SEO

Daily Brief 05.11.2026: ChatGPT ads, Reddit search and robots.txt for AI

On average, a visit from a ChatGPT ad brings in considerably less revenue than one from a Google ad. Reddit is testing ads in its search, and a single robots.txt rule may soon cover every AI company.

Bartosz Bielawski

Bartosz Bielawski

· 4 min read
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Daily Brief 05.11.2026: ChatGPT ads, Reddit search and robots.txt for AI

ChatGPT ads earn considerably less than Google ads

Signal: 4 independent sources this week, 12 in 30 days; tracked since 2025-12-27.

A study of about 1,900 websites compared ChatGPT ads with Google Search ads. On average, a visit from ChatGPT brought in nearly two-thirds less revenue (Search Engine Land).

Almost every advertiser running both channels earned less per visit from ChatGPT. Free referrals from the chatbot also dropped after ads launched, so some of the paid traffic might have arrived for free anyway.

What to do: test ChatGPT ads on a small budget and compare revenue per visit with Google, not just the number of clicks.

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OpenAI counts searches differently from Google

Signal: 4 independent sources this week, 7 in 30 days; tracked since 2026-07-08.

OpenAI says ChatGPT handles roughly one-fifth as many searches as Google. Earlier Ahrefs estimates were much lower, but they used a different definition of a search.

The gap comes down to that definition. OpenAI counts every web query that ChatGPT runs on its own as a separate search. In terms of actual website traffic, Google still sends many times more visits than ChatGPT.

What to do: before you move budget from Google to AI, check your analytics to see where your customers really come from.

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Signal: 2 independent sources this week, 2 in 30 days; tracked since 2026-11-04.

Reddit is testing ads in its on-site search results. For now, only select advertisers are taking part, and Reddit hasn't said how many or when the ads will open up to everyone.

The ads use Reddit's existing targeting, but they also match what the user is searching for at that moment. That gives advertisers a new place to reach someone with a specific need, not just a matching profile.

What to do: if your customers talk on Reddit, look at what they ask there and prepare ads around those questions.

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Signal: 2 independent sources this week, 2 in 30 days; tracked since 2026-07-21.

New data shows that Google queries are getting longer, especially on desktop (DataForSEO). Two weeks ago, a preliminary analysis of ad data found no such trend, so the question is still open.

The change in how results look is clearer. AI Overviews appear in more than half of the results studied, while featured snippets - the highlighted boxes with a ready-made answer - have practically vanished.

What to do: stop counting on traffic from featured snippets and write so that AI can pull a clear answer from your text.

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One robots.txt rule for every AI company

Signal: 2 independent sources this week, 2 in 30 days; tracked since 2026-11-04.

Instead of separate entries for each AI provider, the plan is for publishers to use one shared policy token in robots.txt (Google Search Central).

Right now, every AI company has its own crawlers, and OpenAI even has separate ones for search and for training. The list of rules grows with every new tool, and it's easy to miss something. A shared token is meant to clean up that mess.

What to do: review your current rules for AI crawlers and write down what you actually want, so switching to the new format is quick.

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Ad strength in Google Ads does affect impressions after all

Signal: 3 independent sources this week, 9 in 30 days; tracked since 2021-08-02.

Google says the ad strength rating does not affect the auction. A study of almost 6,000 accounts suggests otherwise (Adalysis).

When two responsive search ads with different ratings compete in the same ad group, the higher-rated one gets more impressions nearly two-thirds of the time. Google maintains that the rating only matters when you create the ad, but the data suggests the system does take it into account.

What to do: don't ignore ad strength, especially when you test two versions in the same ad group.

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How you phrase the question changes what AI thinks of a brand

New signal: one source so far.

The way a question is worded strongly affects the tone AI takes toward a brand (Search Engine Land). Negatively framed questions noticeably lowered the rating, while positive ones raised it.

Even the order of descriptions in a comparison question could sway the result. A single sentiment reading - whether AI speaks well or badly of a brand - says little on its own, because everything depends on the questions chosen for the test.

What to do: measure your brand image in AI using a set of neutral, positive and negative questions, not just one.

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Google's AI Overviews guide shoppers through the purchase

Signal: 4 independent sources this week, 9 in 30 days; tracked since 2026-07-08.

Google has shifted AI Overviews from purely informational answers to guiding users through a purchase, with follow-up questions that help them narrow down their options (Search Engine Land).

In that kind of conversation, you don't write the ad copy; Google's AI builds it from the data in your product feed. The titles, descriptions and attributes in your feed also affect your free visibility in AI answers.

What to do: fill in the descriptions, specs and attributes in your feed, because today that is your sales copy.

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