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ποΈ The Latest Updates from Search Engines
It was about time!
βGoogle Updates AI Mode Recipe Sites Results In Response To Backlashβ
Roger Montti / Search Engine Journal
Robby Stein, VP of Product at Google Search, shared that Google is updating AI Mode to better connect users with recipe creators. AI Mode had drawn criticism for synthesizing multiple recipes into single AI-generated responses β what some dubbed "Frankenstein recipes." With this update, users searching for meal ideas can now tap on a dish to see links to the original recipe sites, along with a short overview for inspiration.
How quickly adoption will follow?
βGoogle publishes Universal Commerce Protocol help pageβ
Anu Adegbola / Search Engine Land
Google published a help page detailing how its Universal Commerce Protocol powers AI-driven checkout across its surfaces. The documentation explains how UCP enables a native "Buy" button while keeping merchants as the seller of record, and clarifies implementation requirements, including activating the native_commerce attribute in Merchant Center and supporting Google Pay tokens.
A useful specification now documented
βGoogle Clarifies How It Picks Thumbnails For Search, Discoverβ
Matt G. Southern / Search Engine Journal
Google updated its Image SEO and Discover documentation to clarify how publishers can influence thumbnail selection using primaryImageOfPage schema, main entity image property, or og:image meta tag. This is a documentation clarification, not a change to how thumbnail selection works.
Not new but helpful
βNew Google's web crawling help document says frequent crawling is a good signβ
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land
Google's new help document called "Things to know about Google's web crawling" covers 9 items including what crawling is, how Google optimizes it automatically, and that frequent crawling signals fresh or highly relevant content. None of it is new information, but it consolidates existing crawling guidance into a single reference for site owners.
The real question is how long it holds as agents blur the lines.
βGoogleβs Liz Reid: Search and Gemini may converge, or diverge furtherβ
Danny Goodwin / Search Engine Land
Google's Liz Reid said Search and Gemini have different goals: Search is about connecting people with the web, Gemini leans into productivity and creation; and that whether they converge, diverge, or get replaced by a third product is still an open question as agents reshape how people use the internet.
Really, Google?
βGoogle Patent: Sending Searchers To AI-Generated Pages Over Your Siteβ
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Roundtable
A Google patent describes a system that scores a site's landing page against user intent and, if it falls short, generates an AI-tailored page using the site's content and links to it from the SERPs instead. It could apply to both organic and ads. It's a patent, not a product, but a telling signal.
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βοΈ Today's Awesome Sponsor
Track Brand Mentions Beyond Google
Ahrefs Brand Radar helps you track brand mentions where people actually discover products today β in YouTube videos (titles, descriptions, and transcripts), TikTok content, and Reddit discussions that appear in search results.
See how often your brand is mentioned, which competitors dominate attention, and how visibility changes over time.
Brand Radar combines search demand, mentions, and share of voice into one clear view, so marketing and SEO teams can understand real brand exposure β not just rankings.
If your brand lives in search, video, and communities, Brand Radar makes it measurable.
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π This week's Top SEO Resources
Interesting how despite AI, the bigger challenge is always execution
βThe 2026 SEOFOMOβs Ecommerce SEO & AI Search Optimization Survey Resultsβ
Aleyda Solis / SEOFOMO
Key takeaways: technical SEO remains the foundation, AI search optimization has gone mainstream (89% are already integrating it), implementation bottlenecks are still the #1 barrier to success, and revenue remains the ultimate KPI, even as teams experiment with AI visibility and citation tracking. Agentic commerce is on the radar but still early, and the tooling landscape for AI search is fragmented. Check it out.
Be careful on making decisions based on flawed data
βGoogle Zero is a Lieβ
Barry Adams / SEO for Google News
Barry challenges the "Google Zero" narrative in publishing, arguing the widely cited Chartbeat data showing a 33% traffic decline is skewed by a few large sites hit by algorithm updates, while Similarweb/Graphite data puts the actual global decline at just 2.5%. His core warning: publishers who cut SEO investment based on this narrative make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
An actionable framework to use
βHow to Focus on Topics (Not Keywords) in Your SEO Strategyβ
Despina Gavoyannis / Ahrefs
Despina introduces a three-tier framework for topic optimization: From niche topics you can fully own, to ambiguous ones needing disambiguation, to expansive spaces where pattern recognition beats individual keyword targeting. Learn how to adopt it here.
Search is a behavior, not a channel
βNew Research: Search Happens Everywhere; an Analysis of 41 Websites with Significant Search Activityβ
Rand Fishkin / SparkToro
Rand analyzed desktop clickstream data across 41 domains to map where search actually happens. Google holds ~74%, far below the 90%+ usually reported. The bigger surprise: Amazon, Bing, and YouTube all see more search activity than ChatGPT, which along with all AI tools accounts for just 3.2% of desktop search.
