Marketing issues
One real event at a time, read down to “so what should a 100-visitors-a-week site actually do?” Every post lists its sources and the date the facts were checked — no sources, no post.
- 2026-09-23KO available
Shopify Redefined How It Counts a "Session," Starting September 21
Over three days starting September 21, Shopify changed how its Analytics counts sessions on every store, so numbers like conversion rate and bounce rate can shift without any real change in shopper behavior. Orders, sales, and customer counts aren't affected.
- 2026-09-22KO available
Google confirmed on September 14 it's testing paying sites for AI answers
Google confirmed it's testing an "AI Contribution" panel in Search Console — it shows a monthly payout when a site's content is actually used to generate Gemini, AI Overviews, or AI Mode answers. There's no application process; Google invites sites, and it won't disclose how payouts are calculated.
- 2026-09-21KO available
Meta launches Creator Marketing Hub: content usage rights now expire
On September 15, Meta rolled out a global Creator Marketing Hub that merges its creator marketplace with its partnership-ads tools. The headline change is that brand permission to run a creator's content as an ad can now come with an expiration date, for the first time.
- 2026-09-15KO available
Adobe acquired Rilo. The product died, but its Slack and Salesforce access didn't.
Indian startup Rilo got acquired by Adobe on September 2, barely a year after launch, and shut down the same day. Days later, an independent analysis pointed out that the access it had granted itself inside users' Slack, Salesforce, and Gmail accounts doesn't disappear just because the company does.
- 2026-09-14KO available
Common Crawl opened 580,000 llms.txt files. Two-thirds were empty templates.
Common Crawl, the nonprofit that publishes web-crawl data, analyzed 584,107 llms.txt files found in the wild and published the results on September 8. 68% were auto-generated templates, 22% had no links at all, and some files carried "blocking rules" the format has no power to enforce. If you've heard "add an llms.txt to get cited by AI search," this is worth reading before you build one.
- 2026-09-07KO available
X killed its creator revenue sharing program and replaced it with an "originals only" one
X's Creator Revenue Sharing program shuts down on September 7, 2026, replaced the very next day by the Original Content Rewards program. Reposts and aggregated content are excluded outright, and the bar to even apply is far higher — 500 verified followers and 500,000 impressions from verified users in 90 days.
- 2026-09-04KO available
The EU officially designated ChatGPT a "Very Large Online Search Engine"
On August 31, 2026, the European Commission designated ChatGPT a "Very Large Online Search Engine" under the Digital Services Act — the first time an AI chatbot has received that classification. The regulatory net that used to cover only Google and Bing now reaches ChatGPT.
- 2026-09-01KO available
Cloudflare flips AI crawlers to blocked-by-default on September 15
Cloudflare's new crawler policy, announced July 1, actually takes effect on September 15. Free-plan users and new sites will have AI training and agent crawlers blocked by default on ad-supported pages, while search crawlers stay allowed. Do nothing, and this is the setting you get.
- 2026-08-31KO available
Google paused an AI Overviews test that drew its own recipe illustrations
Google confirmed on August 17 that it had shut down a test showing AI-generated step-by-step recipe illustrations inside AI Overviews, after creators pushed back that the images appeared with no request, no AI label, and no source credit. It's the first case in this project's coverage where an AI summary didn't just cite a creator's work — it recreated the output itself.
- 2026-08-28KO available
Etsy: buying a template and cutting it on a Cricut no longer counts as handmade
Starting August 11, 2026, Etsy requires items made with computerized tools — laser cutters, 3D printers, sublimation printers, Cricuts — to be the seller's own original design. The workflow that used to be standard, buying an SVG and machine-producing it, is now a suspension risk.
- 2026-08-27KO available
YouTube redefined the "view." The number on screen grew. Your payout didn't.
Starting August 24, 2026, YouTube counts a "view" the instant a video starts playing. The old counting method survives under a new name, "engaged view," visible only in Analytics — and it's still the number that decides earnings and Partner Program eligibility.
- 2026-08-26KO available
Google shipped a "Preferred Source" button publishers can embed on their own pages
On August 20, Google released a "Preferred Source" button publishers can drop into their own pages. When a reader clicks it, that site gets registered as a priority source for that reader's future Search, Discover, and AI answers. Google says over 600,000 sources have already been selected this way.
