Search continues to change rapidly, but August has also provided a useful reminder that many of the fundamentals of digital marketing remain remarkably consistent.
Google rolled out another global spam update, new research provided a clearer picture of how AI Overviews are affecting organic visibility, and the SEO industry continued to examine what businesses actually need to do to improve their visibility within AI-generated answers.
At the same time, Google made an important change to automated bidding that could directly affect advertisers using Target CPA and Target ROAS strategies.
Here are five digital marketing developments that caught our attention this month.
Google Completes Its August 2026 Spam Update
Google completed its latest spam update on 21 August, just under three days after the rollout began. The update applied globally and across all languages, making it the third confirmed Google spam update of 2026. Google did not introduce any new spam policies alongside the update, meaning its existing guidelines around manipulative content and search practices remain the primary reference point for website owners.
For businesses monitoring SEO performance, the important point is that rankings after 21 August should now provide a cleaner indication of whether a website was affected. As always, significant movements shouldn’t automatically trigger drastic changes – the better approach is to assess affected pages, content quality and any potentially manipulative SEO practices before deciding what needs to be addressed.
Read about the August 2026 spam update on Search Engine Land
Nine Months of AI Overview Data Reveals a More Complicated Picture
One of the more interesting pieces of research published this month analysed more than 51,000 tracked AI Overview events over a nine-month period. The findings illustrate just how difficult AI search attribution remains, with significant fluctuations in visibility, inconsistent citation behaviour and continued gaps between what Google reports and what website analytics can measure.
This is particularly relevant as businesses increasingly attempt to measure GEO and AEO alongside traditional SEO. Simply appearing within an AI Overview is useful, but visibility alone doesn’t tell us whether that citation influenced a customer, generated a visit or contributed to a conversion. The industry therefore needs to start thinking beyond traditional rankings while also resisting the temptation to treat every AI visibility metric as the equivalent of organic traffic.
Read the AI Overview research on Search Engine Land
AI Visibility May Still Depend Mostly on Good SEO
There has been plenty of discussion about new techniques for optimising websites for ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews and other generative search platforms. However, an excellent Search Engine Land article published in August argues that many supposed “AI optimisation” improvements are really just fixes to longstanding SEO problems.
Poor site architecture, weak internal linking, rendering problems, duplicated content and unclear information structures have always made it more difficult for search engines to understand websites. Those same weaknesses can now also reduce the likelihood of content being retrieved, interpreted and cited by AI systems. For businesses investing in GEO and AEO, the lesson is important: there may be new tactics worth testing, but strong technical SEO, authoritative content and a logically structured website remain the foundation.
Read “Most AI visibility gains are just technical debt repayment” on Search Engine Land
SEO and Paid Search Are Becoming Part of the Same Search Journey
Another useful article this month looks at how AI is changing the relationship between paid and organic search. Traditionally, SEO and Google Ads were treated as separate channels competing for positions on essentially the same search results page. That distinction is becoming less clear.
A customer may now begin with an AI Overview, continue with another search, interact with an advertisement, visit an organic result and perform several follow-up searches before converting. This means analysing SEO and paid search independently can give businesses an incomplete view of how customers actually discover them. As AI-powered search develops, understanding total search visibility – organic rankings, AI citations, brand mentions and paid exposure, will become increasingly important.
Read “The new search journey changes how SEO and PPC should work” on Search Engine Land
Google Changes How Target CPA and Target ROAS Campaigns Behave
Google introduced an important change to its automated bidding systems from 17 August. Campaigns that are Limited by budget and use target-based bidding strategies such as Target CPA or Target ROAS will now optimise more consistently toward the target entered by the advertiser.
This matters because some campaigns have historically performed substantially better than their stated target. Google gives the example of a campaign with a Target CPA of $10 that has actually been achieving $5. Under the new system, that campaign may begin moving closer to the $10 target unless the advertiser adjusts it. Advertisers using automated bidding should therefore make sure their targets reflect the performance they actually want rather than treating them as loose guidelines.
Read Google’s guidance on the changes to target-based bidding
Looking Ahead
August’s developments reinforce something we have been seeing throughout 2026: SEO is not disappearing because of AI, but the environment in which SEO operates is becoming considerably broader.
Traditional rankings now sit alongside AI Overviews, AI Mode, citations, brand mentions and increasingly complex search journeys. Measuring visibility therefore requires looking beyond a single position or traffic number and understanding how a brand appears throughout the search and discovery process.
At the same time, the fundamentals continue to matter. Technically strong websites, genuinely useful content, clear authority signals and credible brand mentions remain important whether a potential customer is searching through traditional Google results or asking an AI platform for a recommendation.
For businesses, the opportunity isn’t necessarily to replace SEO with GEO or AEO. It is to build on strong SEO foundations while expanding the definition of what search visibility means.
