seo

Blueprint-style illustration of a search dashboard table grouping AI grounding queries into topic clusters, with citation gaps highlighted

Bing Now Shows Where AI Cites Your Rivals (Strip Their Brand Names First)

Microsoft added a Topics Portfolio beta to the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools on October 13, 2026. It groups the queries where Copilot and Bing AI answers cite your site into themes, then lists "opportunity queries" where other sites get cited and you don't.

Blueprint-style illustration of a Google search results page with crossed-out listings and a rank tracking chart that dips and rebounds

Google Now Feeds Rank Trackers Fake SERPs (8% of Them, Nozzle Says)

Nozzle analyzed 27.5 million Google results pages across 49 countries and found that 8.0% of the SERPs served to its rank tracker since September 13, 2026 were "poisoned," up from 0.17% before. On those pages a tracked site fell out of the top 10 58.

ChatGPT Cut Reddit Citations 88% and Started Searching Brand Sites Instead

Ahrefs analyzed 15 million ChatGPT fan-out queries from August and September 2026 and found that only 14.4% of free, logged-out responses triggered a web search. When ChatGPT does search, it increasingly goes straight to brand websites with site: queries and terms like "official" and "price,"

Blueprint illustration of a web crawler moving along a timeline ruler marked 30 days and 3-6 months, showing Google crawling, indexing and core update recovery times

Google Says Recovery Takes 3 to 6 Months, So Stop Judging SEO Fixes at Week Two

Google's Gary Illyes shared typical timing ranges for crawling, indexing and recovery at Search Central Live Deep Dive Europe in Barcelona on October 2, 2026, Search Engine Journal reported. Known URLs get refreshed roughly every 30 days, and core update recovery typically takes 3 to 6 months. Any

AI Overviews Hit 83% of Brand Searches, and Wikipedia Is Writing Them

Google showed an AI Overview on 82.9% of US desktop results for branded keywords as of September 29, 2026, up from a 61.3% monthly average in July, according to an Ahrefs analysis of 232.8 million SERP crawls. The summary that sits above your own homepage is mostly

Blueprint illustration of a Google search results page where an AI answer box covers organic links, with a small coin weighed against a stack of click arrows

Google Priced Your Content for AI Answers at 0.1% of Ad Revenue

Google is paying roughly 100 publishers through an "AI contribution pilot" for content used in AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini, according to The Information. For small and midsize sites, those payments work out to less than 0.1% of their ad revenue. Meanwhile, AI Overviews cut the

Blueprint-style diagram of a Google EEA search results page with one expanded aggregator panel, collapsed tabs, and a row of hotel and airline supplier icons beneath

Google Handed EEA Search to Aggregators. Direct Brands Get a Box With No Prices.

Google rolled out two new result units across the European Economic Area on September 8, 2026: an aggregator unit for approved comparison sites and a supplier unit for direct providers, covering hotel, flight, long-distance train and bus, and product queries. The supplier unit only appears when an aggregator unit appears,