Google has released its August 2026 spam update, which will take a few days to fully roll out. This update applies globally and to all languages. The update is the third spam update of 2026, following the June 2026 spam update. If your site was not impacted, there is no need to take any action at this time.
Fractl's AI Visibility Index shows that some brands with strong SEO footprints barely appear in AI answers, while others with smaller footprints frequently do. The study highlights that traditional search authority still matters but is not the only factor in AI search visibility.
OpenAI has acknowledged that its ChatGPT fetch bot may not respect the Robots.txt protocol, allowing it to access content that webmasters have explicitly disallowed.
Google is rolling out Gemini 3.7 Flash, its latest AI model, to Google Search for AI Pro and Ultra subscribers. The model is designed to enhance coding and agent capabilities within the search platform.
Google will begin automatically migrating legacy Search campaign features to AI Max on September 1, 2026, with Campaign-level Broad Match, Automatically Created Assets, and Dynamic Search Ads transitioning through early 2027.
A federal judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit alleging an auto transport company used toxic backlinks to harm a competitor’s Google rankings. The ruling found the plaintiffs plausibly alleged false advertising and trademark claims under the Lanham Act and Illinois consumer protection laws.
Google is testing a mobile Search ad layout that places a list of advertisers above the sponsored results, giving users more context before they click. The experiment includes each advertiser’s favicon and domain name at the top of the sponsored results block. If rolled out broadly, it may influence user behavior and ad performance. SEO practitioners should monitor this development and adjust strategies accordingly. One actionable step is to ensure brand consistency in favicons and domain names to improve visibility in this new layout.
Nearly 300 French newspapers have filed a complaint with France’s competition authority, accusing Google of violating a compensation agreement by launching AI-generated search summaries without their consent, further reducing traffic to their websites.
AI-mediated search is shifting the currency from backlinks to citations. Here's what that means for how you should be earning mentions in 2026.