Friday, October 30, 2026
10 stories · 4 topics · 6 outlets
Search & Platforms
3Google: Ads In AI Mode Earning Less Than Traditional Search Ads
Philipp Schindler, Google's senior vice president and chief business officer, said on the company's earnings call that ads in AI Mode have lower monetization than ads in traditional search.
Google Merchant API With New October 2026 Updates
Google's Merchant API update for Oct. 26 expands YouTube Shopping and AI-commerce reporting, and adds product attributes for videos and warranties. The release also improves disapproval diagnostics, adds API integration enhancements, and deprecates some reporting.
Answer Engines
3ChatGPT in October: GPT-6, a week without UTM parameters and two weeks without a source list
OpenAI rolled out GPT-6 in ChatGPT for paying users from Oct. 7, and on Oct. 9 ChatGPT changed its answer format overnight. Answers are built from sections, images, comparison rows and expandable source tiles, a format that covered 97% to 100% of responses after Oct. 23; for one week in October there were no UTM parameters, and for two weeks there was no source list.
OpenAI’s Agents Can Silently Block Your Site – & Your Logs Won’t Show It
OpenAI agents can silently block a site, and logs won't show it. Site owners can identify OpenAI Aura blocks that stop agents from opening their site and gather evidence to request a review.
Is Google Testing Dropping Citations Cards From AI Overviews?
Google appears to be testing removing the citations card from AI Overviews on desktop; the card normally has links to the sources you can click on.
Research & Data
3How Stable Are AI Citations? 10 Things We Learned Tracking 37,500 Citations
Tracking 37,500 AI citations found that citation volatility should be treated as normal, with model updates able to change citations significantly. The aim is to appear more often over time rather than hold every citation without interruption.
How the Same 16,000 Users Behave in AI Search vs. Google
A comparison matched 16,310 users across two Datos panels and compared each person's Google searches with their AI prompts over a month; on Google, 87% of searches were lookups and 8% were questions, while in AI tools questions were 27% of prompts, prompts ran almost twice as long, and users added more than six times as much personal detail. AI search accounted for 2.7% of the matched queries, and those prompts usually stood alone, with no matching Google search before or after.
HubSpot Lost 80% Of Its Traffic – CMO Kipp Bodnar Explains Why Revenue Kept Growing
HubSpot lost 80% of its traffic while revenue kept growing, CMO Kipp Bodnar said, and the traffic collapse shows why SEOs need to measure revenue per visit, track AI referral conversions, and build audiences beyond Google.