- 2026-08-25KO available
Meta lets small businesses connect Facebook, Instagram, and Google Workspace data to Meta AI
On August 19, Meta announced a feature letting small business owners connect Facebook and Instagram insights, Meta Ads data, and Google Workspace to Meta AI, so they can ask for performance summaries and recommendations in plain conversation. It's free to start; going deeper leads to the paid Meta One subscription. It's also a sign that big platforms are moving from chart dashboards to conversational summaries.
- 2026-08-24KO available
Google briefly underreported Search Console impressions and clicks due to a logging bug (Aug 13–17)
Starting around August 12–13, site owners noticed impressions and clicks suddenly drop in Search Console's Generative AI performance report and Discover report. Google confirmed it was a logging error affecting August 13–17 data, and the issue is now marked resolved.
- 2026-08-20KO available
Google announced the August 2026 spam update — this time it's confirmed
Google Search Central posted an official announcement on August 18 for the "August 2026 spam update," rolling out to every language and region. It's the third spam update of the year by industry tallies, and the key detail is that no new policy shipped with it — just stricter enforcement of existing rules.
- 2026-08-18KO available
OpenAI expanded ChatGPT ads to five countries including South Korea — only free-tier users see them
On August 11, OpenAI widened its ChatGPT ads test beyond the US to the UK, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, and South Korea. Ads show up as sponsored links beneath AI answers, visible only to logged-in Free and Go tier users — paid tiers stay ad-free. OpenAI says ads don't influence the answer content itself.
- 2026-08-17KO available
YouTube doubles its Partner Program watch-hour bar for the first time in 8 years
On August 10, 2026, YouTube announced that new Partner Program (monetization) applicants will need roughly double the watch hours starting February 1, 2027 — its first major overhaul since 2018. Here's why that matters if you're counting on YouTube as a channel.
- 2026-08-14KO available
Google opened Search Console's AI performance report to all accounts — but small sites may still see nothing
Google's "generative AI performance report," first shown to a handful of UK site owners in June, is now reportedly visible in most Search Console accounts as of August 12. It's the first free look at how often your pages show up inside AI Overviews and AI Mode, with one catch — sites without enough impressions won't see the report at all.
- 2026-08-10KO available
Yelp starts feeding 330 million reviews into ChatGPT
The OpenAI data partnership Yelp previewed in its February earnings call got specific on July 23, when Axios reported the details — 330 million user reviews and 8 million business listings now feed ChatGPT's local answers. If you run a neighborhood shop or small service business, your Yelp profile is no longer just search-engine material; it's now raw material for AI answers too.
- 2026-08-07KO available
Google rankings swung for three days. Google's own dashboard says nothing happened.
From August 1, 2026, six or more independent ranking trackers — Semrush Sensor, Mozcast, AccuRanker, and others — spiked at the same time, with some pages dropping from position 6-7 to 12 within hours. Google's official status dashboard recorded no ranking incident during that window. The gap between the two carries a lesson for anyone running a small site.
- 2026-08-05KO available
Microsoft Clarity now splits AI citation stats into branded searches and new discovery
Free analytics tool Microsoft Clarity added a branded/non-branded query split to its AI Citations dashboard on August 3. It shows whether an AI system like ChatGPT cited your site because someone already knew your brand, or because a stranger found you through a generic question. It's the third citation-related update in 25 days, and the first free tool to separate "real growth" from noise in an AI search world where citations are the new currency.
- 2026-08-04KO available
AI Overviews cut top-ranking pages' clicks by 58%. Zero clicks is the new normal — now what?
Study after study shows click-through rates collapsing on searches where Google's AI Overviews appear, and Google has shipped five updates meant to send traffic back to publishers. The currency of search is shifting from clicks to citations — and for small sites, that shift is oddly good news.
- 2026-08-04KO available
The EU's AI transparency law took effect August 2 — unlabeled AI text can now mean a fine
Article 50 of the EU AI Act, the transparency rule requiring disclosure of chatbots and AI-generated content, became enforceable on August 2, 2026. It applies based on where your readers are, not where you are — so a solo blogger outside the EU can still fall under it if EU readers see the content. Fines run up to €15 million or 3% of worldwide turnover.
- 2026-08-04KO available
The growth hacking pioneer's experiment tool is gone. The archive next door is thriving.
GrowthHackers Experiments was an experiment-tracking SaaS built by the people who coined the methodology. Its URL is dead now, while a community that only accumulates records keeps growing — and that contrast carries a lesson for solo marketers.