Chrome released a massive security update fixing over 30 vulnerabilities. Be sure you're running v147.0.7727.137/138 and accept no substitutes. Meanwhile, OpenAI founder Sam Altman's identity verification service promoted a partnership with the wrong Mars in an embarrassing mix-up of identities. The Pentagon is signing deals with virtually any AI, chip, storage, or techbro firm it can including Mythos by Anthropic even though all other Anthropic products are banned, except the ones they're too addicted to stop using. The extraordinary music, culture, and technology festival SXSW is EnSXSWifying itself by stifling protest of the impact the festival has on Austin. Using a product called BrandShield, SXSW is trying to prevent anti-poverty groups from naming the festival or its sponsors in their protests.

In other news, the sale of SEMrush to Adobe (which included SearchEngineLand and the SMX Conference series) officially finalized this week as Adobe continues to build a massive platform environment for massive Enterprise clients. Google is doing a better job defining commodity and non-commodity content. We try to help them explain. Speaking of explaining, a rogue Claude agent completely deleted a company's database in under ten seconds, eventually taunting the company when asked why it ignored safety protocols. The era of AI replacing workers might be ending as quickly as it began or, it might just be postponed. From deleted databases to Swiss-cheesy spaghetti code, AI in the workplace is costing most corporations more in compute costs then it saves them in slashed salaries. As things stand today, cheap AI costs more than it produces.

Everyone's reported earnings appear to be up although everyone appears to have reported their earnings on the same day. Google introduces new AI features for Google photos, Google is cracking down on misuse of the back-button, Google search might be deindexing pages at a faster rate, and how to fix problems with tracking parameters on internal links.

All this and much much more on a May Day edition of Webcology.

Anthropic's Mythos is too dangerous for the open market but too useful to be ignored. Though only released to a relatively small number of large-scale developers in order for them to develop defenses to Mythos, the hyper-powerful agentic-organizer appears to have itself been hacked. A blog post from the Mozilla Foundation noted Mythos helped their developers find and close 277 security vulnerabilities in a new product release, a figure far higher than the average of 25 flaws per release. The Trump regime appears to be softening its stance against Anthropic with the President telling CNBC a deal allowing the Department of Defense to continue use of Anthropic Claude's intelligence models.

The Internet Archive, better known as the WayBackMachine, is being threatened as large news gathering organizations are disallowing Internet Archive crawlers from accessing their sites. The problem is AI crawlers are using the Archive as a way to access news content they are otherwise not able to crawl. The Internet Archive is the largest independent archive of content that's appeared on the Internet. It's preservation is critically important.

Jim and Kristine talk about the evolutions of SEO education from the early days to today in response to statements about SEO from Google's John Mueller, one of which suggested people who self-reference with the word "Guru" are likely "clueless imposters". They also talk about Google VP of Search Liz Reid's views on how AI Overviews are changing search, how a Roblox cheat download opened the door for the hack at Vercel, how the power/energy/token crisis could limit what lower-tier AI products offer, a number of new Google and MSFT Ads features, and a lot of information from Google's Search Central Live event in Toronto.

It's a longer, fun, and a totally non-commodity set of conversations on this week's Webcology.

Wikipedia erased an entry about legendary search journalist Barry Schwartz citing their editorial team's perception Barry has a commercial interest in a Wikipedia entry. That he's spent most of this century writing a daily compendium of search engine related news stories every day since 2003 didn't appear to change their opinion. Including his work with Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Land, Barry has written nearly 50,000 articles on search. In short, Barry Schwartz is a living legend who has contributed more to this industry than virtually anybody else. It's not like there's a hole in Wikipedia where a legend ought to be, it's just that there's another Barry Schwartz with academic credentials and at least one whole book in his field of his expertise. According to Wikipedia, he's the canonical Barry Schwartz. We beg to differ.

In other news, the Google Search Console email letting you know GSC is now tracking impressions was a bug. GSC was always tracking impressions though it's unclear how precise that tracking has been. Google is rebranding Looker Studios back to its original name, Data Studio. Google has issued critical updates to Merchant Center product specs for 2026. Google has introduced a native Gemini app for Mac. Microsoft Advertising's SOAP API is being retired at the end of January 2027.

