February 2026 Edition

During Pat's February 30|30 this month, he says that the search industry is experiencing "very, very high" volatility, specifically noting that "listicles got nerfed." He explains that companies trading self-serving listicles as a form of "guest blogging" are seeing their articles "tanking" or "completely collapsing." While large retailers like Walmart are down 18% year-over-year, local home service brands like Apple Air have surged 139% because Google is prioritizing "locally relevant content" from websites based in the user's country. Pat emphasizes that despite these algorithmic shifts, "the only algorithm that matters is the heart, mind and soul of your customer".

Pat states that creating separate Markdown or JSON pages specifically for LLMs is not a great use of your time and a strategy that will likely end badly. He highlights John Mueller’s perspective that LLMs have "read and parsed normal web pages since the beginning" and have no problem dealing with HTML. Pat warns that serving a separate version of a site just for bots is essentially "cloaking" and could tank your traditional search program. He advises marketers to avoid this "shady stuff" and instead focus on real research.

Pat also mentions that marketers should dust off their Bing Webmaster Tools to access newly released AI performance reporting. This report provides "gold" data directly from Microsoft, including "grounding queries"—which show themes people are asking about—and total citations for your content. Simultaneously, the February 2026 Discover core update is rolling out to reduce "sensational content" and clickbait while prioritizing in-depth, original, timely content. Pat notes that AI Overviews have stabilized at a "new normal" of 40% to 45% visibility in certain sectors, indicating that AI results are becoming a permanent plateau in the search landscape.

This month, Pat covers:

• February Industry Review - What I'm Seeing & Hearing
• As Expected - Listicles Got Nerfed
• Why You Shouldn't Create Separate Markdown Pages For LLMs
• Dust Off Your Bing Webmaster Tools, They Just Rolled Out AI Reporting
• February 2026 Discover Core Update Rolling Out