Google shipped a new AI model into search this week. Within two days it had stopped linking to anybody.
That is the story worth your attention today, and Google has already admitted it is broken. There is also a study on what AI Mode does to the prices shoppers see, a change in how Instagram pays creators, a nasty fake WordPress plugin doing the rounds, and a quiet documentation update from Google Ads that matters more to dealers than it looks.
SEO and search
Google’s newest AI model stopped citing anyone
Google rolled Gemini 3.8 Flash into AI Mode on 2 September. Robby Stein, who runs product for Google Search, announced it himself. By the following morning search marketers had noticed something odd. Gagan Ghotra ran a batch of top of funnel queries through AI Mode with the new model and got answers back carrying no links and no citations at all. Glenn Gabe put the new model and the default model side by side and saw the same gap. Stein replied on 4 September and was direct about it. He said this is not working as intended and that a fix will roll out soon.
Why this matters for your business: Do not read a sudden drop in AI referral traffic this week as a ranking problem. If your site was being cited last week and is not being cited now, the most likely cause is a model swap that Google has already called a bug. Write down the dates, keep your reporting steady, and wait for the fix before you change anything on the page.
The same product costs 21.6 percent more inside AI Mode
Productrise ran product shopping queries through both AI Mode and ordinary Google search between 9 and 31 August, covering more than 100,000 results pages across the United States and the United Kingdom and over two million product listings. Where an identical product turned up on both surfaces on the same day, the price attached to it inside AI Mode ran on average 21.6 percent higher. The overlap is the more startling number. Only 1.28 percent of the products in the shopping carousel also appeared in AI Mode for the same search on the same day. Where a product did show on both, the seller listed first was a different seller almost half the time.
Why this matters for your business: AI Mode and the shopping carousel are behaving like two separate shops working from two separate stock lists. If you sell anything online, search three of your own products on both surfaces this week and write down what you see. Being cheapest in the carousel tells you nothing about the price a shopper is shown in AI Mode.
Social
Instagram will pay you for photos again
Instagram has started paying creators through its Bonuses programme for the performance of photo and carousel posts, not only Reels. Payouts land twice a month and come from Instagram directly. The programme is invite only and Instagram describes it as limited time while it builds toward something sustainable, so there is no application form to fill in. Instagram has not published a list of eligible countries either, and its previous bonus schemes started with creators in the United States before reaching anywhere else. South African accounts should not expect an invitation yet.
Why this matters for your business: For roughly five years every platform payout scheme has rewarded one thing, and that thing was video. Instagram paying for a static carousel again says something about where attention actually sits. If you dropped photo posts and carousels from your content plan because Reels reached further, put a few back this month and watch what they do.
Content and websites
A fake plugin called DebugMaster Pro rebuilds itself on hacked sites
Sucuri researchers have documented a backdoor that arrives dressed up as a developer debugging tool. It installs two files. DebugMaster.php sits in your plugins folder and wp-user.php sits in the site root. Together they create an administrator account called help using credentials the attacker already knows, then send those credentials and your server address to a machine the attacker controls. The clever part is the hiding. The plugin filters itself out of your plugin list and the help account is filtered out of your user list, so neither one shows up in the WordPress admin. Delete the account on its own and wp-user.php simply builds it again.
Why this matters for your business: You cannot find this one by looking at the plugins screen, because it takes itself off that screen. Ask whoever maintains your site to check the file system directly for a wp-user.php in the root and a DebugMaster folder in plugins, then to query the database for a user called help. All three have to go at the same time. Remove one and the site rebuilds the rest.
Automotive
A read-across, not news: Google wrote down how to count your phone leads
This is a read-across rather than an automotive announcement, because no fresh dealer story surfaced today. Google added two short paragraphs to its Google Ads conversion measurement help document on 3 September. The phone call paragraph tells you to switch on call reporting in account settings, set the conversion action to Primary, adjust the minimum call length threshold and use the Call Details report to see individual call durations. It also confirms that Google attributes a call conversion to the date of the ad click rather than the date of the call. The offline conversions paragraph says the conversion action source must be set to Manual uploads or Other rather than Website, that names must match exactly, that processing takes 24 to 48 hours, and that Google Click IDs must be within 90 days.
Why this matters for your dealership: A large share of dealer enquiries still arrive by phone, and that 90 day click ID window is the line that catches people out. If your CRM only exports sold deals once a month and a buyer took three months to decide, the sale has already fallen outside the window and will never be joined back to the click that produced it. Ask your CRM provider how often it pushes offline conversions into Google Ads. If the answer is monthly, ask for weekly.
What to do this week
- Check whether your site was cited in AI Mode last week and is not being cited now, and record the dates rather than acting on them
- Search three of your own products in AI Mode and in ordinary Google search on the same day, and compare both the prices and the sellers shown
- Have someone check your WordPress file system for a wp-user.php in the root and a DebugMaster folder in plugins
- Set your Google Ads phone call conversion action to Primary and open the Call Details report
- Ask your CRM provider how often it uploads offline conversions, and push for weekly if the answer is monthly
If you want help working out which of these actually applies to your site, get in touch and we will go through it with you.
Sources
- Search Engine Roundtable, Google AI Mode Gemini 3.8 Flash not link or citation friendly
- Search Engine Roundtable, Google Search using Gemini 3.8 Flash in AI Mode
- Search Engine Land, Gemini 3.8 Flash rolling out in Google Search
- PPC Land, AI Mode shows the same products 21.6 percent more expensive
- Search Engine Journal, Google AI Mode prices differ from the product carousel
- Instagram, about the Bonus programme rules
- SC Media, WordPress backdoors blend in with legitimate utilities
- Search Engine Roundtable, Google Ads new phone call and offline conversions details