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SEO updates you need to know
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Google announces WebMCP, a new protocol that lets site developers tell LLMs what each link and button does. The WebMCP also introduces two new APIs to assist agents with processing HTML and JavaScript respectively. |
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OpenAI tests ads in ChatGPT. The ads are being tested for Free and Go subscribers based in the US, essentially adding an ad-free experience to the higher subscription tiers. |
Sponsor: Semrush
New experiment: ChatGPT ecommerce is built on Google
In our new experiment, we confirmed the theories that ChatGPT runs encoded fan-out queries through Google Shopping, using these results to generate product recommendations. In fact, 75% of the top products overlapped.
SEO is far from dead.
Brands that win in AI search will be the ones doubling down on their strong SEO foundations, backed by connected tools that help deliver visibility everywhere users search.
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Search with Candour podcast
SEO news of 2026 so far
Season 4: Episode 58
Jack Chambers-Ward hosts a solo episode of Search With Candour recapping seven major SEO and digital marketing news stories from the first six weeks of 2026.
He highlights Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) for agentic commerce, Google’s Business Agent for brand-voice shopper conversations, Google’s Personal Intelligence initiative that personalises experiences by connecting Gemini to apps like Gmail, YouTube, Photos, and Search, Gemini-powered AI Insights in Google Trends, Chrome’s agentic “auto browse” features that can complete multi-step tasks, a SparkToro study showing AI/LLM recommendations are highly inconsistent, and the February 2026 Google Discover core update.
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This week's solicited tips:
The path of the righteous SEO is beset on all sides by the inequities of KPIs and the tyranny of evil clients
"If you can't measure value, you can't defend SEO". This is easily one of the biggest challenges I help marketers with, but how can we do it? ⤵️
📉 I have clients who have pretty much the same organic visibility as last year, but they have seen a drop of 25% in clicks due to AIOs and other SERP changes.
🚫 While it has been comfortable for a long time, it means that clicks and organic sessions are not a reliable metric to use on their own.
💰 Interestingly, in many cases the overall revenue has held and not fallen in-line with click drops. It is not surprising when you consider a lot of the 'influence' part of the journey can be completed within AI, and is not trackable on the site.
👤 One successful modelling approach we took was to calculate a "value per organic visitor". The idea was to 'build in' the value halo that is created by visibility, and still give a way to measure and forecast.
🧭 Like all web analytics and measurement, it is not an exact science, but it has given an easier way to decision makers to relate the $ value versus their investment of SEO.
If you want to read in more depth about this, then you're in luck. This tip was inspired by Bengü Sarıca Dinçer's article published today on Search Engine Journal, "Why Your SEO KPIs Are Failing Your Business (And How To Fix Them)"
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Blessed is Bing who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the SEO through the AI search landscape
This is HUGE: Bing Webmaster Tools has launched AI Performance data: Grounded queries happening, cited pages, and more. Amazing data to dig into!
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For he is truly his company's keeper and the finder of lost traffic
I've spoken to a dozen or so companies about significant traffic drops since the last Google updates, and here are the things I have learned so far:
☑️ There is a definite pattern around self-promotional/listicle-type content. If you've followed my content for a while, you'll know this comes as no surprise to me. If you're using "GEO" tactics that contradict the reward-mechanism of the system you're operating in, you're going to get hit at some point. Huge thanks to Lily Ray for the detailed research, analysis, and write-up on this data.
☑️ In instances where sites have been hit, the content that seems to have survived is that which is core to what that business does (true expertise?). Arnout Hellemans brought this to my attention, and it triggered a lot of entity-based thinking.
☑️ In situations where this type of content was rife, it does appear to have negatively impacted the site as a whole. The metrics this update is generating are contributing to a type of side-wide score (and we know Google has many of these).
Hopefully, we will be able to share some success stories this year, as we help navigate some sites out of this corner. 📈
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And you will know "It depends" when I explain my strategies to you
I spent £10,000 on SEO and only got a "It depends..." 😏
The running joke of the SEO profession is the answer, "it depends", which is sometimes misunderstood as a 'get out' for those who aren't sure what they're talking about, when in my opinion, it's normally the opposite.
If you're buying or talking about SEO, here are some important things to consider and why:
👬 What works for one website, one niche, or one vertical, will not necessarily work for another. Google quite literally tell us they focus on different ranking factors depending on the nature of the queries. This is a common pitfall of junior SEOs who see success on a website then are surprised when they repeat the process somewhere else, the success is not replicated.
🥇 This is why I fundamentally disagree with a standardised "gold, silver, bronze" type approach to SEO. While there will likely be some gains from applying 'best practise' with no context, it's usually far more effective to apply a specific strategy that is grounded in the current state and aspirations of the website. I imagine this will offend some people offering this type of service, sorrynotsorry.
👨🔬 The Google exploit I found proved there are prerequisites within the ranking system. For instance, there is a specific quality threshold Google has before a website is eligible for special results like Featured Snippets. It doesn't matter how much "featured snippet optimisation" you apply with your Silver SEO package if you're missing this prerequisite qualifier.
📉 Metrics that Google uses don't work in isolation, scores impact other scores, which impact other scores. The nuance of 'how' you do a type of activity can make all the difference. I was speaking to a client suffering traffic decline that they are trying to fix with link building - but in my opinion, it's the wrong kind of links, which is simply magnifying problems elsewhere.
"It depends" usually means you're asking the wrong questions, too early.
Thanks to Chris Green for my 3D printed "It depends",
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