Marketing News

Last updated: 28th Sep 2026 Last checked: 28th Sep 2026

Guides and reference

Google Search

Is Google updating right now?The live answer from Google's Search Status Dashboard, checked daily, with the last 12 months of confirmed updates.
Google algorithm update historyEvery Google update this section documents, 2010 to 2026, one table per year, each row linked to its own page.
E-E-A-T: what Google actually saysExperience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust, quoted from Google's rater guidelines and documentation, with the ranking question answered in Google's words.
Google I/O 2026: every Search announcementWhat Google said about Search on 19th May 2026, in its own words, and what our trackers have recorded since.
What is Google Discover?The queryless feed that sends publishers most of their Google traffic, explained from Google's own pages. The levers that exist, and the ones that do not.
What is Google AI Mode?Google's conversational search tab, explained from Google's own posts. What it is, how to reach it, what it costs and how it differs from AI Overviews.
What are Google AI Overviews?The AI summaries above Google's results, from the 2023 SGE beta to 2.5 billion monthly users. The on-and-off question, answered honestly.

AI search

AI crawlers: what each bot feeds, and what blocking it costsGPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended and the rest, from the operators' own documentation. Training bots, search bots and user fetchers are different things.
AI search optimization: what the studies sayGEO, AEO and LLM SEO without the sales pitch. Every measurement we have covered of how AI answers pick, cite and send traffic, each dated and sourced.
AI model releasesEvery new model across the assistants and AI search products we track. Each row is a dated entry with a primary source.
AI search lawsuits and regulationCourt cases, settlements, fines and regulatory orders touching AI search and AI assistants. One dated table, a primary source for each.

Statistics

SEO statistics, each with its sourceGoogle search volume, market share, zero-click rates, CTR with AI Overviews, publisher traffic and update counts. Every number names who measured it and when.
AI search statistics, each with its sourceUser counts for ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews and the rest, referral shares, AI Overviews prevalence and click effects. Every number names who measured it and when.

Social platforms

How the Instagram algorithm worksInstagram's ranking, per Instagram: one system per surface and the signals it names. Plus a test for the invented "algorithm updates" that circulate every month.
The TikTok algorithm in 2026: what is actually on the recordTikTok documents governance, not ranking. What it has said, what the US joint venture terms require, and how its search results changed in 2026.
Reddit in Google Search: the three strandsHow Reddit ranks in Google, how much it depends on it, and what Reddit's own search is doing. From Reddit's filings and the studies we track.

Latest news

September 2026

26th Sep 2026 Social Platforms

X's thirty-second release moves two reply-spam thresholds to 125,000 followers and adds an appeal-aware enforcement gate

X's thirty-second release, 80 files, sets two reply-spam thresholds to 125,000 followers. A new gate stops the abuse service re-applying a suspension a reviewer overturned.

25th Sep 2026 Microsoft Copilot

Sighting: Bing tests an "AI Mode" tab in its search menu

Bing has been seen with an "AI Mode" tab where Copilot Search normally sits. Clicking it opens a Copilot Search query, so the test changes the name, not the answer.

25th Sep 2026 Social Platforms

TikTok's first state settlement sets a two-hour cap for Alabama teens and promises a non-personalized feed

An Alabama judge approved TikTok's settlement on 25th Sep, days before trial. Teens in the state will get a two-hour daily cap and, by 25th Jun 2027, a non-personalized feed.

25th Sep 2026 Social Platforms

X's thirty-first release rebuilds visibility filtering, publishes the Under the Hood page code and adds ten accounts to the Brazil election filter

X's thirty-first release, 87 files, rebuilds visibility filtering's data layer. It adds a country allowlist for conversation controls and puts the Under the Hood page code in the repository.

24th Sep 2026 Google Updates

Google releases the September 2026 spam update, with a rollout of "up to two weeks"

Google released the September 2026 spam update on 24th Sep, global and in all languages. Google says the rollout may take up to two weeks, far longer than the three earlier 2026 spam updates.

24th Sep Google Updates Search Console splits web performance into text-based and multimodal searches; Lens and Circle to Search data was never counted before 24th Sep Google Discover Chartbeat: Discover referrals down 34.3% year on year, from 6.6% the year before 24th Sep Social Platforms X's thirtieth release moves the reply-spam split to 250,000 followers and pulls the value model into a shared crate 23rd Sep AI Overviews UK CMA reopens its Google choice-screen plan to admit AI assistants, with an attribution condition 23rd Sep ChatGPT ChatGPT Ads add seven Asian markets and pass 60 countries; OpenAI lists India as a live market 23rd Sep Social Platforms X's twenty-ninth release moves the reply-spam split to 225,000 followers and gives the vm-ranker its own value model 22nd Sep Google Updates Google adds CrUX ad metrics to its page experience documentation; Mueller: "Not everything is a direct search ranking factor" 22nd Sep AI Overviews Comscore: AI Overviews appeared in 39.4% of US desktop Google searches in June 2026 22nd Sep AI Mode Google auto-enrols eligible US Shopify merchants in native checkout inside AI Mode and the Gemini app 22nd Sep ChatGPT GPT-6 Sol and Luna arrive in ChatGPT Work and Codex at half the API price, and are "not yet available in Chat" 22nd Sep Gemini Eligible US Shopify merchants are enrolled by default in native checkout inside the Gemini app 22nd Sep Microsoft Copilot Comscore: Copilot Search appeared in 17.3% of US desktop Bing searches in June 2026 22nd Sep Social Platforms X's twenty-eighth release raises the coordinated-spam floor to 80,000 followers and starts logging where feed candidates come from 21st Sep Grok Grok 4.7 replaces 4.6 as the flagship, forty days on 18th Sep Google Discover Google tests a "Dive deeper" button in Discover that opens an AI topic overview 18th Sep Social Platforms X's twenty-seventh release adds legal-demand withholding to Under the Hood reports and deletes a dwell-regret scoring mode 18th Sep Social Platforms X's twenty-sixth release grows the Brazil election filter by 69 accounts and adds delayed ads conversion heads 17th Sep Microsoft Copilot Publishers' brief cites Microsoft's own data: click-through fell 51% to 94% from Bing web search to Bing Chat 17th Sep Social Platforms X's twenty-fifth release raises its reply-spam thresholds again and drops the search-relevance judge labels 16th Sep Google Discover Search profile threshold falls again to 10,000 followers, with multi-brand logins and a site badge 16th Sep ChatGPT Audit: ChatGPT states a first-person product preference in 79% of recommendations, AI Overviews in 2% 16th Sep ChatGPT OpenAI tests Sponsored Agents, ads a user can talk to, and puts ChatGPT Ads into Shopify and HubSpot 16th Sep Social Platforms X's twenty-fourth release adds a separate reply-spam model for big accounts and a ten-second click-dwell target 15th Sep AI Mode Search Live now runs on Gemini 3.8 Live, for everyone globally, with web links in spoken answers 15th Sep Gemini Gemini Live moves to 3.8 Live Extended Thinking, a voice model that reasons while it talks

Browse the full archive: all 367 entries by month

Compiled by Claude from primary sources, checked by Akash Mansukhani before publication. Every entry links its primary source; see the methodology.

Google Updates

Google Discover

AI Overviews

AI Mode

ChatGPT

Gemini

Perplexity

Microsoft Copilot

Claude

Grok

Instagram

Social Platforms