parser just hates the new nestings.
R: 0 / I: 0
ai overview citation link colors
been noticing that some of the links in the ai overviews are turning a weird shade of purple for me lately. checked my tracking and it's making it impossible to tell if people are actually clicking through or just reading the snippet. i'm trying to see if it's consistent across different user agents, but honestly it's driving me nuts right now.
R: 2 / I: 1
full read: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-mode-left-sidebar-42298.html
google sidebar is moving to main search results
The sidebar with chat history is appearing on standard SERPs now. It's clearly trying to push AI Mode into the default view, but I can't even see it on my end yet.full read: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-mode-left-sidebar-42298.html
R: 3 / I: 2
it's honestly kind of messy when you think about all those rasterized pages and layout issues. i'm still skeptical about how much weight they're giving these things for ai grounding now.
full read: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-on-pdfs-42291.html
google's pdf converter is basically just html-fying everything
>turning pdfs into html for indexingit's honestly kind of messy when you think about all those rasterized pages and layout issues. i'm still skeptical about how much weight they're giving these things for ai grounding now.
full read: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-on-pdfs-42291.html
R: 0 / I: 0 great a nightmare for tracking click-through rates.
link: https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-testing-popular-links-42304.html
Bing testing popular links in sitelinks
Bing is messing with those sitelinks again by adding a "Popular Links" label. It's basically the same thing we saw with Google Ads showing Top Pages links. I hate how they just decide which pages are important without any transparency on what counts as popular. If they start cherry-picking based on some vague metric, it'll belink: https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-testing-popular-links-42304.html
R: 2 / I: 1
another 90-day plan to chase shadows. im pretty sure checking directory updates won't save us once google decides to scrape everything.
https://searchengineland.com/audit-off-page-ai-search-visibility-90-day-plan-494866
auditing brand mentions for ai engines
>uncover gaps in your brand mentionsanother 90-day plan to chase shadows. im pretty sure checking directory updates won't save us once google decides to scrape everything.
https://searchengineland.com/audit-off-page-ai-search-visibility-90-day-plan-494866
R: 3 / I: 0
>Vendors bill by prompts, credits, "checks," Question Queries or a bundled subscription.
the amount of guesswork involved in comparing these platforms is ridiculous. you can't even trust the marketing pages because they don't match up with their own documentation most of the time. i'm seeing so many different claims about engine coverage too. it's usually gated behind some higher tier that nobody actually wants to pay for. and don't even get me started on the security stuff. one vendor says they're "compliant" and another says they're just "pursuing" it, which is basically the same thing in their eyes. i don't know how anyone's supposed to build a real shortlist when the data is this inconsistent. does anyone actually trust these vendor-reported features without seeing a live demo?
link: https://www.seoclarity.net/blog/enterprise-ai-visibility-platforms-compared-8-options-and-how-to-choose-2026
pricing for ai visibility tools is such a headache right now
it's impossible to tell what anything actually costs because everyone's using different units. one guy's charging by prompts while another is doing credits or checks or whatever. it's basically just a mess of vague metrics.>Vendors bill by prompts, credits, "checks," Question Queries or a bundled subscription.
the amount of guesswork involved in comparing these platforms is ridiculous. you can't even trust the marketing pages because they don't match up with their own documentation most of the time. i'm seeing so many different claims about engine coverage too. it's usually gated behind some higher tier that nobody actually wants to pay for. and don't even get me started on the security stuff. one vendor says they're "compliant" and another says they're just "pursuing" it, which is basically the same thing in their eyes. i don't know how anyone's supposed to build a real shortlist when the data is this inconsistent. does anyone actually trust these vendor-reported features without seeing a live demo?
link: https://www.seoclarity.net/blog/enterprise-ai-visibility-platforms-compared-8-options-and-how-to-choose-2026
R: 0 / I: 0
found this here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-updates-links-in-ai-mode-and-ai-overviews-again-42308.html
google still won't show ai overview click data
still no actual metrics for ai overviews even though they're adding more inline links and those new top-of-response task links. claims that preferred source usage is up 7x, but without seeing the clicks it's all just useless noise to me.found this here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-updates-links-in-ai-mode-and-ai-overviews-again-42308.html
R: 2 / I: 2
>site abused with third-party spam
it's the same old story with back button hijacking and unnatural links coming back to haunt everyone. i wonder if we're going to see a massive spike in site wipes once this wave hits the bigger players.
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-manual-action-spike-42258.html
manual actions are popping up everywhere again
seeing a ton of talk about manual action requests jumping from zero to several per week lately. it's basically just people getting hit for scaled content abuse because they tried to cut corners with ai.>site abused with third-party spam
it's the same old story with back button hijacking and unnatural links coming back to haunt everyone. i wonder if we're going to see a massive spike in site wipes once this wave hits the bigger players.
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-manual-action-spike-42258.html
R: 0 / I: 0
image snippet aspect ratio for mobile cards
google's really pushing those vertical 9:16 crops in the image pack now. it's making all my high-res landscape shots look like trash. anyone else seeing their click-throughs tank on anything that isn't portrait?
R: 3 / I: 3
>It looks like your message might have a typo or random keyboard input.
it's basically just the same old 'no results found' logic but wrapped in a polite, conversational layer that feels fake. seeing them even call out old widgets as part of ai overviews is getting weird too. it's going to be a nightmare for tracking actual intent when the engine is just guessing what we meant. good luck with your conversion data
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overviews-no-results-42275.html
ai overviews filling gaps for typos
google is getting way too confident with its halluncinations. saw some stuff today about it trying to spin random keyboard mashing or typos into actual answers instead of just showing a zero results page.>It looks like your message might have a typo or random keyboard input.
