Personalised search is the main SEO talking point from July 2026. And in Paid Media, Google Ads’ new bidding approach for low budget campaigns is causing some confusion. We offer some clarity on both topics and more in the roundup below.

SEO

🔴 Searchers can link AI Mode to their Google Calendar

AI Mode is enabling deeper and deeper search personalisation through integrations with additional Google apps, with the third and latest being the Google Calendar.

Using Personal Intelligence, users can link AI Mode to their Google Calendar to get highly tailored search results.

For businesses…

The more popular Personal Intelligence integration becomes, the less search engine rank, in a traditional sense, means.

When AI Mode has access to such a depth of personal context, including preferences and schedules, it can tailor results on a per-searcher basis, meaning the websites featured can differ vastly even for identical queries.

Rank is still essential to modern visibility, not least because it informs newer modes of search, but the standard view on what constitutes visibility needs a rethink. When a keyword can surface dramatically different results based on the searcher, whether your website ranks well in traditional search for that keyword is neither here nor there.

If you’d like forward-thinking SEO support to position your website for success as search becomes increasingly personalised, let’s talk.

🟡 Cloudflare introduces more controls to block AI crawlers

Cloudflare, a company that is firmly positioning itself on “team creator” as AI disrupts the content ecosystem, has introduced new options for controlling which AI bots have access to your website.

Instead of implementing a blanket AI bots block, all Cloudflare customers can now block AI crawlers based on their behaviour - specifically,  three behaviours:

1. Search indexing - they want to understand your content and index it ready to serve for relevant queries
2. Agent/real-time bots acting on behalf of a person - this is your typical AI chatbot
3. AI training - they want to use your content to train a model

Starting September 15th, Cloudflare will also implement a rule that applies the highest level of relevant restriction for multi-purpose bots, i.e. those that engage in more than one of the “blockable behaviours”.

For site owners…

While a handy feature for some, there’s currently one major caveat that all website owners need to be aware of. As it stands, Googlebot (as well as the primary crawlers for other major search platforms) engages in all 3 of the “blockable behaviours”.

Come September 15, this means that blocking the agent/real-time or AI training crawlers may also block Googlebot from accessing your content, potentially limiting your search visibility.

Cloudflare is advocating for all search platforms to use dedicated crawlers for each behaviour, but until then, using blocks 2 and 3 could also end up blocking standard indexing.

🟡 Google is the second-most cited domain in AI Mode

A new report revealed that Google.com is currently the second-most cited domain in AI Mode, with its citation rate growing 8.4x between mid-April and the end of June. The overwhelming majority of citations in this surge were for two Google properties:

• Business Profile cards
• Product Knowledge Panels

Unsurprisingly, the greatest citation increases were seen across local and product queries.

For businesses…

This is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, having your business or products surfaced prominently in AI search can be a great for brand awareness and lead generation. On the other, these Google-owned cards and panels replace links to your website.

This isn’t to say that if your website was cited that it would get the click every time, and the key information in the cards and panels could well lead to more qualified traffic in the end, but Google does appear to be prioritising keeping people on-platform for longer.

The good news is that the data these Google properties draw from is yours to manage. For instance, optimising your Google Business Profile can help you build visibility in this format, encourage traffic, and drive sales. This is something TDMP can handle for you. Learn more about our GBP and local SEO services.

🟢 Study suggests ChatGPT sends less traffic and to different places

A new study on US desktop browsing suggests that ChatGPT sends significantly less traffic through to websites than Google.

Over the observation period, ChatGPT averaged a website click in 5.2% of sessions vs Google’s 31.1%. The report also revealed that clicks from ChatGPT tend to lead to highly specialised academic, reference, developer, news and knowledge sites. Ad-supported sites, in particular, saw very limited traffic from ChatGPT.

Additionally, after 20 weeks, ChatGPT Search appeared to bring down weekly traditional search queries by 17%, but only across informational searches. Transactional searches remained largely stable.

For website owners…

It’s important to remember that this is a US study, but as ChatGPT models are likely the same or similar across nations, we can infer some things.

Ultimately, these findings suggest that ChatGPT, in its current state, isn’t going to be sending much traffic to most website types, including business, ad-supported, and non-academic informational sites.

However, this may not be due to the platform in isolation. Who uses ChatGPT and how they use it are just as much factors as the algorithms at play. 

Although it shows fewer links than other search platforms, the links ChatGPT does show still have to be relevant to the context of the interaction. If more clicks go to specialised, knowledge–oriented sites, this must be what many of the users are seeking. 

And the more specialised and detailed the topic, generally, the greater the need to fact-check what ChatGPT says, which, again, increases the likelihood the user will click on a citation.

For businesses, the silver lining is that as ChatGPT Search had only a very limited impact on transactional queries, it’s not as concerning that it’s not sending much traffic your way.

