January 2026 Edition

Pat Reinhart’s January 30|30 started off with the December 2025 Core Update, which lasted 18 days, significantly impacted YMYL sites by favoring established institutions over content aggregators. While Mayo Clinic saw a 3% increase and Investing.com gained 13% in Page 1 visibility, aggregators like WebMD and Investopedia dropped 21% and 16% respectively. Additionally, AI Overview visibility surged from 25% to 40% during this period, and a distinct recovery for U.S. publishers emerged as sites like TechCrunch rose 15% while India-based TheHindu.com fell 16%.

Google’s Gemini is rapidly eroding ChatGPT's dominance, nearly quadrupling its market share from 5.7% to 21.5% in one year while ChatGPT fell to 64.5%. Pat emphasized that "nobody beats the Googs," particularly following the multi-year deal to power Apple Intelligence and Siri with Gemini technology. This massive distribution across the iPhone ecosystem positions Google to challenge the first-mover advantage of competitors effectively.

To facilitate "Agentic Commerce," Google introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), allowing users to complete purchases directly within AI interfaces like Gemini to reduce friction. This operates alongside the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard described as the "USB-C for AI" that enables LLMs to connect to live data sources. By using MCP, marketers can transform static reports into "live ingredients," allowing AI agents to query SEO data or automate optimization suggestions

This month, Pat covers:

• The December 2025 Core Update - What I’m Seeing & Hearing
• I Told You Not To Sleep On Gemini…(Their Market Share Is Growing)
• Why Is Everyone Talking About MCP Servers? What Are They & What Do They Do?
• Google's Universal Commerce Protocol - What It Is, How It Works, & What It Means For The Future Of Agentic Commerce