Super interesting from Dan -> Chrome’s New Shopping Classifier "User-level segmentation. Scores are aggregated over time by Chrome’s Segmentation Platform into a separate model. If a user is classified as a “shopping user,” Chrome enables commerce features: price tracking in the omnibox & more..."

Grokipedia drops in search (and more with the March 2026 core update) and then Grokipedia drops in AIOs, AI Mode, and yes, ChatGPT. Again, drop in Google and you can drop in AI Search (across surfaces and platforms).

Direct an avatar -> Google adds new features to its video editing app Vids, including directing and customizing avatars through text prompts and Veo 3.1 support "Users will be able to use natural language prompts to direct avatars to “act” in a scene."

Are you using Reddit Pro? -> Reddit says publishers using its Pro Tools have seen post views grow by 46%, comments by 48%, and profile views nearly double since the tool's September launch

The kiss of death from a Navboost standpoint. Just saw this on a site two days in a row. The negative user interaction signals people are sending Google about the site will be insane. It's forcing me to trigger and watch some ad before seeing anything on the page... BEWARE.

More data about ads in AI: Amazon's "sponsored prompts" for its Rufus AI assistant are yielding significantly lower traffic than traditional ads, but are more cost-effective "Amazon’s new form of chatbot ads have only driven 88 clicks since the beginning of the year, compared to 500K clicks..."

OpenAI explains why it's building a Superapp (one agent-first experience) -> The "OpenAI flywheel is simple. More compute drives more intelligent models. More intelligent models drive better products. Better products drive faster adoption, more revenue and more cashflow."

Good Morning Google Land! This is the 3/31 edition of "Core Update Notes". There has been a slow start to this broad core update for whatever reason. but I am starting to see drops and surges more clearly this morning. It's still not at the level of a typical broad core update but there is movement.

Like I said the other day could happen, the SEL article and the Press Gazette article that were removed due to a BS DMCA takedown are now back in the SERPs again. Good to see Google move quickly to rectify the situation.

Open to all publishers now -> Reddit Pro opens to all publishers, adds new features in public beta "Publishers can now access Reddit’s Pro tools free, with RSS posting, AI community targeting, and analytics showing where content spreads."

Definitely an interesting test spotted the other day for AIO citations. White background, blue links, seems to pop more. Anyway, important test that can impact CTR from AIOs www.seroundtable.com/white-backgr...

Good Morning Google Land! This is the 3/29 Edition of "Core Update Notes". I do not believe the update has landed yet. It can often take a few days before it lands and that seems to be the case for this update so far. I ran the visibility numbers for 3K+ domains previously impacted by major updates.

Focus on Local? Let's call this the "Near Me ChatGPT Update" :) -> It's a big update by ChatGPT IMO that rolled out on March 26th that nobody is talking about... You can now share your device location so ChatGPT can provide more relevant information like local recommendatiaons, news, and weather.

If you're still using X: Want to create a DIY Tweetdeck/XPro now that it's gone? Check out my latest post. I walk you through how to use Chrome's tab groups and split view to create your own version of X Pro. X Pro was removed yesterday for Premium account and placed behind Premium+.

Whoa, here we go! I said this could be coming the other day! The March 2026 core update is now rolling out (on the heels of the Spam Update). I'll be covering what I'm seeing once the update lands (usually 24-48 hours after announced). Stay tuned!

Officially banned -> Wikipedia bans using AI for writing or rewriting articles on its English-language site, citing AI-written articles' tendency to violate "core content policies" "Wikipedia authors are not allowed to use LLMs for generating or rewriting article content (w/2 exceptions.)

Sponsored Stores in Google AI Mode via @glenngabe.bsky.social seroundtable.com/sponsored-st... #google #googleaimode #googleads

Just 1% said they went to AI chatbots -> Pew Survey (3.5K US Adults): When breaking news happens, 36% of US adults turn first to their preferred news outlet for more info, 28% use search engines, 19% use social media, and just 1% turn to AI chatbots

Are you human? -> Reddit takes on bots with new ‘human verification’ requirements for fishy behavior "Reddit will begin labeling automated accounts that are providing a service to users, and it will now require accounts that are suspected of being bots to verify if they’re human."

Wait, what? The March 2026 Spam Update has completed rolling out. Damn, that was fast. :)

My latest on SER -> I've been using Web Guide since the experiment launched and I've been wondering what will Google do with it?? Well, a test spotted yesterday might reveal the path... Len saw "Skip digging, start guided research" across several queries leading to a Web Guide-like SERP.

More ads in AI Mode -> Two interesting AI mode findings this morning. First, a "Sponsored stores" link when clicking a product in AI Mode. More monetization options for Google there.

Here we go. Maybe targeting more spammy tactics sites are using to game AEO/GEO? We'll see -> The March 2026 Spam Update is Rolling Out "Released the March 2026 spam update, which applies globally and to all languages. The rollout may take a few days to complete."

OpenAI revamps ChatGPT's shopping experience by letting users upload images or describe items and include criteria like their budget "We’re expanding the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) to support product discovery—bringing more complete, relevant, and up-to-date information directly into ChatGPT."

But will people buy in Gemini? We will see... Didn't work out well for OpenAI -> Gap says it will launch checkout within Google’s Gemini, in an AI first from a major fashion company "Gemini’s approach to agentic shopping allows retailers to have better control over the experience than ChatGPT..."