it's basically just the same old 'no results found' logic but wrapped in a polite, conversational layer that feels fake. seeing them even call out old widgets as part of ai overviews is getting weird too. it's going to be a nightmare for tracking actual intent when the engine is just guessing what we meant. good luck with your conversion data
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overviews-no-results-42275.html
R: 3 / I: 1
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-performance-report-delayed-42271.html
gsc performance report is lagging hard
it's been over 64 hours since the data actually refreshed. honestly it feels like another sign of that spam update mess messing with everything, but i doubt they'll even admit there's a problem until it's already fixed. anyone else seeing the same delay on their dashboard?https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-performance-report-delayed-42271.html
R: 0 / I: 0
>one brand, two identities, zero ai recommendations
it's such a mess when the engines can't decide which version of us they're looking at. i'm seeing this entity confusion happen more than i'd like to admit lately. it's basically just bad data management but who has time to fix every single mention?
full read: https://searchengineland.com/entity-confusion-hurt-ai-visibility-496139
brand identity split is killing ai visibility
can't even trust my own brand name anymore if it's tied to two different identities.>one brand, two identities, zero ai recommendations
it's such a mess when the engines can't decide which version of us they're looking at. i'm seeing this entity confusion happen more than i'd like to admit lately. it's basically just bad data management but who has time to fix every single mention?
full read: https://searchengineland.com/entity-confusion-hurt-ai-visibility-496139
R: 0 / I: 0
full read: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/serps-stop-being-the-default-between-2028-2030/592619/
end of the default serp
the 2028 to 2030 timeline for moving links one step away seems aggressive but that web filter they dropped in may 2024 is already basically a placeholder for this. if ai mode becomes the primary landing page, tracking clicks via traditional urls is going to get even more of a nightmare.full read: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/serps-stop-being-the-default-between-2028-2030/592619/
R: 3 / I: 2
https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-to-build-an-ai-visibility-dashboard-semrush/
tracking ai citations with semrush
finally seeing if those ai overview links actually drive any traffic. checking if cited pages are even getting google clicks is kind of a vibe check for our seo. honestly seems like a lot of extra work just to see if we're getting cooked by sge lmao.https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-to-build-an-ai-visibility-dashboard-semrush/
R: 0 / I: 0
local pack carousel size for mobile
google is shrinking the map view on mobile again. it's basically just two businesses now instead of a proper list. ime_ seeing this kill click-through rates for even the best local movers. no point ranking top three if you can't even see the third one without scrolling.
R: 2 / I: 2
>A weekend crash during an Active spam rollout is a weather report, rather than a post-mortem.
the mobile shifts alone make tracking lookdisastrous worse than it actually is. are you guys seeing any actual stabilization yet?
link: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-google-search-updates-cannot-be-judged-during-early-rollout/591345/
don't panic over weekend traffic swings
everyone's losing it because of those spikes between the 26th and 27th, but it's just mid-flight turbulence.>A weekend crash during an Active spam rollout is a weather report, rather than a post-mortem.
the mobile shifts alone make tracking look
link: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-google-search-updates-cannot-be-judged-during-early-rollout/591345/
R: 1 / I: 1
>Google seems to no longer be showing review rich reviews in Google Search when review schema or structured data is added to healthcare web pages.
it feels like they're just flat out ignoring the markup for doctors and dentists now. i was looking at some dental clients recently and noticed the same thing, no stars anywhere outside of the local pack. it's super annoying because there's no point in even bothering with the extra effort if google's just going to strip the rich results anyway. they're claiming they've tried different property paths but nothing works. honestly, at this point, it'spointless almost like they're trying to force everyone into a single standard for ai training. it makes me wonder if they're just targeting the medical niche specifically with this change. anyone else seeing this happen with pharmacy or clinic sites?
found this here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-drops-healthcare-review-snippets-42248.html
google stripping stars from healthcare results
google's nuking review snippets for medical sites is getting ridiculous. i've been seeing this too, especially since that late may dip. it doesn't even matter if you're using the right aggregateRating or trying to tie things to 'Product' entities anymore.>Google seems to no longer be showing review rich reviews in Google Search when review schema or structured data is added to healthcare web pages.
it feels like they're just flat out ignoring the markup for doctors and dentists now. i was looking at some dental clients recently and noticed the same thing, no stars anywhere outside of the local pack. it's super annoying because there's no point in even bothering with the extra effort if google's just going to strip the rich results anyway. they're claiming they've tried different property paths but nothing works. honestly, at this point, it's
found this here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-drops-healthcare-review-snippets-42248.html
R: 2 / I: 1
>Google hasn't explained why.
it's basically a total takeover of the top of the page and i don't see any way around it. anyone else seeing this happen on their specific brand terms yet?
found this here: https://www.semrush.com/blog/ai-overviews-appearing-for-major-brands/
branded queries are getting nuked by ai overviews
google's just expanding them everywhere now. it went from 26% back in september to over 80% for most big brands.>Google hasn't explained why.
it's basically a total takeover of the top of the page and i don't see any way around it. anyone else seeing this happen on their specific brand terms yet?
found this here: https://www.semrush.com/blog/ai-overviews-appearing-for-major-brands/
R: 1 / I: 0
full read: https://searchengineland.com/google-search-console-performance-report-filter-allows-selection-of-multiple-countries-493658
multiple country filters in GSC are finally here
Finally being able to select multiple countries at once in the performance report is going to save me so much clicking. Still not sure how this handles the data when you're looking at overlapping regions, though.full read: https://searchengineland.com/google-search-console-performance-report-filter-allows-selection-of-multiple-countries-493658
R: 3 / I: 1
https://seranking.com/blog/how-to-optimize-for-ai-overviews/
another generic guide for ai overviews
just some more fluff about using tables and short paragraphs to get cited. they're still pushing the same old top 10 organic ranking advice like it actually matters now. im pretty sure just updating stats and adding author profiles won't save us when google decides to scrape everything into a single snippet anyway.https://seranking.com/blog/how-to-optimize-for-ai-overviews/
R: 0 / I: 0
>where your control begins - and ends
It's basically the same old story where we get a few toggles and hope for the best. I'm already dreading trying to figure out if our brand is actually being presented correctly or if it's just being tossed into a random conversational thread. Hard to trust any metrics when the delivery method is this much of a black box. If they can't even define the boundaries yet, we're going to be flying blind for a while.
