Google AI Overviews Cut Germany’s Top Organic CTR By 59%
SISTRIX analyzed over 100 million German keywords and found AI Overviews reduce the position one click rate from 27% to 11%. Impact varies by industry.
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Follow on YouTube. Matt G. Southern is the Senior News Writer at Search Engine Journal, where he’s covered Google, SEO, and AI for over 13 years.
Articles
Google Removes ‘What People Suggest,’ Expands Health AI Tools
Google confirmed it removed “What People Suggest” from health searches. Additionally, the company announced new AI health tools for YouTube.
Google AI Mode’s Personal Intelligence Now Free In U.S.
Google is expanding Personal Intelligence to free U.S. users in AI Mode, connecting Gmail and Photos to search. Gemini app and Chrome rollout starting.
What’s Hot, What’s Not: AI Search Changes In Q1 2026 [Recap]
At SEJ Live, we sorted Q1’s AI search changes into what’s hot and what’s not. Here’s what we covered and where to watch it.
AI Search Barely Cites Syndicated News Or Press Releases
Data from 4M AI citations shows syndicated press releases barely register in AI answers. Editorial content and owned newsrooms fare better.
3 CMS Platforms Control 73% Of The Market & Shape Technical SEO Defaults
CMS defaults now influence more of the web’s technical SEO than most consultants ever can, reshaping where optimization work creates real value.
Google Discover Core Update Data: Local Publishers Lost Reach
New third-party data shows local publishers lost national reach after Google’s Discover core update.
AI Mode Data, Ask Maps & Branded Queries Go Live – SEO Pulse
In SEO Pulse: AI Mode keeps more links inside Google, Maps adds conversational discovery, and Search Console rolls out automated brand segmentation.
ChatGPT’s Default & Premium Models Search The Web Differently
An analysis of ChatGPT conversations found the default and premium models cite almost entirely different sources for the same queries.
Google Maps Launches AI Conversational Search With Ask Maps
Google Maps launches Ask Maps, a Gemini-powered conversational feature for local discovery in the U.S. and India, plus a navigation overhaul in the U.S.
B2B Buyers Trust Peers Over AI Chatbots, Report Finds
A survey of B2B decision-makers found peer recommendations are trusted nearly twice as much as AI chatbots, and white papers rank last for perceived value.
Amazon Wins Preliminary Injunction Against Perplexity’s Comet
A federal judge granted Amazon a preliminary injunction barring Perplexity’s Comet AI agent from accessing Amazon accounts and ordering data destroyed.
3 AI Search Changes Every Marketer Needs A Plan For In Q2
AI search changed how people find you, click on you, and convert. Here’s what the Q1 data says and how to build your Q2 plan.
Marketers Report Highest Rates Of AI ‘Brain Fry,’ Report Finds
A study of U.S. workers finds 14% report “brain fry” from AI overuse. Marketing had the highest rate at 26%.
Google’s Liz Reid Says LLMs Unlock Audio And Video Indexing
Google’s head of Search described how multimodal LLMs help Google understand audio and video, and discussed a direction for subscription-aware search.
Google AI Mode Cites Itself More Often, With More Organic Links
Google’s AI Mode self-citations tripled in nine months. SE Ranking data shows that more links now lead to organic search results, not business profiles.
AIO Citations Diverge From Rankings, Bing Rewrites Rules – SEO Pulse
In SEO Pulse: AI Overview citations drift further from traditional rankings as AI search expands and platforms clarify how content appears in AI answers.
NanoClaw Creator Loses SEO Battle To Impostor Website
NanoClaw’s creator says Google ranks a fake website above his project’s real site despite 18K GitHub stars, press coverage, and structured data setup.
Google Removes JavaScript SEO Warning, Says It’s Outdated
Google removed its JavaScript accessibility guidance from help documents, saying the advice is outdated and noting it has rendered JavaScript for years.
Google AI Overview Citations From Top-Ranking Pages Drop Sharply
New data finds AI Overviews often cite sources beyond page one. Fan-out queries may help explain why, and YouTube appears frequently in citations.
Google Clarifies How It Picks Thumbnails For Search, Discover
Google updated its Image SEO and Discover documentation to explain how schema markup and the og:image meta tag influence thumbnail selection.
YouTube’s AI Slop Problem And How Marketers Can Compete
“AI-generated slop” now accounts for 21% of Shorts shown to new users. Here’s what the data says about monetization, trust, and long-term organic strategy.
Bing Adds GEO To Official Guidelines, Expands AI Abuse Definitions
Bing rewrote its webmaster guidelines to cover Copilot grounding, meta directive controls for AI answers, and a softened stance on AI-generated content.
Google’s Discover Core Update Finishes Rolling Out
Google’s February Discover core update is complete after a roughly 22-day rollout. Early data suggests fewer domains in top slots.
Discover Core Update Data, Sitemap Tips & AI Risks – SEO Pulse
This week’s SEO Pulse highlights evolving AI link formats, cross-language sourcing biases in ChatGPT, and mounting pressure on traditional organic traffic.
Google Explains Why Its Crawler Ignores Your Resource Hints
Google’s Gary Illyes clarifies why resource hints do not influence Googlebot’s crawling behavior, and notes that HTML validity is not a ranking factor.
Google To Test Search Changes In EU After DMA Charges, Per Report
Google is preparing to test search result changes in the EU that would show rival vertical search services alongside its own results
Gen Z Preference For TikTok Over Google Drops 50%, Data Shows
Survey data shows 49% of U.S. consumers have used TikTok for search, but Gen Z’s TikTok-over-Google preference is dropping.
Anthropic’s Claude Bots Make Robots.txt Decisions More Granular
Anthropic updated its crawler documentation to list separate Claude bots for training, search indexing, and user requests, with visibility tradeoffs when blocked.
Google Discover Update: Early Data Shows Fewer Domains In US
Early third-party tracking data offers a first look at how Google’s February Discover core update is changing what users see in their feeds.