🚨 Your SEO & AI Search News and Updates [From #SEOFOMO - Oct 25, 2026] 👇

* Google CEO Sundar Pichai Views Search Absorbed Into Agentic Layer
* New Google Business Profiles Home
* ​Why AI search is still worth investing in, even without traffic or ... Dear SEOs, we must talk aboueate Links for SEO Google Can't Ignore
* ​SEO Beyond Traffic: Influence, Trust, and Business Results
* ​The New Rules Of Journalist Outreach, Based On Millions Of Emails
* ​How to Scale AI Search Optimization with AI Workflows Without Losing Quality
* ​GEO Guide 2027: How to Improve Visibility in ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Search According to 200+ Top Experts and Resources
* ​AI Overviews Appear on 82.5% of US Brand Searches. Here Are the Brand Pages They Cite the Most
* ​The Form Before the Answer: How ChatGPT Questions Buyers Before Recommending Anything
* Much more, including SEO & AI Search Jobs, events, tools... and giveaways.

From search specialists like @JShehata @VincetheNero @CyrusShepard @abbysuegleason, and more!

Check your emails or take a look here: seofomo.co/posts/your-seo…

Remember to subscribe in seofomo(.)co

🎥 How to Scale AI Search Optimization with AI Workflows Without Losing Quality? We go through it in the latest edition of Crawling Mondays AI Search Optimization roadmap with @samtorresatl @lazarinastoy @ghostmou, covering:

* Typical errors when automating optimization with AI for successful AI automation for optimization workflows
* Tips, resources and tools for effective AI automation in the search optimization context
* More!

Watch it now: youtube.com/watch?v=h2vwC2…

👀 AI Overviews Appear on 82.5% of US Brand Searches - Here's what to do and what it means for your SEO & AI Search Strategy by Yulia Deda / @SERanking 👇

* The most searched brands trigger AI Overviews less consistently.

* AI Overviews rely on the homepage half as much as orgar the homepage, AI Overviews most often cite product-related and company information pages.

* About 3 in 5 brand pages cited in AI Overviews don’t rank in the top 10 for that search.

* 61% of AI Overview citations come from platforms brands manage or take part in.

Read more: visible.seranking.com/blog/ai-overvi…

A fantastic, must-read piece from @gfiorelli1 going through recent debates about the value of AI search ... beyond referral traffic and conversions, it's about marketing 👇

"...we risk confusing the final economic purpose of marketing with the different mechanisms through which ... A marketing activity can contribute to future commercial results without being the channel through which the final transaction occurs. This is neither a radical proposition nor an attempt to justify spending money on an emerging technology. It is one of the basic principles of marketing."

A few key topics addressed:

* If conversions are the only metric, should we cancel the podcasts too?
* Search has never been exclusively about capturing demand
* AI Search visibility is not the objective. Relevant brand associations are.
* What about the agentic future?
* What this changes in practical SEO strategy

Read it here: iloveseo.net/dear-seos-we-m…

📊 Technical SEO in the AI Search Era in 2026 – Take the SEOFOMO Survey and Win an #SEOFOMO tumbler + Hoodie 👇

How are technical SEO priorities and workflows changing as AI search and AI tools evolve? If you’re a technical SEO or an SEO who does technical SEO activities as en this survey is for you!

It will only take 5 minutes to answer the questions, it’s anonymous and it will allow us to better understand the challenges and trends when doing technical SEO.

The results will be shared for free in the SEOFOMO newsletter and Website (no need to be subscribed) on November 1st, 2026. You have until October 30, 2026 to fill it out.

Need more incentives? When answering the survey you can also opt-in to participate in the giveaway of an SEOFOMO tumbler and hoodie.

Take it here: hub.seofomo.co/surveys/seofom…

What gets cited and clicked in AI Answers Today... and what should we do about it? My presentation today at Masters of Search #MOS26 🤖 Going through:

* Top AI & traditional search shifts
* AI traffic and citations patterns
* Main actions to stop, start and change based on AI sear
Read it here: speakerdeck.com/aleyda/what-ge…

Thanks so much for having me 🙌😎

A short but sweet time at #mos26 🙌😎 thanks so much for having me! It was so good seeing so many great friends and share with a 🔥 group of AI search marketers 💪

🚨 New data by SE Visible (The @SERanking companion platform for AI Search)🚨

I know the big, sexy point here to make is, "Are Google's AIO's encroaching on space your brand used to own (i.e., by ranking #1 for your brand terms)? With 82.5% of brand queries pulling up an AIO,
By the way, that number falls off for enterprise brands - so SMBs and mid-size companies beware.