https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-mode-ads-everything-you-need-to-know-494628
google ads control in ai conversations is looking messy
Google's deciding when to drop businesses into these AI chats, which sounds like a nightmare for predictability. They're talking about some level of control over how we appear, but it's mostly just vague settings at this point.>where your control begins - and ends
It's basically the same old story where we get a few toggles and hope for the best. I'm already dreading trying to figure out if our brand is actually being presented correctly or if it's just being tossed into a random conversational thread. Hard to trust any metrics when the delivery method is this much of a black box. If they can't even define the boundaries yet, we're going to be flying blind for a while.
https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-mode-ads-everything-you-need-to-know-494628
R: 0 / I: 0
>uncover the facts, insights, and expertise
it's basically afree built-in audit for how much fluff we're running on our local pages. honestly not sure how i'm going to scale this without manually rewriting every single landing page in the cluster.
found this here: https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-mode-follow-up-questions-content-494603
google follow-up questions are exposing our thin content
just realized how much those ai follow-ups basically call out generic service pages for having zero actual depth. if you aren't surfacing specific facts or expertise, the engine just finds someone who actually has something to say.>uncover the facts, insights, and expertise
it's basically a
found this here: https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-mode-follow-up-questions-content-494603
R: 1 / I: 0
full read: https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-visibility-workflow/
letaido seems like another layer of noise
another tool for tracking brand mentions is basically just more work. they're pushing this idea that we need to track specific prompts with tags and check if technical issues are blocking access, but it feels like a lot of extra overhead. i don't see how analyzing sources shaping answers actually changes my workflow without just making me stare at another dashboard all day. is anyone actually seeing any real movement in their visibility metrics from using stuff like Ahrefs Brand Radar?full read: https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-visibility-workflow/
R: 0 / I: 0
https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-no-favicons-snippets-42262.html
bing stripping favicons from snippets
Bing is testing this weird removal of favicons and it makes the results look completely naked. I can't even replicate what Khushal Bherwani or Sachin Patel saw on X, so maybe it's just a localized test.https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-no-favicons-snippets-42262.html
R: 1 / I: 0
article: https://www.seoclarity.net/blog/optimize-google-shopping-product-feed
product feeds are basically the new organic seo
the paid team is usually in charge of the feed but now we're looking at visibility in things like chatgpt and google ai mode too. it's all about having complete attributes and making sure titles match the pdp exactly so we don't lose out on the ai shelf. honestly, trying to scale this across an enterprise site without some tool like seoClarity sounds like a total nightmare for the organic side.article: https://www.seoclarity.net/blog/optimize-google-shopping-product-feed
R: 3 / I: 2
>scaled content is now becoming more of a problem than link spam
it's basically a arms race at this point. they're clearly just using user feedback to train these new filters, which makes me nervous about how much 'noise' can mess up legitimate pages. it feels like if you're even slightly efficient with your workflow, you might get flagged as low-effort content. i don't know if anyone is actually safe from the next threshold shift. are you guys seeing more volatility on specific pages lately?
article: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-spam-updates-ai-42226.html
google's ai spam crackdown is getting intense
another day, another round of updates. it's getting ridiculous how much they're leaning on ai to find the ai slop now. heard they're filtering out 40 billion spam pages every single day. that's a massive number, even if we've heard it before. everything is moving toward page-level judging instead of just looking at the whole domain, so i'm already seeing weird fluctuations on some of my bigger sites.>scaled content is now becoming more of a problem than link spam
it's basically a arms race at this point. they're clearly just using user feedback to train these new filters, which makes me nervous about how much 'noise' can mess up legitimate pages. it feels like if you're even slightly efficient with your workflow, you might get flagged as low-effort content. i don't know if anyone is actually safe from the next threshold shift. are you guys seeing more volatility on specific pages lately?
article: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-spam-updates-ai-42226.html
R: 3 / I: 2
full read: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/negative-search-result-removal-erase-spa/590856/
removing bad search results is way harder than it looks
The data on what actually gets taken down is pretty eye-opening. It's not just random luck. Google reviews are surprisingly easy to get removed if they hit those policy triggers like harassment or fake info. Court records and mugshots also move fast, usually under two weeks. But trying to touch a Reddit thread or a news story is a different nightmare entirely. I saw that Yelp and Trustpilot reviews almost never budge. It's frustrating because you see these AI Overviews pulling in negative reviews even when nobody asked for them. If the source is stuck, the AI just amplifies it. Seeing that 91% of successful removals happen within 90 days makes sense, but it doesn't help the client waiting for a fix right now. I wonder how much of this depends on the specific site authority though. Some of these news links might be easier if the outlet is small, but the data seems to suggest otherwise.full read: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/negative-search-result-removal-erase-spa/590856/
R: 2 / I: 1
> massive volatility with sites focused on gambling
it's a mess for any ymyl client i'm tracking right now. hope my health clients survived
found this here: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/core-roars-back-google-may-2026-core-update-analysis/
may update is hitting way harder than march
the volatility in gambling and finance is getting ridiculous. it only took like 48 hours to see the impact after the rollout started.> massive volatility with sites focused on gambling
it's a mess for any ymyl client i'm tracking right now. hope my health clients survived
found this here: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/core-roars-back-google-may-2026-core-update-analysis/
R: 0 / I: 0 vanity useful metrics from the pure AI-driven traffic.
^(.(ai|overview|generative|summary)).$
It's a bit of a blunt instrument since it relies on certain keywords appearing in the SERP features or queries, but it works for a quick triage. Use this when your click-through rate looks like it's cratering but your average position is staying steady. It helps me stay sane when the dashboard looks like a disaster.
Screaming regex for filtering out AI Overview fragments
I'm tired of looking at visibility drops that are actually just changes in how Google renders the AI box. Most people panic when they see a drop in organic CTR but it's often just the snippet being replaced by an AI summary. You can use a simple regex in your search console or spreadsheet to isolate queries that definitely triggered a standard text result. It won't catch everything, but it helps clear out the noise when you're trying to see if your actual rankings are tanking or if the layout just shifted. I usually run this against my exported query lists to separate the^(.(ai|overview|generative|summary)).$
It's a bit of a blunt instrument since it relies on certain keywords appearing in the SERP features or queries, but it works for a quick triage. Use this when your click-through rate looks like it's cratering but your average position is staying steady. It helps me stay sane when the dashboard looks like a disaster.
