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🔥 The Latest Search News of the Week You Can't Miss [SEOFOMO - Sep 20, 2026]
Google is testing payments to websites whose content contributes significantly to AI-generated responses, with earnings shown in Search Console. The pilot reportedly includes dozens of publishers, particularly small and midsized ones, and extends beyond news. Details about payment calculations and availability remain limited though.
More US publishers & creators can claim their presence in Google Search
Google has lowered Search profile eligibility to 10,000 followers on any one of YouTube, Instagram, X, or TikTok for US publishers and creators. The update also lets media companies manage multiple brand profiles from one login and introduces longer article headlines and updated thumbnails.
Check what Google’s automated assistant has collected about your business
Google is rolling out a Collected Info tab in Business Profiles after several months of testing. It lets businesses review information gathered by Google’s automated assistant and remove inaccurate details, adding another checkpoint for keeping their local business information accurate.
Google is making it easier to move AI shopping journeys to your own checkout
Google is adding cart transfer and expanded checkout testing to Merchant Center’s Universal Commerce Protocol hub. Merchants can enable shoppers to transfer items from Google to their own website to complete a purchase, with a shorter validation process. The options are rolling out gradually in the US, followed by Australia and Canada early next year.
A change to watch when assessing ecommerce visibility and traffic in the EEA
Google has removed free product listing and carousel formats from Search results in the European Economic Area as part of its DMA related changes. Barry shares an example of the revised results, with comparison shopping services taking space previously occupied by free listings.
See who’s winning AI search and borrow their strategy
Semrush have published our biggest AI visibility study yet. It now explores 7 months of data, alongside multiple playbooks and studies that unpack the trends and tactics for you. All completely free. Get insights built from:
126M+ real AI search prompts
22 industries
4 AI platforms
Thousands of brands
Find out who made the leaderboards and why the winners are on top.
Barry explains the technical optimizations needed for optimal performance and how to maximize your content's visibility in the Discover feed: minimize crawl waste, don’t rely on server-side JavaScript, keep your structured data snippets clean, and more.
Your content needs to support the questions that come after the first search
Louisa shares how a search can now become a chain of questions, comparisons, and decisions and explains how to build content that supports what users ask next.
Reliable SEO automation starts with reliable data and clear business context
Marco walks through SEO automation stacks, with examples covering content research, international visibility, and ecommerce analysis. He shows how structured data and SEO context support useful outputs, while keeping human review and editorial responsibility central.
International publishing success requires investment in the audience to reach
Barry explains why many publishers underestimate the effort it takes to succeed across countries and languages: “If you take your audience seriously, go where they are. Launch a ccTLD in their country, with a local news desk, local reporting, and full local infrastructure for your news site”.
The wrong keyword seed can hide demand before your research even begins
David explains how international keyword research can underestimate a market when its starting terms miss the language local customers actually use. He shares how to identify better seed keywords so your research captures relevant demand instead of overlooking it.
Cyrus shares survey responses from more than 130 search experts on what influences inclusion in AI Overviews and AI Mode: Crawl access, relevance, brand familiarity, and specific, citable facts feature prominently. The results offer a useful view of expert priorities, while reflecting beliefs rather than experimentally confirmed ranking factors.
AI training, search, and agent access shifted after Cloudflare’s change
SeenSure tested access across 1,046 websites using eight crawler identities and browser controls. After September 15, refusals increased for training crawler identities on Cloudflare hosted sites but decreased for search and agent identities, while the non-Cloudflare control remained stable.
Preparing for AI agents starts with reliable data and tasks they can complete
Gianluca Fiorelli, Bastian Grimm / Advanced Web Ranking
Gianluca and Bastian discuss how businesses can prepare for agentic search through machine-readable information, reliable data, clear instructions, and practical experimentation. They go through evolving protocols, brand recognition, and how to test opportunities while being transparent about what remains uncertain.
Lazarina analyzes AI’s environmental impact and why efficiency improvements per prompt don’t necessarily reduce total consumption. She shares practical ways marketers can reduce unnecessary AI use: plan tasks before prompting, choose models suited to the job, build repeatable workflows, and assess when AI is actually needed.
AI visibility audits should also check brand representation accuracy
Olesia explains how to audit false claims, mistaken identities, impersonators, and unauthorized intermediaries across search and AI answers. She shares how to prioritize corrections, report genuine abuse, and strengthen official information so users and AI systems can identify the real brand and its channels.
How are ecommerce SERPs shifting due to AI search and how to move forward to continue growing? I go through the main criteria, principles and resources to take into account.
Bengü Sarıca Dinçer is an experienced SEO consultant with 13 years across agencies, startups and SaaS, with a particularly strong mix of SEO strategy and analytics/measurement.
She’s a regular speaker at BrightonSEO, SERP Conf, Athens SEO, Search ’n Stuff and Search Evolution Summit, and has written for Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Land on SEO, analytics, attribution and the changing search landscape.
Her areas of expertise are SaaS SEO, technical SEO and audits, GA4/GTM setup and troubleshooting, ecommerce and conversion tracking, measurement and attribution, Consent Mode/CMP implementations, user-journey analysis, and AI-era discoverability.
She’s available at the moment for freelance SEO, SaaS SEO, GA4/GTM and analytics/measurement projects, and open to the right longer-term role.
FanoutFox reads your own ChatGPT sessions. You get the searches it ran, the pages it fetched, who it cited and who it mentioned. It's free and nothing leaves your browser.
Tech SEO Connect / Durham, USA / $999 / November 5 - 6, 2026
Join Aleyda Solis, Krishna Madhavan, Mike King, and more for a two-day event dedicated to helping you learn more about technical SEO and connect with like-minded peers worldwide.
Search ’n Stuff Co-working Retreat in Sintra 🇵🇹
Search ’n Stuff is bringing the search community to a private villa in Sintra, Portugal, from 12–16 November 2026. This four-day event includes co-working, workshops, peer learning and meaningful conversations - limited to just 16 guests.
SEOFOMO readers can use the exclusive discount code SEOFOMO30 when booking. Once you’ve secured your place, you can also apply to lead a training workshop on 14 November. The selected guest will be announced as an official retreat workshop leader and speaker.
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SEOFOMO is a weekly free newsletter sent to +45,000 subscribers with the latest SEO and AI Search news, updates, guides, tips, free tools and jobs. Avoid missing any worthy SEO & AI Search update and subscribe now!