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🗞️ The Latest Updates from Search Engines
Query classification is powered by AI and may mislabel some queries.
Google expands Search Console branded queries filter to all eligible sites
Danny Goodwin / Search Engine Land
The branded queries filter in Google Search Console is now available to all eligible sites. This feature helps you analyze the queries driving traffic to your site by automatically differentiating between branded and non-branded queries using an internal AI-assisted system. Some queries may be misclassified due to the contextual nature of brand detection.
Unfortunately, there is no way to customize branded queries by adding brand variants, misspellings, etc. Hopefully the ability to do this is enabled in the future.
Not seeing mass replacement but expansionary searches
Robby Stein Of Google On Teaching AI To Link Out
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Roundtable
Google’s Robby Stein was interviewed by Zain Kah to explore how AI is fundamentally transforming search. He mentioned how Google has taught its models how to link out to sources. So, based on query fan out, Google will add link cards to the most trusted sources that match those queries.
Learn how Google’s crawling infrastructure is really built
Google crawlers behind the scenes [Video]
Martin Splitt, Gary Illyes / Search Off the Record Podcast
Martin and Gary go through how Google’s crawling infrastructure is really built and operated: why “Googlebot” is a misnomer and how it relates to a central crawling software-as-a-service used by many Google products, how crawl behavior is controlled centrally to avoid overwhelming sites (throttling, handling 503s, and “don’t break the internet” safeguards) , and more.
The order is paused for one week to allow Perplexity to appeal
Court restricts Perplexity’s AI shopping bot from accessing Amazon
Danny Goodwin / Search Engine Land
A federal judge orders Perplexity to stop using a browser agent to reach password-protected Amazon accounts and delete collected data. If courts restrict how agents access sites, AI agents could face strict limits when interacting with logged-in accounts on major websites.
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⭐️ Today's Awesome Sponsor
New look, new capabilities, same market-leading data
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Billions of data points across demand, authority, search, and customer journeys. Content optimization built for maxing out your SEO and AI search performance. And the infrastructure to scale it all.
The most comprehensive brand visibility platform gets more powerful.
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👌 This week's Top SEO Resources
Learn about semantic similarity
How Much Do Keywords Matter in 2026?
Dr. Peter J. Meyers / Moz
As keyword targeting continues to evolve, you may be wondering if exact-match keywords still matter. Dr. Pete shares how machine learning and NLP have shifted SEO from simple synonyms to complex semantic clusters.
Digital PR is becoming more important due to AI citations
Digital PR Strategy in 3 Simple Steps — Whiteboard Friday [Video]
Chloe Osunsami / Moz
Chloe goes through 3 simple steps for crafting a successful digital PR strategy. Learn how to analyze competitors, find AI visibility gaps, and secure authoritative brand mentions.
Product grids get higher CTRs than organic results
Organic rankings vs. product grids: The new e-commerce divide
Kevin Indig / Growth Memo
Kevin analyzed 4K+ keywords and 40K product grids and found that the gap between classic SEO winners and product grid winners is enormous and that product grid placements grew 82% in 9 months.
Discover and Web Search send the same traffic to the Define panel
Breaking News Thrives in the Age of AI
Shahzad Abbas / Define Media Group
Shahzad explains how Discover is driving publisher growth in the age of AI. “Breaking News is up +103% across all Google Surfaces, while evergreen content is down -40%. The Top Stories carousel, where Breaking News lives and provides publishers with the most valuable organic search real estate, has so far been protected from AI Overview incursion”.
Documentation content as a conversion driver
SaaS Visibility Beyond Google in the AI Era
Gianluca Fiorelli, Bengü Sarıca Dinçer / Advanced Web Ranking
Gianluca sits down with Bengü to explore strategies that truly drive business impact to SaaS. From aligning SEO with revenue goals to navigating AI-driven search and uncovering unexpected channels like TikTok, Bengü shares insights on measuring influence, optimizing content for intent, and proving top-of-funnel value with GA4.
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🤖 Latest AI Search Insights
Conversions and revenue from LLMs
How to measure AI search visibility and revenue: The KPIs that matter
Tomek Rudzki / Peec AI
Tomek goes through how to measure your AI search visibility and which metrics matter: Does your brand appear in AI search, how prominently does it appear, and how does it talk about your brand? Get actionable insights from Aleyda Solis and Ethan Smith too.
Jamie breaks down misconceptions
The Dark Side of AI No One Talks About
Jamie Indigo
Is AI helping your SEO or sabotaging it? Discover the hidden risks of LLMs and the practical strategies to protect your brand visibility in this comprehensive guide form Jamie.
Ecommerce SEO shifts from ranking pages to enabling transactions
The State of Ecommerce SEO & AI Search in 2026: What are the shifts, and the top actions to take [Presentation]
Aleyda Solis
Why is it fundamental to stop using traffic as a reliable KPI? How to create content for topical completeness, rather than keyword targeting for products and ecommerce brands? How to optimize for brand authority and trust as a ranking gate? I go through this and more in this presentation.
The method is not technical. It's in writing.
Utility-writing: add structure to language; not the other way around
Ramon Eijkemans / Eikhart
Ramon explains how to write in such a way that LLMs, AI, chat, search engines, AI overviews, agents can actually use whatever it is you want to say.
If your content isn't structured for machine comprehension, you're invisible
Technical SEO for AI search: optimizing for non-human visitors
Jan-Willem Bobbink
Jan-Willem breaks down how LLMs and AI agents consume web content, from structured data to content architecture, and where traditional SEO assumptions fall short. Get a practical framework for optimizing your site not just for search engines, but for the intelligent systems that are rapidly sitting between your content and your audience.
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💸 SEO Jobs
🛠 Free(mium) SEO Tools
Glippy
Jan-Willem Bobbink
A friendly GEO checker that analyzes whether your website is ready for LLM crawlers, AI agents, and LLM based interfaces. Get actionable insights across 10 optimization categories.
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🎙️ Upcoming SEO Events
Webinar: Digital Agency Growth Day 2026
SE Ranking / Online / Free / March 17, 2026
Join Mordy Oberstein, Andrew Holland, James Brockbank, and more to get practical workflows for scaling your digital agency execution, modernizing reporting for AI-era search, and protecting margins.
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💪 SEOFOMOer Of The Week
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Patrick Stox
Patrick Stox is Product Advisor, Technical SEO, and Brand Ambassador at Ahrefs.
Previously a technical SEO at IBM, he’s a long-time contributor to the search industry, writing extensively for the Ahrefs blog and publications like Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal, and speaking at conferences worldwide.
Patrick was the lead author of the SEO chapter of the 2021 Web Almanac.
He’s also a dedicated community builder, organizing the Triangle SEO Meetup and Tech SEO Connect, running a technical SEO Slack group, and moderating the /r/TechSEO Reddit community.
Follow Patrick on LinkedIn now.
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👀 Read More Digital Marketing News
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!
Until the next edition,
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