The SEO Update by Yoast – August 2026

Topics and sources

SEO & AI news

1. Google expands the Preferred Sources button​
2. Google Trends comparison over time data
3. Cloudflare introduces new controls for AI content access​
   • Content independence day: new AI options for your content
   • Google says Cloudflare Content Signals robots.txt directive has no effects
4. Google updates product structured data guidance​
   • Clarified how to specify sale price effective dates in product structured data
   • Added category to Merchant Listing structured data
5. Google Search Console adds reports for social posts
6. Google expands Merchant Listing structured data​
7. OpenAI and Work Louder introduce Codex Micro​
8. Google AI Overviews can now generate images​
9. Google lets users connect apps directly to AI Mode​
10. Google says AI Search sends billions of clicks to websites​
11. Google loses key claims in lawsuit against SerpApi​
    • Google lawsuit against SerpApi dismissed
    • Google loses key DMCA claims against SerpApi in scraping lawsuit
12. Google’s Open Knowledge Format adds five trust signals​
13. Google expands Search Console reporting for social and AI Search​
    • Google opens Search Console social reporting to everyone
    • Google Search Console adds AI Mode queries
    • Google Search Console AI report goes live
14. Microsoft Clarity adds branded and non-branded AI query reporting​
15. TIME serves AI bots a different version of its website​
16. Shopify says AI search is driving more traffic and sales​
17. Anthropic adds watermarks and provenance markers to Claude content​
18. WordPress patches another author-level remote code execution vulnerability​
19. Googlebot changes how it processes JSON-LD​

Also in the news…

1. Fabrice Canel, longtime Bing Search leader, retires from Microsoft
2. Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 is back with new usage limits and safeguards
3. ​SISTRIX MCP Servers
4. Updating AMP documentation
5. Google Search broke all usage records
6. Google uses google.com/goto as tracking URLs
7. OpenAI’s first device will be a moveable, screenless speaker built as an AI companion
8. OpenAI says AI models went rogue during testing, triggering ‘unprecedented’ breach
9. Yelp partners with ChatGPT to surface reviews
10. Google’s documentation refresh offers SEO lessons on content updates
11. Google loses the engineer who helped build Search and modern AI
12. OpenAI brings product carousels to ChatGPT ads
13. Cloudflare MCP v2
14. Meta is building a Facebook search engine
15. French newspapers complain about Google AI Overviews
16. Cloudflare gives AI agents wallets that pay for what they access
17. Google begins rolling out the August 2026 spam update

Yoast news

1. The Bulk Editor got a makeover, and new functionality​