SEO & AI search

The first organic result on Google took 20.02 per cent of clicks in July 2026. Where an AI Overview sat above it, the same position took 9.69 per cent.

Google turned on AI Mode monitoring for every Search user worldwide on 28 September. Until then the feature sat behind the paid Ultra and Pro plans.

Google now routes clicks on its search results through a google.com/goto address. The redirect makes third-party rank tracking harder and more expensive.

The CMA published a stronger proposal on 23 September. Google would have to offer UK users a choice of search service at setup and again once a year.

Google gave its September spam update up to two weeks to finish. The rollout started on 24 September.

Google began the worldwide rollout on 24 September 2026. The multimodal search type covers visits that started with a picture instead of typed words.

Chartbeat's September report shows search sending news sites less than half the readers it sent two years ago.

A randomised experiment with 1,100 searchers found Google's AI Mode cut click-through rates to websites by 18.8 percentage points, while trust in what people read fell too.

Google rewrote its explicit content guidance on 17 September and now asks shops to label adult products in the Merchant Center feed or in page markup.

Google is testing a "Dive deeper" button in Discover that opens an AI topic overview. The test starts with video cards.

Free product listings dropped 90 to 100 percent in five EEA countries between 16 and 18 September.

Google widened the description of its Mediapartners-Google crawler on 17 September 2026. Rules aimed at it now affect Ad Manager, not only AdSense.