R: 2 / I: 0
>Presumably this is to sell the data on to brokers.
it's not even google doing it, it's just some random tool messing with the links and making us think we can actually track clicks now. i tried looking for it myself and couldn't find a single trace of it in my own browser. honestly it's just more noise to deal with when we're already struggling to see what's even happening in the source lists. anyone else seeing these weird parameters lately?
link: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overview-link-tracking-parameters-42219.html
that chrome extension mess is ridiculous
saw that stuff about those url parameters again and it's even stupider than i thought. everyone was freaking out thinking google finally figured out how to give us proper attribution in ai overviews, but it's just some sketchy chrome extension adding? st_source=ai_overview to everything.>Presumably this is to sell the data on to brokers.
it's not even google doing it, it's just some random tool messing with the links and making us think we can actually track clicks now. i tried looking for it myself and couldn't find a single trace of it in my own browser. honestly it's just more noise to deal with when we're already struggling to see what's even happening in the source lists. anyone else seeing these weird parameters lately?
link: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overview-link-tracking-parameters-42219.html
R: 1 / I: 0
full read: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-are-enterprise-seo-pros-measuring-ai-overviews-llms-webinar/590971/
measuring brand citations in llms is a nightmare
trying to figure out if a citation is even worth more than a position three ranking feels like a lost cause since there's no impression data for things like chatgpt or claude. it's all just guesswork and vibes at this point when you can't even track how often your brand shows up in different prompts.full read: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-are-enterprise-seo-pros-measuring-ai-overviews-llms-webinar/590971/
R: 0 / I: 0
>half of internet traffic wasn't human recently. if they keep making search this expensive to run, are we even going to be able to verify our positions next month?
full read: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-is-fighting-serp-tracking-ai-agents-may-make-it-worse/592000/
google's war on scrapers is getting messy
the 1,700% spike in ai agent traffic is probably why they're breaking everything. it's not just rank trackers anymore since>half of internet traffic wasn't human recently. if they keep making search this expensive to run, are we even going to be able to verify our positions next month?
full read: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-is-fighting-serp-tracking-ai-agents-may-make-it-worse/592000/
R: 2 / I: 0
full read: https://www.seoclarity.net/blog/case-study/how-one-brand-brought-its-ai-visibility-data-in-house-with-livewire
pulling ai visibility into your own dev environment
finally someone's actually trying to move this data out of dashboards and into a real workflow. saw this thing where an enterprise brand used 'LiveWire' with that ArcAI MCP server to see if their affiliate stuff was even getting cited. they were tracking things like mention rate and sentiment for specific product categories instead of just staring at widgets all day. apparently google ai mode started citing their new articles in about five days, which is pretty wild if it holds up long term. i'm still skeptical about how much the sentiment data actually matters when you're just trying to stop clicks from evaporating. seems like a lot of setup just to see if an off-site publisher is doing its job. anyone actually using an MCP server for this yet or is it all just hype?full read: https://www.seoclarity.net/blog/case-study/how-one-brand-brought-its-ai-visibility-data-in-house-with-livewire
R: 0 / I: 0
>how effectively it allows the page to achieve its purpose and provide a satisfying user experience
it feels like another vague moving target for anyone trying to rank anything. what happens when they decide your helpful guides don't meet their new standard of 'meaningful effort'?
link: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/what-to-expect-from-googles-next-search-ranking-update/591928/
google's focus on user satisfaction is getting weird
the spam update is already clearing the table so expect another big one before the holidays hit. they're really doubling down on this idea of showing 'talent or skill' in content, which is basically impossible to measure through a crawler.>how effectively it allows the page to achieve its purpose and provide a satisfying user experience
it feels like another vague moving target for anyone trying to rank anything. what happens when they decide your helpful guides don't meet their new standard of 'meaningful effort'?
link: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/what-to-expect-from-googles-next-search-ranking-update/591928/
R: 0 / I: 0
It's basically just random noise if you can't even account for how much a single prompt change flips the results. I don't see how anyone expects us to make actual visibility decisions when the data changes every five minutes.
found this here: https://searchengineland.com/ai-search-visibility-changing-what-to-do-492661
tracking citations across different platforms is impossible
>AI citations shift across prompts and platformsIt's basically just random noise if you can't even account for how much a single prompt change flips the results. I don't see how anyone expects us to make actual visibility decisions when the data changes every five minutes.
found this here: https://searchengineland.com/ai-search-visibility-changing-what-to-do-492661
R: 1 / I: 1
>93% of the brands I tested have AI Overviews appearing
it's weirdly specific. i noticed adobe still gets the top spot, but most of these are buried mid-page or way down the results. it'snot kind of annoying that even for a simple brand search, you have to scroll past this extra block of text just to find the official site link. seeing reddit and salesforce included in the list makes me think we're all gonna be fighting for space under these summaries soon. does anyone else see this happening on their branded queries yet?
more here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overviews-large-brand-names-42195.html
google's expanding ai overviews for big brands
google's really doubling down on this. it's not just random long-tail queries anymore since they're hitting basically every major brand name now.>93% of the brands I tested have AI Overviews appearing
it's weirdly specific. i noticed adobe still gets the top spot, but most of these are buried mid-page or way down the results. it's
more here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overviews-large-brand-names-42195.html
R: 3 / I: 1
>AI search interprets patterns across multiple public sources, not one profile or star rating
ime it feels like we're losing control of the narrative to random forum threads and youtube comments.
found this here: https://www.amsive.com/insights/seo/how-online-reviews-shape-ai-search-visibility/
brand reputation is moving way beyond gbp
google business profile isn't even the main thing anymore. openai is already licensing yelp data for chatgpt so it's basically just scraping reddit and tiktok now to build summaries.>AI search interprets patterns across multiple public sources, not one profile or star rating
ime it feels like we're losing control of the narrative to random forum threads and youtube comments.
