The SEOFOMO Newsletter​

April 19, 2026
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Your weekly SEO & AI Search News to Stop the FOMO, read by +44.3K SEOs.
Today's sponsor is Semrush Enterprise. Ask to advertise here.​

This likely increases time spent inside AI Mode

​AI Mode becomes stickier with the latest release on Chrome Desktop: when you click a link from AI Mode, the website opens side-by-side.​

Robby Stein, Mike Torres / Google

Google introduced new AI mode experiences, including a side-by-side mode in Chrome: when you click a link from AI Mode, the website opens side-by-side. Now users can visit source pages without exiting the "AI search workflow".

These updates are now available in the US, with expansion to more places coming soon.

From a measurement standpoint, when a user visits the page in side-by-side AI mode, it registers a page view.​

Don't interfere with a user's ability to navigate their browser history

​Google is introducing a new spam policy for "back button hijacking."​

Chris Nelson / Google

Google is expanding its spam policies to address a deceptive practice known as "back button hijacking”. It interferes with the browser's functionality, breaks the expected user journey, and results in user frustration. Pages that engage in back button hijacking may be subject to manual spam actions or automated demotions. To allow time for adjustments, this policy will be enforced starting June 15, 2026.

• Related: Google May Ignore Links From Sites That Spam & Violate Policies by Barry Schwartz​

It's not supposed to be related to anything else

​Google Search Console Email Glitch Gives SEOs A Scare​

Roger Montti / Search Engine Journal

Google Search Console erroneously sent out emails to site owners advising them that Google has just started to record impressions beginning on April 12th. John Mueller described it as just a glitch, unrelated to anything else.

Google said previously, spam reports were not used for manual actions

​Google: We May Use Spam Report Submissions For Manual Actions​

Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Roundtable

Google has posted a clarification: "Google may use spam report submissions to take manual action against violations… If we issue a manual action, we send whatever you write in the submission report verbatim to the site owner to help them understand the context of the manual action”.

Hertz drove +50% more bookings from AI search. Here's the blueprint.

Leading brands are using Semrush for Enterprise to control their brand visibility and convert it into customers.

In a few months, Hertz Iceland secured executive buy-in, delivered a complete seasonal strategy, and grew bookings from AI search significantly.

Their team has a brand visibility blueprint backed by the market's most complete digital visibility data. And now they're scaling it year-round.

Informational content was impacted negatively

​March 2026 Core Update: Radar, Visibility Analysis and Background​

Steve Paine / Sistrix

The absolute size of the March Core Update wasn’t big in relation both to previous core updates and to the background level of change occurring across the SERPs at the time.

• Related: March 2026 Google core update more volatile than December — here’s what changed by Danny Goodwin​

If you automatically fetch Google’s crawler IP ranges, check it immediately

​Update Your Google Crawler IP Range Endpoints​

Ryan Siddle, Martin Endler

On 31st March 2026, Google announced that the JSON files listing their crawler IP ranges were moving. What Google's blog post doesn't mention is that googlebot.json has also been renamed to common-crawlers.json. So updating the directory path alone isn't enough. Learn more here.

A useful SEO prioritization framework

​Prioritize SEO efforts like a pro with THRICE​

Eli Schwartz

Operationalizing SEO as a product means collaborating with engineering through product language and processes. Eli introduces the THRICE framework and explains how to use it.

Above-the-fold content determines whether a user stays or bounces

​Does Google Use Clicks as a Ranking Signal? Here Is the Definitive Answer​

Luca Tagliaferro

Luca explains what Google measures, how it measures it, what it calls each signal internally, and, most importantly, what this means for anyone trying to rank a website.

A practical step by step guide

​How to fix a suspended Google Merchant Center account​

John Horn / Search Engine Land

Identify why your Merchant Center was flagged, audit your site and feed, and fix issues before requesting a review following these steps.