There is another disturbance in the SEO Force. Q1 has been volatile. Remember, Google can push what they call 'smaller core updates' outside of broad core updates. And those can still have a big impact. i.e. updating a core system, or several... These are not small sites or brands below:

More people need to read this case study. Yep, it's how "Mt. AI" forms :) -> How AI-generated content performs in Google Search: A 16-month experiment Month 1: indexing and early visibility Months 2–3: growth continues Months 3–6: ranking collapse Month 16: long-term stagnation

Ads are coming to Apple Maps -> Apple is preparing to introduce ads in its Maps app, allowing retailers and brands to bid for ad slots against search queries "Gurman says the system will work similar to Google Maps, by “allowing retailers and brands to bid for ad slots against search queries.”

Microsoft's Krishna Madhavan covers the AI Performance reporting in BWT, including a new feature -> New Capability: We’re excited to announce a new feature connecting the Grounding Queries and Pages views within the AI Performance report. about.ads.microsoft.com/en/blog/post...

Like I shared the other day, OpenAI now confirms they will roll out ads to ALL users in the coming weeks (for free and Go plans): "OpenAI will begin showing ​ads to all users of the free ‌and Go versions of ChatGPT in the United States in the coming weeks, a company spokesperson ​said in an email."

Yet another example of "Mt. AI". Site surged like mad only to crash once Google's webspam team caught on. All AI-generated content. 1.6M urls of it... Now, the dreaded '10 urls site query' indicating a manual action. 100% probability of AI-generated content. It's what I call the 10/100 death spiral.

Low tech, no performance data, and limited targeting. Wow, sounds amazing :) -> Advertisers that bought ChatGPT's first ad campaigns say the process was low tech and that they haven't received much data showing if their ads worked

What could go wrong? "With these new capabilities, websites could be almost entirely created & run via AI agents controlled by humans" -> WordPress.com says it will now allow AI agents to draft, edit, & publish content on customers' websites, as well as manage comments, update metadata, & more

Oh boy, but we know Google can change title links in the SERPs already. Also, Google confirmed this is a test but didn't confirm it was using AI to do this. Stay tuned -> Google is running a “small” experiment replacing news headlines in search results with AI-generated ones

Example of a manual action being removed for this publisher. Looks like they cleaned up the problem relatively quickly and had the manual action removed. Now showing back up across Google surfaces. Of course, they probably won't return to previous levels since they were pushing the limits...

Site seeing massive decline in mentions and citations in ChatGPT. When checking what dropped, ChatGPT is surfacing much more relevant content than before. Very interesting example... I need to dig in further but my first reaction is... those changes look correct (for the user).

Focus on ecommerce? Heads-up -> AI shopping gets simpler with Universal Commerce Protocol updates "We are actively working to onboard more retailers of all sizes to agentic experiences on Google w/a simplified UCP onboarding process in Google’s Merchant Center, rolling out over the coming months."

Focus on news SEO? -> AI Overviews are now triggering for breaking news more often... When that happens, Top Stories drops below the AIO. Not good for news publishers covering those stories. Just a heads-up if you seeing changes based on breaking news content.

Amazing new post from Lily. Don't destroy your SEO by implementing a bunch of GEO tactics that get you in trouble. And ironically, as you drop in organic search, you'll drop in AI Search.

Whoa, opting out of AIOs and AI mode could very well happen (for publishers that want that) -> From Google today: "We are developing further updates to our controls to let sites specifically opt-out of generative AI features in Search." blog.google/company-news...

Real conversations from real people. Not synthetic prompts -> Well, this was interesting to find... so I had to write it up quickly this morning. And I would move quickly once you read the post -> ChatGPT links in Google Search Console: How to Discover Real User Conversations That Cite Your Content

Heads-up, Personal Intelligence is expanding -> Personal Intelligence is expanding in the U.S. across AI Mode in Search, the Gemini app & Gemini in Chrome "It's available today in the U.S. for AI Mode in Search & it’s starting to roll out in the Gemini app and Gemini in Chrome for free-tier users."

Focus on health/medical? Confirmed: Google scraps AI search feature "What People Suggest" that crowdsourced amateur medical advice "Google confirmed “What People Suggest” had been scrapped. The move came as part of a “broader simplification” of its search page. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

It's rare to see a post published on SER in the afternoon. But Barry is out and I just did it. :) -> OpenAI Continues To Expand Ads in ChatGPT and Tests Ads Manager I used to say spotting ChatGPT ads was like spotting Bigfoot, but today I see many ads (and others have to).

More OpenAI lawsuits -> Encyclopedia Britannica and its Merriam-Webster subsidiary sue OpenAI for allegedly misusing their reference materials to train its AI models "Britannica's lawsuit said that ​OpenAI unlawfully copied nearly ​100,000 of ⁠its articles to train GPT large language models."

OK, I just spotted Bigfoot :) I finally started seeing ads this morning in ChatGPT, and a number of them. So OpenAI is definitely ramping up ads... They aren't particularly exciting and some weren't really targeted, but hey, at least I finally spotted some.

Yep, I wrote about the AI bot problem in October. And this was probably 1000X worse than what I was referring to... -> Digg announces a “hard reset” and shuts down operations two months after it was relaunched by Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian, citing the scale of AI bot spam

Interested in ChatGPT Ads? -> OpenAI Ads Manager (confirmed): OpenAI is Testing An Ads Manager, As Its New Ads Business Fights Growing Pains "The Ads Manager is a dashboard that lets marketers run, monitor, and optimize campaigns in real time."

The shift away from buying in ChatGPT continues & Shopify's email to customers was as clear as mud :) -> Here's what's actually happening: Shopify merchants’ products will still appear inside ChatGPT conversations, but buyers will typically complete purchases on the merchant’s own online storefront

Focus on Local? Looks like Google just published these new playbooks the other day -> New Google Business Profile Playbooks With Local Optimization Tips Google emailed site owners a few days ago about new Google Business Profile Playbooks containing recommendations for optimizing local listings.