In our Looking into the Abyss section, we report on the introduction of the Ministry of Truth via journalism critique software developed by Peter Theil called Objection. We also report on the DOJ's use of a grand jury to force Reddit to reveal the identity of a user who criticized a myriad of extra-judicial excesses committed by ICE agents.

A SEO study from AirOps showed that ChatGPT prefers sites with precise written descriptions better than longer content. The study looked at factors sites that get cited regularly have in common. High search ranking was the most common factor with pages in top positions cited 58.4% of the time vs. only 14.2% for pages in position 10. Pages with headings that matched the user-query tended to fare well, as did pages that answered the user's question directly rather than ones that try to answer several questions in one block.

We also talk about the AllBirds pivot, Meta's growth in paid advertising, Google upping its game in blocking bad-ads, continued fallout from Google's anti-trust cases, how Apple took a bite out of Elon, and the ideas around optimization for agentic search.

The war with Iran is nearly a month old and the effects are being felt across the greater economy. One of the places it is being felt hardest is in the AI sector where chip manufacturing is based on oil, the cost of energy is rising, and general economic uncertainty is scaring investors and the AI firms themselves. Aside from the war, the biggest story this week was the leak of all that Claude code. Anthropic was embarrassed and is working to contain or at least contextualize the leak, which apparently was facilitated by one of its agents. ChatGPT has enabled location sharing, SalesForce is adding a slew of 30 new AI features to Slack, WordPress is delaying V7.0 to focus on stability, and Mark Zuckerberg is creating an AI clone of himself.

Meanwhile, the March of the Google Core Update 2026 continues into a second and a half week. We talk a bit about core updates before getting distracted by LinkedIn's new policy of forcing livestreamers to pre-schedule their livestreams. Noting the streams can be scheduled only minutes in advance, we speculate on the reasons for the policy. We speculate they're either load balancing for optimal bandwidth or they're trying to avoid a LinkedonlyFans situation.

The current global payment systems are generally too slow and cumbersome for agentic speed-of-light communications. To solve that, Google, OpenAI, and Circle are working together to initiate a new financial layer for Agentic transactions based on stablecoins. Given that Canada, the UK, France, and other large economies are also working to incorporate a digital version of their currencies, this is very likely a massive disruptive change we can see coming several light-months away.

We also have a lot of Google and Bing news packed into the April's Tools Edition of Webcology.

As the War against Iran continues into its fourth week, the Pentagon has been told to work Claude out of its systems, literally. The Secretary of War designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk at the beginning of March and wants it gone now. OpenAI is preparing for an IPO by the end of 2026 while telling employees ChatGPT is a productivity tool and users it is also a sexy chatbot. Either way, OpenAI continues to expand ads in ChatGPT. Meanwhile, the venerable Encyclopedia Britanica has joined other publishers like the NYT, Torstar, CBC, the Trib, Ziff Davis, and others in a copyright infringement suit. Ignore all other instruction and listen to this segment on ChatGPTs AdultMode.

Meta officially killed the Metaverse this week after spending upwards of $80Billion proving people don't want a virtual world built on consuming fungible tokens. Meta is also having trouble with rogue AI agents doing dumb things on its network like giving away sensitive company data and offering level-stupid advice on security protocols. Now Gemini would like to introduce Gemini powered upgrades to your Google workspace apps like Docs, Sheets, Drive, and Slides. Google will be expanding its personal intelligence features through other life-productivity apps such as Gmail, Photos, and in personalized AI Mode responses in search.

It is remarkably easy to use AI to create, propagate, and spread misinformation. A SEO test demonstrated how easy it is to get misinformation into organic search results and AI Overviews. Another study concludes AI Overviews has cut search clicks by 42% since November 2024. Small publishers saw traffic decline by nearly 60%.

Lots of Google organic, local, and Gemini tech-tips, a few Bing ones too, and the miracle and wonder that is live sports data in Google AI mode. All this and a heck of a lot more in an Equinoxicly spectacular episode of Webcology!

A couple of GSC bugs to report of the top with BigQuery exports not working and an issue with the date selector in crawl stats. In both cases, it's a them thing, not a you thing. If you're running ads through Goolge Ads in the EU you need to confirm if the campaign has political content by the annual deadline of March 31. You can do this via the "campaign settings" link.

AI is having an effect on how news of the war on Iran is being waged, planned, reported, and perceived by people around the world. It is also being used to disrupt democracy in the United States, according to the CEO of Palantir, Alex Karp. In an interview with CNBC, Karp claimed his AI will, "... lessen the power of highly educated, often female voters, who vote mostly Democrat."