... as the brand website is only cited by AIOs 39% of the time. 😱

However, what caught my eye was not only that but... do you know which pages Google chooses from a brand's site in organic search?

🟢 71.1% - Home Page
🟢 3.8% - About Page

... versus AIOs

🟩 36.8 % - Home Page
🟩 11.7% - About Page

That's quite stark, don't you think?
@CrystalontheWeb remember that webinar we did on "About page SEO"... finally some validation for it!

[See the full study for the breakdown on all sorts of page types and a slew of other data points].

Big thanks to @chris_nectiv Long for sparking this conversation (and for your insight in the article).

Make sure to check what @pelogia @parthsuba77 @aleyda Alli Berry, @danaditomaso Jordan Koene had to say about what the data means!

And of course, amazing job by the team Anastasia Kotsiubynska Svitlana Tomko Yulia Deda and all!

visible.seranking.com/blog/ai-overvi…

Four in five buying prompts in ChatGPT now get a questionnaire before any recommendation. Most arrive already filled in… here are insights from @mathias_ptacek / @rankscale 👇

* ChatGPT asks for a budget, almost never for a brand
* ChatGPT ticks the middle price band for you
* changes
* The form ends in a shopping request

Read more: rankscale.ai/blog/chatgpt-f…

Underrated life advice: Keep a list of the people who believed in you early. The teacher who pushed you. The boss who took a chance. The friend who told you to go for it. Every now and then, reach out. Update them. And tell them just how much you appreciate what they did for you.

New: How to Create Links for SEO Google Can't Ignore

The web has TRILLIONS of links. Google ignores most by default. Links are not equal. Two nearly identical links may send completely different signals.

How to create links with the most *power*
- Topic Stability
- Anchor ersity
- Magical Power Links
- New Information Links (1/2 🧵)

Which top sites are gaining and losing organic search traffic… and how are their rankings, SERP features, AI Overviews, and AI search visibility changing with it? Introducing the #SEOFOMO Organic & AI Search Tracker Leaderboard: a new free resource to quick track these shifts in one ith @letaidocom (and powered by @ahrefs data) after getting a demo during Ahrefs Evolve last week in San Diego… and putting it to work on something I wanted to share with the SEO community :)

The leaderboard shows the top 10 gainers and decliners within a tracked set of top 300 sites with the ability to see it for the US and UK, to be refreshed weekly, featuring:

* Estimated organic search traffic and keywords ranking in the top 10.

* AI Overview citations and SERP features won by sites, alongside the presence of these features across the SERPs they rank in.

* Estimated AI referral traffic, plus brand mentions and site citations in Google AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT.

* Estimated direct traffic for additional context.

You can filter by country, site type, minimum traffic and date range, and rank sites by changes in organic, AI or direct traffic.

The goal? Make it easier to spot organic search traffic / rankings / visibility shifts worth investigating across top sites and verticals. Stay tuned for a dedicated spot in each week's SEOFOMO newsletter with commentary based on the identified trends... especially after updates.

Check it out: leaderboard(.)seofomo(.)co

PS: Thanks to the LetAIdo / Ahrefs for making it so easy to create and host 💪 and btw, they haven't paid me anything for this... I truly enjoyed seeing how their new tool works and I knew right away what I wanted to create with it. More coming 😉

🚀 Finchling's Trending PR Campaigns allow you to see them not only per industry, but also per campaign type and the emotion they spark... for free (!) 👇

We've just launched two new filtering options in Finchling's free Trending PR Campaigns to help you identify the most nly per industry, but also based on:

* Campaign type: Is it a data story, stunt, product launch, collaboration, event, or something else?

* Emotion: Does the campaign trigger joy, surprise, nostalgia, empathy, fear, or another emotional response?

You can combine these new filters with the existing industry and time period options to identify patterns among the PR campaigns getting the most coverage, understand which approaches are working in your sector, and find inspiration for your own campaigns.

Try it out for free: finchling(.)com/campaigns

📊 20% more searches, but fewer organic clicks… and paid clicks taking the lead? Welcome to this week's SERP Squeeze Monday - this week's query: "college backpacks" in the US 👇

@Similarweb's for September 2026 vs 2025 show:

* Search volume: 6K to 7.2K (+20%)
* Organic pproximately −6%)
* Paid clicks: 1.3K to 1.7K (approximately +31%)

So, organic clicks share fell from 55.42% to 46.73% and paid now accounts for the majority!