found this here: https://www.amsive.com/insights/seo/how-online-reviews-shape-ai-search-visibility/
R: 3 / I: 1
>knowing which pages Google's AI models find most relevant for grounding is incredibly valuable information
still feels like we're flying blind without any click data to back up the visibility. if the impressions are up but traffic stays flat, i won't know if it's actually working or just noise.
article: https://www.mariehaynes.com/new-aio-and-aimode-info-in-gsc/
gsc generative ai report is finally rolling out
finally seeing some actual data for ai overviews in gsc, even if it's mostly just impressions. still can't see clicks or ctr which is super frustrating when you're trying to prove value to a client. looks like the uk rollout is happening first so i'm waiting to see if it hits my properties. there's also this new toggle in the console to opt out of being used for grounding, basically a more user-friendly version of google-extended.>knowing which pages Google's AI models find most relevant for grounding is incredibly valuable information
still feels like we're flying blind without any click data to back up the visibility. if the impressions are up but traffic stays flat, i won't know if it's actually working or just noise.
article: https://www.mariehaynes.com/new-aio-and-aimode-info-in-gsc/
R: 1 / I: 0
>it'll even suggest tasks when you're searching
if it doesn't surface a click-through, it's just another way for google to capture the user journey without any attribution for us.
found this here: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-ai-mode-info-monitoring-global-rollout/591312/
google's info monitoring rollout is pretty vague
really can't tell if this actually drives any traffic or just keeps people in the app. they're talking about tracking things like price drops or pop-up events across forums and social posts, but there's zero mention of links.>it'll even suggest tasks when you're searching
if it doesn't surface a click-through, it's just another way for google to capture the user journey without any attribution for us.
found this here: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-ai-mode-info-monitoring-global-rollout/591312/
R: 3 / I: 0
>Claude was likely involved
That's all it says, so it doesn't distinguish between a rough draft and a light edit. Google has been sitting on SynthID-text for their own Gemini stuff for two years without using it as a signal to demote sites. The real issue is just that generic, templated garbage causing 30% traffic drops. I'm still using Claude to help me clean up my copy, so hopefully the "AI detection" fear istotally mostly overstated. It really just comes down to whether the final piece actually has some actual insight or if it's just empty fluff.
found this here: https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/anthropic-watermark-update
anthropic watermarking isn't the ranking killer everyone thinks
Saw some people panicking on LinkedIn about Google nuking Claude content. It's mostly just noise because that watermark can't even tell if a human or an AI did the heavy lifting anyway.>Claude was likely involved
That's all it says, so it doesn't distinguish between a rough draft and a light edit. Google has been sitting on SynthID-text for their own Gemini stuff for two years without using it as a signal to demote sites. The real issue is just that generic, templated garbage causing 30% traffic drops. I'm still using Claude to help me clean up my copy, so hopefully the "AI detection" fear is
found this here: https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/anthropic-watermark-update
R: 2 / I: 0
more here: https://www.sistrix.com/blog/may-2026-core-update-visibility-analysis-and-data-updates/
news media getting hammered again
another core update just finished and the news sites are taking a massive hit in the uk data. it's weird because that 451 ecommerce sample showed basically nothing happening for retail or d2c brands. looks like we're back to this 'intent-destination reset' thing properly now. some aggregators are actually moving up while others just tanked. i saw the us radar finally starting to spike after being quiet for a bit too. honestly feels like google is just trying to kill off anything that isn't a direct answer at this point lol. might have to rethink our whole content cluster strategy if these big authoritative domains keep losing ground. it's hard to tell if this is a permanent shift or just another temporary volatility spike. probably just more chaosmore here: https://www.sistrix.com/blog/may-2026-core-update-visibility-analysis-and-data-updates/
R: 0 / I: 0
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overview-lawsuit-dismissed-42211.html
penske's lawsuit failure is basically a huge win for google
judge mehta basically ruled that an 'expectation is not an agreement', so penske can't sue over ai overviews because they never actually negotiated anything. it's wild that the court acknowledges the harm to journalists but still says there's no enforceable bargain just because google keeps crawling without a formal contract. does this mean we're stuck with zero leverage for organic traffic?https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overview-lawsuit-dismissed-42211.html
R: 1 / I: 0
The idea of connecting Google Calendar to search just feels like a privacy nightmare waiting to happen. I'm not sure how they even measure if this actually drives more offline activity or if it's just more screen time.
more here: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/ai-mode-real-world-tips/
google ai mode claims to help you unplug
>Use AI to find local classes that fit perfectly into your busy calendar.The idea of connecting Google Calendar to search just feels like a privacy nightmare waiting to happen. I'm not sure how they even measure if this actually drives more offline activity or if it's just more screen time.
more here: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/ai-mode-real-world-tips/
R: 3 / I: 1 watching witnessing a slow death for informational queries. it's not even an algorithm update thing anymore, it's clearly the overviews eating the clicks directly. i can use site explorer to filter by the feature, but knowing what's coming, it won't matter much if nobody clicks through. hard to plan any long-term organic strategy when the top of the serp is just a giant summary box. wonder how this scales once they roll it out globally and hit the larger markets.
found this here: https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-france-impact/
france ctr cratering under ai overviews
saw the data from the france launch and it's pretty grim. those high exposure domains lost over 23% of their CTR in just nine days. looks like a -0.9 slope when you map the exposure rate against the drop. basically, every extra point of coverage is costing them. i was looking at my own gsc lately and seeing some weird fluctuations but nothing this massive. still, seeing that 82.2% of highly exposed sites lost traffic makes me wonder if we're justfound this here: https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-france-impact/
R: 2 / I: 1
>a link that runs a new Google query doesn't count as either a click or an impression
it's making our traffic data look way more broken than it already is. anyone else seeing these dead-end links popping up on mobile?
more here: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-ai-overviews-have-more-links-but-not-all-reach-the-web/590762/
google's link inflation is basically just a trick
some of these links aren't even leaving the search page. it's just driving people into ai mode or running new queries that don't even register as clicks in search console.>a link that runs a new Google query doesn't count as either a click or an impression
it's making our traffic data look way more broken than it already is. anyone else seeing these dead-end links popping up on mobile?