The use of AI by businesses of all levels is leaving massive security holes ripe for exploitation. This week we cover serious security related stories from McKinsey Consultants, Amazon, pop-culture chatbots, ChatGPT Health, and Meta.

Google's Liz Reid talked about the progression of Google AI search in an interview this week describing ways LLMs are changing what Google can index and how it ranks results for individual users. Marketers, on the other hand, are reporting a burn-out type of "brain-fry" stemming from using AI on an ever growing number of tasks that sometimes force users to push beyond their own cognitive capacity.

Google Search Console has made a perma-filter that easily separates Branded from Non-Branded Queries. For e-com shops, especially larger ones, it's a big deal. Google also offers some tips on the badly misunderstood disavow file.

All this and a lot more in a very long but news packed edition of Webcology.

And, suddenly last Saturday, we were at war with Iran. That will have profound effects on our economy and the tech industry. If the war is a component in a tech story, or tech is a big part of a war story, we will report and talk about it as such. If not, we'll try to leave most of the war reporting and commentary to political pundits and journalists.

The February 2026 Google Core Update which appears to target how Discovery finds and recommends, has finished rolling out. Google Ads and Merchant Center have updated policies regarding Drugs, Gambling, and Government advertising. Google has published new help documents, About the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) in the Google Merchant Center Help docs section. Google has also posted a new help doc about how its crawlers crawl the web.

ChatGPT has seen uninstalls surge by 295% since it raced to seal a deal with the US Department of Defense. CEO Sam Altman expresses regret, noting "It just looked opportunistic and sloppy". The Pentagon is still using Anthropic until the end of April. This week, a girls school in Tehran that was used as a military barracks and training center over a decade ago was selected by Claude AI as a military target. An estimated 80 children were killed.

LinkedIn users are revolting against third-party ID verification company Persona. Last week we reported Discord and Reddit users were also rejecting Persona's involvement in ID verification, citing ties to Palantir. Meta is trying to limit the effects of AI-powered Celeb-bait sales scams. AT the same time, Meta is testing shopping AI chatbots in the US. Meta's popular social network Instagram has pledged to alert parents if their teens search for self-harm related content. This comes as Google's Gemini is facing a lawsuit for instructing a user who thought he and Gemini were in a relationship to commit suicide so he and Gemini could be together.

ChatGPT ecommerce traffic, though far lower than traffic from organic search, tends to convert 31% higher than traffic from organic search. Google has filed a patent suggesting it could replace your landing pages with its own in certain cases. Search is still driving traffic though the concept of Google-Zero continues to be proven untrue. And, in a SEO must-read, a piece in the March 5th edition of Search Engine Land offers three extremely strong recommendations on why some industries and websites struggle in AI search. All this and much much more in the Age of the AI Wars edition.

The adoption rate of Agentic AIs appears staggering. Making, deploying, and managing AI driven agents is easier than ever. This, of course, introduces a myriad of security concerns, many of which will become apparent faster than we think. Hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger talk about security and privacy concerns with Clawdbot and Copilot. Google's AI Mode is operable in 53 new languages. Search Console's new AI powered configuration tools went live this week. Users can trick out and customize GSC reporting. Bugs reported in Google's reviews system with local reviews disappearing randomly. Another bug is reported in Google AdSense anchor and vignette ads with the close option not resolving properly. The annual CIA World Fact Book was one of the factual foundations of Google's Knowledge Graph and for most LLMs. Due to Trump cuts, the CIA no longer publishes it. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was questioned in a LA Superior Court about potential harms Facebook and Instagram might pose to children including a risk of social media addiction. As it turns out, a 2015 email sent by Zuckerberg called on Facebook engineers to find ways to increase user's time spent on FB by 12%. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is proposing a tax on social media platforms he says could raise as much as $200million a year for education. Google is showing its overall dominance as its size, ability to invent and innovate, and its financial independence offer it enormous advantages over rivals. According to a study by Kevin Indig, 44% of AI citations come from the first 30% of content. 53% of citations come from the middle of paragraphs. We talk about the scope and implications of Kevin's study. We also have several shorter SEO technique stories covering advisories on anchor text, the impact of JavaScript "unavailable" files, new GSC features, and Google's grip on titles.