LabraSEO

Spam update weekend hit 🧹, AI Overviews citation layout shifts 📚, Search profile follow button pulled 👤

Issue 3, 29 September 2026

What changed in search and AI answers, for marketing teams, in five minutes.

Headlines & Launches

September spam update hit hardest over the weekend (5 minute read)

Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable reports the September 2026 spam update caused major ranking volatility from Friday 25 September through Sunday, with more still to come since the rollout is not finished. Early observation from Lily Ray points to highly templated, likely AI generated, programmatic pages (her example: one page per phone area code) as an early target. If your traffic dropped over the weekend, check whether your site leans on templated or AI generated pages at scale before assuming it is unrelated.

Google removes the desktop follow button from Search profiles (2 minute read)

Google has dropped the "Follow" button from Search profile results on desktop, though it remains on mobile knowledge panels, as spotted by Damien Andell and confirmed by Barry Schwartz. The follow button let searchers subscribe to updates from a publisher or brand's Search profile. If you were counting on desktop followers from Search profiles to build repeat visibility, that channel just got narrower.

Deep Dives & Analysis

A weekly tracker of the SERP squeeze, even without AI Overviews (1 minute read)

Aleyda Solis is starting a weekly series comparing search volume against organic and paid clicks; her first example is "basketball shoes" in the US, where Similarweb shows search volume up 69% year on year but organic clicks down 34% and paid clicks down 65%. Ahrefs data shows the cause was not an AI Overview but a Shopping Pack, Local Pack and People Also Ask box crowding out two of the ten traditional organic slots. It is a reminder that shrinking click share can come from ordinary SERP features, not just AI answers, so audit your commercial queries for these boxes too.

Citations are moving to the bottom of AI Overviews in a live test (1 minute read)

Glenn Gabe reports being in a Google test where AI Overview citations are stacked at the bottom of the answer on desktop, with the right hand citation sidebar removed and a "show all" option revealing the full list. This is an isolated, unconfirmed test rather than a rollout. If it spreads, it could change how visible a citation is relative to the answer text, so it is worth watching how it affects click through from AI Overviews once more reports surface.

Tactics & Tools

Google keeps testing new sitelinks layouts, worth a routine check (2 minute read)

Brodie Clark and SERP Alert spotted Google testing a new mobile sitelinks design, with sitelinks listed line by line in darker text with a left margin, alongside a separate variant showing images in sitelinks, Barry Schwartz reports. None of this is confirmed as a permanent rollout. Check how your sitelinks currently render on mobile, since these tests can affect how much of your brand's result competitors' images or extra links crowd out.

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Quick Links

Google's Web Search Service API documentation briefly leaked, then vanished (3 minute read)

Google accidentally published documentation for a paid "Web Search Service API" letting partners retrieve Search results in JSON, then pulled it down again, Barry Schwartz reports. It is not publicly available, so this mainly confirms Google has a paid partner tier for raw search data access.