Tuesday, October 20, 2026
10 stories · 2 topics · 5 outlets
Answer Engines
6434 Days Later – Are AI Search Platforms Like ChatGPT and Claude Still Unable To Render JavaScript In October 2026?
Glenn Gabe revisits his August 2025 tests, in which ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity struggled to read content rendered by JavaScript, while Gemini and Copilot could because they draw on Google's and Bing's crawling systems. The new post, 434 days later, checks whether the assistants with their own crawlers have caught up.
Google Ads Now In AI Mode With Personal Intelligence
Google confirmed it will show ads in AI Mode results when Personal Intelligence is turned on, Search Engine Roundtable reports. In March, Google said AI Mode with that setting enabled would be ad-free.
DeepSeek Opens Its In-House Search Engine To Developers
DeepSeek opened its in-house search engine to developers, Search Engine Journal reports. Each result carries a page-level authority tier, and DeepSeek says the API filters attempts to manipulate answers with GEO tactics.
Google AI Mode Citations With Preferred Source Preferences
Google is testing a "Source preferences" button inside the AI Mode citations sidebar, Search Engine Roundtable reports. The button opens the user's preferred sources list, where sites can be added or removed.
It Knew Every Word
Pedro Dias argues that a model can recite a brand's description and still fail the buyer's question, because sitting in the training data is not the same as being recommended. The piece draws on research into training data to explain the gap.
Research & Data
4Does AI drive more direct traffic?
Kevin Indig's Growth Memo takes up the industry belief that a meaningful share of AI traffic arrives as Direct in analytics tools. He cites his own AI Mode user behavior study, where 18% of exits took users directly to another site, and Similarweb research finding that people who got an AI brand recommendation were more likely to visit those brands within seven days, with most of those visits coming through Search.
AI Search Tools Cited A Made-Up Concept Within A Week, Paper Finds
Researchers published a made-up concept on sites that AI search tools cite, and four English-language tools repeated it within a week, Search Engine Journal reports. Most of the other topics the team planted did not land.
Survey of 194 search pros finds AI visibility on 93% of agendas, but only 31% can measure impact
A survey of 194 search professionals, published by Abondance in partnership with Getfluence, found that 93% have AI visibility work on their agenda for their organizations and that 49% plan to increase GEO budgets over the next 12 months. Measurement is the weak spot: 60% perceive an impact on their business but only 31% can put a figure on it.
Study finds raw AI chat replies appearing as Search Console queries on 94 of 155 sites
A study by Jan-Willem Bobbink, published on GSC Wizard and covered by Abondance, found raw replies typed to an AI ("yes", "ja", "yes please") showing up as queries on 94 of 155 sites analyzed. Those queries rose from 5.6 to 116 occurrences per million impressions between June 2025 and September 2026, and they carry a 2.9% click rate against 35.6% for all queries.