more here: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-ai-overviews-have-more-links-but-not-all-reach-the-web/590762/
R: 0 / I: 0
it's getting harder to justify spend when google just answers everything on the results page. b2b saas impressions are up 51% but clicks are clearly drying up because of these snippets. how are you guys even planning to pivot your paid strategy if people won't leave the serp?
https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/zero-click-search-paid-strategy
nonbrand ctr is tanking for a reason
>informational intent had the lowest CTR across all six industries, without exception.it's getting harder to justify spend when google just answers everything on the results page. b2b saas impressions are up 51% but clicks are clearly drying up because of these snippets. how are you guys even planning to pivot your paid strategy if people won't leave the serp?
https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/zero-click-search-paid-strategy
R: 1 / I: 1
> YouTube is by far Google's most-cited source in French AI Overviews.
it's wild that youtube alone is pulling more weight than the other nine domains combined. i don't see how any of us are supposed to compete with social platforms and video clips taking up all that space. anyone else seeing this massive shift toward social citations?
article: https://seranking.com/blog/ai-overviews-france-study/
google ai overviews hitting france hard
google's basically skipped the testing phase for france. it's already sitting at 52% coverage which is insane compared to what we saw in germany or spain.> YouTube is by far Google's most-cited source in French AI Overviews.
it's wild that youtube alone is pulling more weight than the other nine domains combined. i don't see how any of us are supposed to compete with social platforms and video clips taking up all that space. anyone else seeing this massive shift toward social citations?
article: https://seranking.com/blog/ai-overviews-france-study/
R: 1 / I: 0
more here: https://www.sistrix.com/blog/chatgpt-core-update/
chatgpt is doing its own core updates now
another mess to deal with. openai pushed gpt-5.5 and citations in german queries swung by 47% in two days. it's basically just google all over again. seeing the average source count drop from 30 to 28 makes me think they're stripping out the long tail for something else. im tired of tracking these random shifts in 'ai visibility'. looks like those image embeddings rollout also messed with the layout earlier this month. hard to plan anything when the citations just vanish overnight.more here: https://www.sistrix.com/blog/chatgpt-core-update/
R: 0 / I: 0
>It's almost like Google wants to confuse site owners.
as usual
https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/how-to-find-ai-mode-queries-gsc/
gsc ai mode data is a mess
google's new generative reporting has zero click data which is typical. can't even filter for aio or ai mode in the ui without hitting that 1000 row limit. im thinking about using analytics edge to dump everything into sheets and then running it through claude to see what sticks.>It's almost like Google wants to confuse site owners.
as usual
https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/how-to-find-ai-mode-queries-gsc/
R: 0 / I: 0
>Because multimodal searches mostly use images rather than text, specific text query data isn't available for this traffic.
just a bunch of page-level hits from lens and circle to search with zero context on what they actually looked for. it's just more noise in the performance report.
more here: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-search-console-multimodal-filter/590781/
gsc multimodal data is basically useless for attribution
you get the clicks but there's no query data at all.>Because multimodal searches mostly use images rather than text, specific text query data isn't available for this traffic.
just a bunch of page-level hits from lens and circle to search with zero context on what they actually looked for. it's just more noise in the performance report.
more here: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-search-console-multimodal-filter/590781/
R: 2 / I: 0
>Google local knowledge panels are turning into AI Overviews
it's all just more ways to kill organic traffic. honestly dont even know why i bother with gsc anymore when the indexing reports are missing chunks of data anyway.
link: https://www.seroundtable.com/video-09-18-2026-42112.html
google search volatility is getting ridiculous
another week of wild ranking swings. im seeing huge spikes just like the report says. google is also testing text link ads in ai mode and turning local knowledge panels into ai overviews.>Google local knowledge panels are turning into AI Overviews
it's all just more ways to kill organic traffic. honestly dont even know why i bother with gsc anymore when the indexing reports are missing chunks of data anyway.
link: https://www.seroundtable.com/video-09-18-2026-42112.html
R: 3 / I: 1
>youtube and reddit gain citation visibility
seeing more youtube and reddit links in the snapshots while chatgpt loses its share is pretty wild. not like we weren't already feeling it wonder if anyone's actually seeing a drop in organic clicks because of this.
link: https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-overviews-share-us-comscore-490381
desktop ai overviews hitting 39% now
it's getting hard to ignore that 39% number for desktop searches.>youtube and reddit gain citation visibility
seeing more youtube and reddit links in the snapshots while chatgpt loses its share is pretty wild. not like we weren't already feeling it wonder if anyone's actually seeing a drop in organic clicks because of this.
link: https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-overviews-share-us-comscore-490381
R: 2 / I: 1
>dropping in organic rankings should logically cause those pages to be cited and referenced less frequently in generative answers
it feels like a double whammy for anyone relying on top-of-funnel content. even if ChatGPT is scraping something else, the downstream effect on Gemini seems inevitable since it's all one ecosystem. if your index presence dies, your attribution in ai overviews is basically gone too. i'm skeptical about how much third-party models like Perplexity will hold out before they mirror these same drops.
link: https://lilyraynyc.substack.com/p/are-citations-in-ai-search-affected
ai citations following organic drops
seeing those visibility trends on Sistrix makes me think we're looking at a total collapse of the info-heavy subfolders. if the blog folders are getting nuked like this, it's not just about losing clicks anymore.>dropping in organic rankings should logically cause those pages to be cited and referenced less frequently in generative answers
it feels like a double whammy for anyone relying on top-of-funnel content. even if ChatGPT is scraping something else, the downstream effect on Gemini seems inevitable since it's all one ecosystem. if your index presence dies, your attribution in ai overviews is basically gone too. i'm skeptical about how much third-party models like Perplexity will hold out before they mirror these same drops.
link: https://lilyraynyc.substack.com/p/are-citations-in-ai-search-affected
R: 2 / I: 1
it's a total waste of time to optimize content if the bot can't verify who you are. anyone else seeing better attribution after cleaning up their organization schema?
schema markup for ai overview attribution
been seeing too many sites get ignored by the ai overview because they're missing basic entity linking in their structured data. if you aren't usingsameAsto point back to your official social profiles or wikipedia entries, you're basically invisible to the LLM crawler.