A must read by local businesses

​Google Ask Maps is moving from listings to recommendations​

Rich Sanger / Search Engine Land

New tests by Rich show that Ask Maps is guiding users with recommendations, shifting how businesses get surfaced and how local rankings are influenced. “Review content is becoming more important than many businesses realize”.

Want to attend Athens SEO for free?

​The SEOFOMO x Athens SEO Raffle: Win a Free Ticket to the Athens SEO event on May 22-23, 2026​

SEOFOMO, Athens SEO

Win a free Athens SEO Standard ticket (priced at €159) by entering the SEOFOMO x Athens SEO Raffle. To participate, you need to be an SEOFOMO subscriber and publish a post on LinkedIn between April 17 and April 29, 2026, expressing your excitement about the upcoming Athens SEO event.

Retrieval rank is the dominant signal

​The Fan-Out Effect: What Happens Between a Query and a Citation​

AirOps, Kevin Indig / AirOps

AirOps and Kevin map what happens between a user's query and an AI citation, analyzing 16,851 queries and 353,799 pages across ChatGPT's full retrieval pipeline. They found that a page at position 1 in ChatGPT's retrieval results has a 58% citation rate vs. 14% at position 10; a 4x gap that no amount of content quality alone will close.

The data also taught them a lesson in analytical caution

​Why ChatGPT Cites One Page Over Another (Study of 1.4M Prompts)​

Louise Linehan, Xibeijia Guan / Ahrefs

Louise and Xibeijia studied 1.4M prompts to see how titles, URLs, and snippets influence AI citation. “It favors its general search index, uses semantic similarity to select and cite sources, and treats Reddit as a textbook it’s embarrassed to admit it read”.

Why data voids aren’t a great excuse

​The AI Slop Loop​

Lily Ray

Lily explains how AI-generated misinformation feeds itself, and why users are getting the worst of it. “I would warn marketers or publishers trying to take SEO or GEO advice from large language models: the information is contaminated, and should always be verified by real experts with experience in the field”.

How to spot misrepresentation in AI answers and fix it

​LLMs Are Not as Complex as You Think: Here Are 10 Strategies To Improve AI Visibility​

Chima Mmeje

Get expert insights on how AI models retrieve information, what makes a great citation, and where to put your budget if you want long-term LLM visibility..

Content formatting for agent parsing

​Agentic Engine Optimization (AEO)​

Addy Osmani

How AI coding agents consume documentation is fundamentally different from how humans do, and if you’re still optimizing only for human readers, you’re leaving a growing share of your audience invisible to your tooling. Addy shares the AEO stack and what actually to build.

Stop applying ranking position logic to AI answers

​Common AI Search Tracking Mistakes and Misunderstandings​

Aleyda Solis

Treating traffic-based metrics as a proxy for AI visibility or the full measure of AI impact. Treating AI search as a performance channel only, rather than a performance and branding channel. Learn about these and more AI search tracking mistakes.

• ​SEO Freelancer at Indaru​
• ​SEO Consultant at DealerOn​
• ​Senior SEO Strategist at Victorious​
• ​Sr. SEO Specialist at Searchbloom​
• ​SEO Strategist at Dr. Berg Nutritionals​
• ​SEO Channel Lead at Seer Interactive​
• ​Sr SEO Manager at Jordan Digital Marketing​
• ​Director, Global Digital Marketing (SEO/SEM/Email) at 10x Genomics​

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SEOFOMO x WhitePress Free Meetup in Boston

Join the next free SEOFOMO Meetup with WhitePress in Boston featuring SEO trends and AI Search panels, quizzes, giveaways, free drinks, food, and networking on June 2nd, 2026 from 6pm to 9pm.

Learn and network with experienced SEO and AI Search specialists, including Dawn Anderson, Carolyn Shelby, Mordy Oberstein, Jordan Koene, Navah Hopkins, Martha van Berkel, Victor Pan, Celeste Gonzalez, George Nguyen, Dale Bertrand and many more!