What changed in the SERP? @ahrefs snapshots for September 2026 vs 2025 show that:

* An AI Overview is now shown at the top.
* Shopping packs increased from one to two.
* People Also Ask are now shown; and the Discussions and Forums feature disappeared.
* Traditional organic results decreased from eight to six within the top 10 positions.

Another example of how nowadays, growing search demand doesn’t automatically translate into growing organic traffic... it's not you, it's Google.

Are you seeing similar shifts for your commercial queries? Share your examples with #SERPSqueezeMonday 👀

Until next week!

🚨 It's almost Masters of Search time! One thing I want everyone to take home from my keynote: a clear way to separate what earns citations in AI answers from what actually attracts clicks 👇

In "What Gets Cited and Clicked in AI Answers Today?" I'll go through the data by platform, so you can:

* Classify your priority pages by the role they play: cited, clicked... or both
* Measure each group with its own KPIs, instead of one blended "AI visibility" number
* Prioritize the content that still has a role after the AI answer
* Report your AI search work without overclaiming

It's step 10 of my AI Search Optimization Framework & Checklist... and in Berlin I'll show the data behind it 💪 Let's gooooo...

See you on October 22 (Yes, this Thursday) in Berlin! Register here: masters-of-search(.)com/conference

⭐️ The Latest in SEO & AI Search [From #SEOFOMO - Oct 18, 2026] 👇

* ​Google announces updates to AI Mode and AI Overviews to explore the web... More prominent links in AI answers. Let's see how it impacts traffic.

* Google launches Universal Cart in the U.S... Shopping carts now d Gemini.

* ​ChatGPT had stopped and then started again tagging its links with utm_source=chatgpt(.)com ... If you had noticed a decrease in ChatGPT traffic ... this is the reason.

* ​Poisoned Google SERPs... Double-check unexpected ranking shifts before changing anything.

* ​Microsoft introduces Topics Portfolio (Beta) in Bing Webmaster Tools... See the thematic shape of your AI Search footprint at a glance.

* ​Build something so valuable that Google looks stupid for not ranking it... The Google dependent affiliate playbook is dead.

* ​Why SEO Isn’t Enough Anymore - And Why That’s A Good Thing... Your SEO strategy needs audience loyalty and distribution too.

* ​Finding High-Value Converting Queries That Mainstream Tools Miss... Zero reported search volume doesn’t mean zero search opportunity.

* Much more! Including SEO & AI Search jobs, events, tools....

From specialists like @dejanseo @SequinsNsearch @guaca, @NickLeRoy, @jwbobbink, @RossHudgens, @thetafferboy, @iPullRank, @kmadhavan77, and more!

Read it here: seofomo(.)co/posts/the-latest-in-seo-ai-search-seofomo-oct-18-2026

.@lufthansa You made us check our carry-ons as luggage for weighing +8kgs (while KLM and others allow 12kg) and this is the outcome !! This after a Europe - USA trip with delay, overbooking and being placed on waiting list just bc not being able to check in online initially … rienced in quite a while with other airlines … and I’m a very frequent traveler. I don’t think I want to fly with you ever again after this! Sad how the quality of your service has gone downhill.

How common are self-promotional listicles in software questions, and what do they do? @minuttiax analyzed of 18,084 questions across Google Search, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity to identify the answers of these and other self-promotional content h for software related topics. A few findings:

* 34% to 47% of cited listicles are self-promotional. 93% highlight the vendor’s product, 87% rank it first, and only 16% clearly disclose the vendor.
* Where do vendors’ own lists dominate, and whose lists get cited most? Their share ranges from 12% to 76% by software category. The market remains fragmented, with the top 20 vendors receiving only 6% of citations.
* How many pages does each answer cite, and how often are they repeated? Answers cite an average of 2.9 to 10.4 pages. The same page is usually referenced one to three times.

Learn more here: …ional-content-data-study.minuttia.com

Google Universal Cart goes live today, it is powered by the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)

seroundtable.com/universal-cart…

Many don't realize the amount of work/effort that goes into preparing a deck for a conference (besides the speaking part itself)! That's why I truly appreciate when someone takes the time to share positive feedback like this. I don't usually share this type of feedback that I'm hought it would be actually useful to incentivize others to also give positive feedback to any of the speakers and anybody who shares anything useful in any format, whether a guide or a tool or resource that makes your day to day easier... this is what makes the effort worthy, and your little comment can make someone's day 😉💪

A little challenge to finish the week: Go and give a positive feedback to that search / digital practitioner who has helped you lately with what they've published/shared/spoken.