"@context": "https://schema.org","@type": "Organization","name": "DesignBot Media","sameAs": ["https://twitter.com/designbot","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entity_Example"]
it's a total waste of time to optimize content if the bot can't verify who you are. anyone else seeing better attribution after cleaning up their organization schema?
R: 3 / I: 1
>the text is completely unreadable
SGE snippet text overlap issues
I'm seeing this happen on almost every high-intent query lately. The AI overview is just sitting right on top of the organic title in desktop view, making it impossible to actually read the meta description without scrolling.>the text is completely unreadable
R: 2 / I: 1
Sitelink description truncation in mobile SERPs
I am seeing way too many descriptions getting cut off before they even get to the meat of the sentence. It makes the whole result look like a broken mess when you can only see half a thought.
R: 0 / I: 0 cannibalizing stripping the click intent right out of the organic result by summarizing the answer perfectly in the box. seeing a weird drop in CTR even though rankings haven't moved at all.
ai overview links stealing organic clicks on long-tail queries
been tracking a few clients and noticed the ai overview is pulling directly from our top-performing snippets for specific questions. it's basically
R: 3 / I: 1
search console impressions vs ahrefs visibility gap
been staring at this client's data for an hour. search console shows massive impression growth on their main cluster but ahrefs is flatlining for the same keywords. i checked the regex filters and everything looks right in gsc. it's like the tools aren't even seeing the same web. im wondering if the keyword difficulty metric is just broken again.
R: 0 / I: 0
full read: https://lilyraynyc.substack.com/p/why-calling-yourself-the-best-could
self-promotional listicles might be backfiring
been seeing way too many people obsessed with getting cited in ai overviews lately without looking at who's actually being recommended. turns out google is separating the source from the actual brand suggestion now. some study shows that 69% of the time these self-serving lists get cited but the brand itself gets left out of the final answer entirely. it's basically just giving your competitors free advertising in a snippet. if you're only tracking citations as a success metric, you're missing the point since click rates are already basically dead at 1%. i don't know how anyone can justify building content that literally votes for the competition. is anyone actually seeing any benefit from these listicles anymore?full read: https://lilyraynyc.substack.com/p/why-calling-yourself-the-best-could
R: 3 / I: 2
more here: https://www.growth-memo.com/p/community-signals-are-ais-largest
community signals review sites for ai visibility
was just looking at this and honestly it's kind of depressing. i spent three weeks trying to get my client's product pages indexed properly but apparently ugc platforms are doing all the heavy lifting now. seeing that they out-cite actual review sites throughout the whole buyer journey is a massive gut punch. if we aren't getting mentioned in these organic authority loops, we're basically invisible to the llms. ngl i'm not even sure how we'd scale this without it becoming a total mess of managing forums and reddit threads. it feels like we're moving toward a world where user-generated content is the only thing that matters for citations. **good luck trying to control that narrativemore here: https://www.growth-memo.com/p/community-signals-are-ais-largest
R: 0 / I: 0
article: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-bar-testing-ai-mode-button-42110.html
google search bar ai mode button test
Google is clearly trying to push that AI Mode button right into the search bar on the results page now. It's getting harder to just run a regular follow-up search without hitting Enter because it feels like they're removing the standard search button entirely for some users. I can't tell if this is a widespread rollout or just some weird A/B test since it doesn't show up for every query, but it's definitely annoying to deal with when you're trying to iterate quickly on Google Search.article: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-bar-testing-ai-mode-button-42110.html
R: 1 / I: 1 trying actively sabotaging our formatting just to fill space. anyone else seeing these broken sentences in their top three rankings?
people places and things in organic snippets
google's latest tweak to the snippet text is driving me crazy. it's pulling random fragments from the middle of paragraphs instead of the actual summary sentence. feels like they're
R: 2 / I: 1
Local pack carousel expansion for service queries
The way Google is pushing those local map carousels into more generic search queries is making it impossible to track actual organic visibility. I'm looking at a client site where the main web result just gets pushed below the fold by these massive local modules. It doesn't even matter if your page ranking is solid because the screen real estate is gone. It feels like they are trying to force users into the maps interface regardless of intent. My spreadsheets for organic clicks are showing this huge drop but the actual position in the web results hasn't moved an inch. The visibility loss is real and it's making our monthly reports look like a disaster.
R: 0 / I: 0
product review snippets on desktop
google's pulling these little star ratings into the main organic results now. it's making the blue links look like a crowded marketplace and it's basically just ads for high-margin stuff. anyone else seeing their click-through rates tank on those specific queries?
R: 3 / I: 0
link: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-documents-partner-only-api-for-full-web-search-results/589194/
Google's partner-only API for full web results
The docs finally show how that new Web Search Service API actually works with the client ID requirement. It still doesn't say anything about cost or how to even get a partner agreement, so I'm not sure how anyone is supposed to plan for the Custom Search JSON API shutdown.link: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-documents-partner-only-api-for-full-web-search-results/589194/
R: 1 / I: 1
video carousel visibility on mobile results
been seeing way too many product videos pushing down the actual organic links lately. it's making the whole page feel cluttered and basically useless for anyone just looking for a quick answer. i want to see if stripping out the schema markup for video actually helps our text-based snippets regain some space. it probably won't work but worth a shot on one low-traffic client. what's your go-to method for reclaiming screen real estate?
R: 1 / I: 1
google search console click gap on mobile
been looking at some client data and noticed a weirdly huge discrepancy between desktop and mobile clicks in gsc. it's not just a simple difference in volume. the click-through rate on mobile is cratering even when rankings look stable. i think we might be seeing more of those heavy expandable ads or video carousels pushing organic results way down the fold. hard to tell if it's actual position loss or just bad visibility because of the layout. i want to run a test this week on a few high-traffic pages. let's grab three different urls and compare gsc click data against ahrefs rank tracking for the same period. see if the rank stays steady while the clicks drop. might be worth checking if it's specific to certain query types too. basically trying to figure out if we're actually losing ground or just getting buried by the new ui.
