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Category: News

Verified changes at Google, Bing and in AI search, each traced to a dated primary source.

Table of the three possible identities of the recurring fetch that serves AI Mode monitoring. One, Google-Agent: it navigates the web and acts upon user request, with published IP ranges, and leaves no lever, because that category generally ignores robots.txt in Google’s own wording. Two, Googlebot’s index: a documented, governable crawler, but no document ties it to monitoring. Three, an unnamed fetcher: it appears in neither the crawler list nor the user-triggered fetcher list, leaves no lever, and cannot be identified in your logs. News Google AI Mode Now Monitors the Web for Everyone: What Changes for Your Site Google extended continuous AI Mode monitoring to every user. The feature appears in none of its help pages or crawler documentation, and… 14 min read Three-step diagram of the gap between the Search Console interface and its API. One, the interface: since 24 September 2026 the web search type splits into two values you can filter between, and it is the only place the split exists, so it allows you to export both rows separately. Two, the API: the searchanalytics.query reference lists six allowed values and multimodal is not one of them, and that reference is stamped 11 August 2026, six weeks before the feature shipped. Three, your report: Looker Studio dashboards, scheduled exports, BI pipelines and rank trackers pull web performance through the API, so they return the blended figure, with no field to separate it and no flag saying the composition changed. News Search Console now reports multimodal search traffic Since 24 September 2026 Search Console splits the web search type into text-based and multimodal. What it measures, what it omits, and… 14 min read Three-step diagram about Google native checkout in AI Mode and Gemini. One, the notice: Merchant Center told Shopify stores their products are now eligible for checkout, yet the Merchant Center announcement log carries no entry about any of this. Two, the two pages: Google says “available for select merchants” and Shopify says “activated by default”, and neither page shows a date, so neither can be shown to describe the current state. Three, the dashboard: in Shopify, Sales channels and then Agentic, where the direct-checkout switch sits, which is the only place that records whether your store is enrolled now. News Google Turns On Native AI Checkout by Default Eligible Shopify stores are already selling inside AI Mode and Gemini with nothing to set up. Google's help page calls it invitation-only;… 14 min read Bar chart: product carousels dropped by 90% to 100% across the measured EEA markets (Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden) on 15-16 September 2026, about 95% for Productrise EEA users, with no change in the non-EEA control markets. News Google Pulled Free Product Listings in the EEA and Only Documented the Replacement Product carousels in the European Economic Area went to near zero around 15-16 September 2026. Google updated the documentation for the units… 10 min read Three-step diagram of the follower threshold for Google Search profiles. One, the launch: on 4 June 2026 the requirement was 100,000 followers on YouTube, Instagram or X and 300,000 on TikTok, dated by the feature itself at launch as reported by the trade press. Two, the change: on 12 August 2026 it became 35,000 across all four platforms with no Google announcement, dated by whoever saw the help page change, because Google publishes no changelog for that page. Three, the notice: on 16 September 2026 it settled at 10,000 on any one of the four platforms, with Google’s own announcement and the help page updated the same day. News Google Opens Search Profiles at 10,000 Followers and Ships the Badge Code Google cut the Search profiles follower requirement to 10,000 and published badge documentation. What the primary sources say, what changes in practice,… 12 min read