Google Makes Image-Led Search Measurable The Visibility Report #36 | Week of September 22-28, 2026 Google Search Console can now separate searches that start with an image from ordinary text searches. The new filter covers Lens, Circle to Search on Android, image uploads, and Chrome's "Search this image" action. The reporting arrives as Google adds more links inside AI Overviews, B2B research finds that answer engines use different source systems, and OpenAI expands ChatGPT Ads. The common...
14 days ago • 4 min read
The Same AI Rollout Produced Different Results The Visibility Report #35 | Week of September 15-21, 2026 France now gives us two useful, conflicting pictures of what happened after Google launched AI Overviews there. Ahrefs found a sharp click-through-rate decline among the sites most exposed to the feature. Le Monde says its total audience did not suddenly fall. Those findings can both be true. One measures a selected cohort's Google Search performance. The other describes one publisher's...
21 days ago • 5 min read
AI Overviews Cut Traffic That Search Console Cannot Explain The Visibility Report #34 | Week of September 8-14, 2026 A University of Washington working paper estimates that default AI Overviews reduced external-search referrals to English Wikipedia by about 5%. Google also conceded that Search Console cannot usefully report an individual citation's position inside an AI answer. Google is only part of the week's story. New evidence across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and other answer...
28 days ago • 4 min read
ChatGPT ads add targeting and attribution, AI Mode opens to more Search campaigns, and Google adds generative-search impressions. The Visibility Report #33 | Week of September 1-7, 2026 ChatGPT is adding targeting and measurement controls, Google is testing regular Search campaigns inside AI Mode, and Search Console now reports generative-search impressions. An AI answer can contain paid placement, an organic mention, cited sources, and a route to purchase. Those events need separate...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
A quick note before this week's issue: We've updated how we select, verify, and package The Visibility Report. We'd love your feedback on what is more useful, what's missing, and what we should improve. The Visibility Report #32 Week of August 24 - August 30, 2026 We've been treating AI visibility as one score. This week's research shows what that misses: a brand can appear and earn citations while a competitor wins the recommendation. Presence, readiness, and business impact need separate...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Google Search Is Becoming Personal and Generative Visibility Report #31 | August 25, 2026 Google is giving users more control over the sources they see while AI Mode is pushing queries and interfaces farther from the old blue-link model. The operating question is no longer just whether a page ranks. It is whether a person recognizes the source, whether an AI system can extract the answer, and whether the interface leaves any reason to click. Google Expands Source Personalization Google...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Google Upgrades AI Mode as Search Automation Expands Visibility Report #30 | August 18, 2026 Google is rolling Gemini 3.7 Flash into AI Mode, changing the system that selects, synthesizes, and cites information for searchers. Meanwhile, OpenAI says the robots.txt rules governing ChatGPT's fetch bot may not work the way publishers expect, and Google has set a migration timeline for AI Max. Now visibility teams have to watch retrieval, crawler access, paid-search automation, and source...
about 2 months ago • 12 min read
ChatGPT Ads Get Conversion Bidding and Product Carousels The Visibility Report #29 | August 11, 2026 ChatGPT advertising is starting to resemble a performance channel, with conversion bidding, product-feed campaigns, measurement integrations, and carousel ads. That gives paid search teams another answer engine to manage while organic teams work out how recommendations, citations, and ads share the same interface. Now brands may have to win three times: the recommendation, the citation, and...
2 months ago • 5 min read
Google Expands Reporting Beyond Websites The Visibility Report #28 | August 4, 2026 Google has rolled out platform properties globally, giving publishers a clearer way to connect social and video channels with search performance. That matters because visibility is no longer confined to pages on your domain: now you have to win the ranking, the citation, and increasingly the platform mention. What matters: AI search visibility is becoming cross-surface visibility, not just website visibility....
2 months ago • 5 min read