🟢 Study suggests AI Overviews do not improve click quality - for informational searches

An earlier AI Overviews study that focused on measuring traffic decline has been updated to analyse click quality when an AI Overview is served vs when one isn’t.

The method involved tracking and comparing bounce rates, search returns, and time on site when an AI Overview was and was not served on the initial Google results page.

The findings suggest that there is no discernible difference in click quality. However, important to note - most of the analysed clicks were purely informational in intent.

For businesses…

The headline discovery of this study is concerning for businesses - AI Overviews (and therefore potentially AI-driven search at large) do not lead to more qualified clicks. But this is reductive.

AI Overviews trigger primarily for informational queries, so this is the intent that made up the majority of the observed sample. It was then found that users clicking through to websites from these informational queries were no more or less engaged whether the original SERP did or did not feature an AI Overview.

This has no bearing on commercial queries. However, new Similarweb data suggests that US AI Overview frequency is trending upwards (43% of queries), meaning they will likely start appearing for more and more non-informational queries.

Rates in the UK may not be this high currently (despite increased zero-click searches) as the USA is known to receive by far the most AI Overviews. But it could be the direction we’re headed, showing the importance of businesses assessing and building visibility in this SERP feature.

Paid Media

🔴Google Ads changes bidding for limited by budget campaigns

Starting August 17th, Google Ads is adjusting its bidding approach for limited by budget, target-based Search, Shopping, PMax, and Demand Gen campaigns, aiming to enable more predictable scaling

After this change, instead of aiming to grab only the cheapest conversions and undercutting your target, Google will bid directly up to your set target to deliver maximum volume right from the start.

For instance, if your campaign's Target CPA is set to £10, but your actual recent cost per customer has been running at £5, Google will start bidding up to deliver closer to that £10 actual CPA after August 17th.

For advertisers…

At first, it may look like Google is simply forcing you to pay more for your campaigns, which is understandably alarming, but that’s not actually what’s happening. Your total campaign spend will still never exceed your daily budget cap, and your cost per lead will align with the target you've set.

If you're happy with your current £10 target, you don't need to do anything. But if you want to keep that cheaper £5 rate, simply update your Target CPA inside Google Ads to £5. 

But what does this have to do with scaling?

Well, previously, tight budgets disguised the true cost of scaling by grabbing only the cheapest conversions. Let’s look at an example...

At a £50 budget: Google's AI targets only the highest-intent searches. Because a low budget runs out before the pool of lower cost, high intent leads is exhausted, it gets you 10 leads for £5 each.

Decision to scale: These results look great, so you decide to allocate more of your marketing budget to this campaign.

At a £100 budget: Google exhausts those £5 leads. To spend your remaining £50, it has to bid on broader keywords or less-certain prospects. These harder-to-convert users might cost £13 each.

Reaction: Confusion due to the fact the campaign isn’t doing as well as it should be based on performance at a lower budget.

How the update creates more consistency Google's update removes the false idea that a low budget, target-based campaign will overperform at scale. Your cost per lead stays steady and predictable as you grow.

If you’re still unsure about what this means for your campaigns, or you’d like support effectively scaling your paid advertising campaigns, our award-winning Paid Media team can help. Learn more about our PPC services.

🟡 Google Ads limits appeal window to six months

Advertisers now only have six months to appeal violations in Google Ads via the Google Ads Policy Manager.

Ads found in violation of Google’s policies can be completely stopped from running, so a swift response is always best in any case. But now that there’s a hard limit, it’s especially important to keep on top of appeals.

🟡Google Ads updates Conversion Measurement guidelines

Google recently updated its Ads conversion measurement documentation, explicitly establishing a mandatory 7–14 day learning window for Smart Bidding and warning that mid-phase edits to budgets, targets, or goals will reset optimisation. 

Additionally, the documentation outlines required access levels (Admin in Ads, Edit in GA4), a 24–48 hour propagation delay for imported key events, and recommends using the native Google Tag over GA4 for advanced tracking features.

For advertisers…

This shows why a hands-off policy during new campaign launches or bid updates is essential. Make notes about your findings and thoughts during the learning period, but hold off on actioning any optimisations until it ends.

There are several other less consequential additions to Google’s document, but we recommend reading all the same.

🟢 OpenAI planning to expand ad types in ChatGPT

OpenAI is actively seeking engineers to build out their ad portfolio, including video, image, and native ad formats. These ad types may take up a greater amount of UI real estate, which could go two ways:

1. The ads are more effective - as performance up until now appears to have been underwhelming
2. The ads harm the user experience and platform use-rate drops

A more competitive UI may also divert attention from organic citations, making ChatGPT a paid media-leaning  channel.

Stay current with TDMP

If you’re unsure how to navigate the search developments and trends discussed here, TDMP can help. 

Whether you’d like support building a presence in AI-driven search, preparing for the impact of hyper-personalised search journeys, or building effective paid advertising campaigns, we have the experience and insight to drive your digital success. Let’s talk.