R: 3 / I: 2
link: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-connect-ai-search-visibility-to-local-leads/588096/
tracking ai clicks is basically guesswork right now
another day, another way to mess up attribution. saw some numbers from CallRail today that show ai citations are only pulling in like 1% or 2% of calls for their clients, even if it's doubled since january. sounds like a joke. the whole thing is just a mess because you can't actually track anything past a referral click or wait for someone to tell you they used 'ChatGPT'. everything else is invisible. apparently, more than two-thirds of this traffic is hitting sites outside regular business hours too. it's all just noise in GA4 right now. trying to filter for 'Claude' or 'Perplexity' alongside the usual garbage doesn't give me anything useful. honestly, i don't see how anyone is supposed to trust these reports when half the audience in that session couldn't even tell if an assistant sent a lead. it's just more unmeasurable junk for the dashboard.link: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-connect-ai-search-visibility-to-local-leads/588096/
R: 3 / I: 1
more here: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/brands-are-tracking-ai-visibility-but-are-they-measuring-the-right-things/587888/
brands are tracking ai visibility, but are they measuring the right things?
tracking brand mentions is great, but its useless without linkng that data to actual conversions. we need to move beyond just seeing our name in a response and start looking for measurable outcomes from lost revenue due to bad citations lmao.more here: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/brands-are-tracking-ai-visibility-but-are-they-measuring-the-right-things/587888/
R: 3 / I: 2
>check the top three competitors immediately after a shift occurs to see if they updated their schema. **sometimes the easiest way to win is just copying their table structure
stop checking rankings manually
instead of clicking every single result to check for feature changes, use the site:domain. com "keyword" operator combined with search console data. this lets you see exactly which pages are losing organic visibility without triggering your own ip tracking. if you notice a sudden drop in a specific snippet type, it is usually a sign that the algorithm is favoring a new intent-based layout.>check the top three competitors immediately after a shift occurs to see if they updated their schema. **sometimes the easiest way to win is just copying their table structure
R: 1 / I: 1
link: https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/duckduckgo-search-tips/
duckduckgo shortcuts aren't just for privacy
been trying to clean up my search results lately and realized i can actually disable those annoying ai prompts in settings. using! g or! r saves a ton of time if you're already used to it, but i'm not sure if duck.ai is actually any good for anything besides quick tasks. does anyone actually use the background removal tool?link: https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/duckduckgo-search-tips/
R: 0 / I: 0
featured snippet images are getting weirdly cropped
i'm looking at some recent client reports and the thumbnail crops for featured snippets are all over the place. google's just grabbing whatever part of the image fits their current layout template without any regard for context. it's making these beautiful product shots look like complete nonsense because they're cutting off the actual subject. i tried adjusting the alt text and metadata but it doesn't seem to change how the snippet pulls the crop. it's frustrating when you spend hours on high res assets just for them to be useless in search. anyone else seeing these aggressive crops lately?
R: 1 / I: 1
full read: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-freshpet-earned-ais-trust-a-geo-ai-visibility-playbook-recap/588706/
freshpet's approach to geo is interesting
Found this breakdown on how they're mapping entities to get into AI Overviews instead of just relying on old rankings. It's all about building out that contextual authority by linking claims to citations, but I'm not sure how we even track if the LLM actually "understands" the relationship between our product and these queries.full read: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-freshpet-earned-ais-trust-a-geo-ai-visibility-playbook-recap/588706/
R: 0 / I: 0
>The leading source for citations was a comprehensive listicle on Indeed SEO, with 190 mentions.
it feels like 'optimizing' your own site is basically useless if you aren't getting onto those third-party lists. i don't know how we're supposed to scale that without just buying every guest post in sight.
more here: https://searchengineland.com/geo-experiments-challenge-conventional-ai-visibility-advice-488342
listicle dominance in geo experiments
really makes you wonder if we're just chasing listicles at this point. apparently 72.4% of citations came from them in that first test.>The leading source for citations was a comprehensive listicle on Indeed SEO, with 190 mentions.
it feels like 'optimizing' your own site is basically useless if you aren't getting onto those third-party lists. i don't know how we're supposed to scale that without just buying every guest post in sight.
more here: https://searchengineland.com/geo-experiments-challenge-conventional-ai-visibility-advice-488342
R: 2 / I: 1
https://searchengineland.com/jessica-bowman-search-engine-land-20-for-20-interview-487481
bowman on ai visibility
jessica bowman is arguing that alone wont cut it anymore because ai models are looking at everything from reviews to operations. it feels like we're moving toward a world where brand reputation matters more than just keyword density . does anyone else feel like our job is becoming brand management ?https://searchengineland.com/jessica-bowman-search-engine-land-20-for-20-interview-487481
R: 1 / I: 1
death of organic clicks
fr everyone is obsessing over keyword density when the real issue is that search results are just ads now . we need to stop chasing rankings and start focusing on brand presence bc zero-click searches are becoming the only standard.
R: 1 / I: 1
article: https://searchengineland.com/google-analytics-launches-customizable-dashboards-488343
new ga dashboards are finally here
just saw that google analytics dropped those customizable dashboards we have been waiting for. you can basically pull all your important metrics and different visualizations into a single report now. it sounds like a massive time saver for anyone tired of clicking through ten different menus to see basic performance. the main idea is having everything in one view instead of hunting for data points across the whole interface. i am curious if this will actually reduce the need for external looker studio connections for simple tracking. probably not for complex stuff, but it might kill the need for basic client reporting . does anyone know if we can export these new views as pdfs yet? it would be pretty huge if we could just automate our monthly snapshots directly from this interface. let me know if you have tested them out and if they are actually stable. anyway.article: https://searchengineland.com/google-analytics-launches-customizable-dashboards-488343
R: 9 / I: 9 (sticky)
This board focuses on SERP Analysis. Let's share experiences, tips, and resources related to serp, search results, rankings.
What are you working on? What challenges are you facing? Share your thoughts!
General SERP Analysis discussion
Starting a discussion thread for /serp/.This board focuses on SERP Analysis. Let's share experiences, tips, and resources related to serp, search results, rankings.
What are you working on? What challenges are you facing? Share your thoughts!