Events

In February's 30|30 this month, Pat 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 collapsed". 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"

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Pat Reinhart’s January 3030 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%.

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For 2026, Pat predicted ads "Will Be Introduced Into LLms + Al Overviews"; "MCP Servers Will Become More Prevalent" , calling it a universal adapter for agents to interact with data ; and LLM referral traffic "Will Not Exceed 20%". He also predicted "LLMS.txt Will Become An Adopted Web Standard". Pat concluded the "only algorithm that matters is the heart, mind and soul of your customer".