An insightful interview with one of the most experienced SEOs
βFuture-Proofing SEO: Technical Depth and Strategic Clarity in 2026 β
Gianluca Fiorelli, Tory Gray / Advanced Web Ranking
Tory Gray discusses navigating the AI-driven SEO era with Gianluca Fiorelli, covering log file analysis for LLM bots, the shrinking traffic dilemma, why omnichannel collaboration across agencies matters more than ever, entity-based search, and the growing importance of mentorship for the next generation of SEOs.
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π€ Latest AI Search Insights
Learn about the patterns behind the winners
β2026 Generative AI Brand Visibility Report β
Laurie Naspe, Sam Sheridan, Adelle Kehoe, Daniel Reid / Similarweb
Similarweb's first Generative AI Brand Visibility Index measures which brands are being cited in AI responses across ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and Perplexity across Finance, Travel, Electronics, Beauty, Fashion, and News. Key finding: AI visibility doesn't mirror brand size or search dominance. The report includes actionable insights from Aleyda Solis, Lily Ray, Kevin Indig, and Ethan Smith.
Which niches rely most on Google.com in AI Mode?
βIs Google stealing your clicks in AI Mode? (1.3M+ citations analyzed)β
Yulia Deda, Svitlana Tomko / SE Ranking
Google's self-citation rate in AI Mode has tripled in less than a year: Google.com now accounts for 17.42% of all citations, more than the next six domains combined. It ranks as the top cited source in 19 of 20 niches analyzed. Learn about it all in Yulia and Svitlana's research.
If it matters, make it text
βAI chatbots and the illusion of βreading an image β - is it worth the risk?β
Chris Green
Chris tested whether AI chatbots can actually "read" images when fetching a webpage, creating two identical test pages, one with a price offer visible only in the image. Both Gemini and ChatGPT failed to detect it. His takeaway: in typical fetch-and-summarize workflows, content that exists only in pixels may be invisible to AI.
So shocking... not
βNew finding: ChatGPT sources 83% of its carousel products from Google Shopping via shopping query fan-outsβ
Tom Wells / Search Engine Land
Tom analyzed 43,000+ ChatGPT carousel products across 10 verticals and found 83% match Google Shopping's top 40 organic results, with only 0.16% found exclusively in Bing. ChatGPT also favors higher Google Shopping positions, with 60% of matches coming from the top 10.
A must-read guide to clarify AI search myths
βDebunking and Demystifying Generative Information Retrieval: Misinformation in The SEO Spaceβ
Dawn Anderson / Women in Tech SEO
Dawn tackles the most common generative IR myths in SEO: from chunking (not an SEO job) to "information gain" (misinterpreted from a single patent) to LLMs.txt; separating misinformation from fundamentals with an evidence-based breakdown.
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πΈ SEO Jobs
π Free(mium) SEO Tools
βSEO A/B Test Analyzerβ
Koen Leemans
Analyze your SEO implementations through SEO A/B testing with the Causal Impact methodology.
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βοΈ Special Announcement
Fringe Event @ BrightonSEO: Top Strategies for AI Brand Visibility in 2026
Looking for something fun to do at BrightonSEO in April? The FCDC is hosting an SEO meetup that includes good food, a panel session, and fun karaoke.
Experts like Aleyda Solis, Tom Capper, and Nick Lafferty will share data-backed techniques to improve your AI visibility in LLM platforms.
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ποΈ Upcoming SEO Events
βHow To Create AI Sales Systems & Organic Growth Strategyβ
Search 'n Stuff / London, UK / Β£27 / March 11, 2026
Join YaΔmur ΕimΕek, Kerstin Reicher, Emre Koca, and more for a practical, hands-on session for startups and business owners who want to transform unpredictable sales into clear, scalable systems.
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βRe:commerce 2026β
Re:signal / London, UK / Β£249 / May 15, 2026
Join Rory Sutherland, Dan Truman, Amanda Beales, and more for an uplifting day of insight, ideas, and open discussion for ecommerce businesses.
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πͺ SEOFOMOer Of The Week
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Areej AbuAli
Areej AbuAli is the founder of Women in Tech SEO, a global community launched in 2019 to support and connect women and marginalized genders working in SEO and search marketing.
The WTS community has grown to 10,000+ members worldwide, with online groups, mentorship programs, and in-person conferences across cities such as London, Berlin, Philadelphia, and Melbourne.
An SEO professional, community builder, author, and speaker, Areej has worked in the digital marketing and SEO industry for over a decade, holding roles both agency-side and in-house before focusing full-time on the WTS Community.
BIMA Class of 2024, Champions for Change: People; she's also the author of the Community Building for Marketers book.
βFollow Areej on LinkedIn now.β
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I hope you've liked today's edition of SEOFOMO. Do you have any comments or feedback? Don't hesitate to let me know over here!β
Until the next edition,
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