Caveats for the June 2026 Google-history SMB brief — cost/causation claims are weak; "now" data is mostly US/global not Canada-specific; vendor sources were used skeptically; rollout state is moving fast

Caveats compiled June 2026 for the Research brief: How businesses got found on the web — a then→now timeline (Google-focused, SMB lens, June 2026) brief:

• Cost/causation claims are weak across the board. Dates and product launches are well-documented; assertions that any given shift "forced businesses to spend more" or that Google deliberately buried organic to sell ads are largely interpretation — flagged where they appear. See Rule: When telling the Google history story publicly, keep dates and product launches separate from causation/motive claims — the documented record is the former, not the latter.
• The "now" data is mostly US/global, not Canada-specific. The Pew study (Pew Research (July 22, 2025) — real-browsing field study of 900 US adults / 68,879 March 2025 searches: clicks to traditional results 8% with an AI summary vs 15% without; only 1% clicked a link inside the AI summary) is US, March 2025; the local-query studies are US/global. Exact Canadian figures aren't published. Canada also trails the US on the AI rollout curve.
• Vendor sources were treated skeptically. Seer (Seer Interactive (September 2025) — 3,119 informational queries across 42 organisations / 25.1M organic impressions (June 2024 → Sep 2025): organic CTR fell 61% (1.76% → 0.61%), paid CTR fell 68% (19.7% → 6.34%)), Ahrefs (Ahrefs December 2025 re-run (published February 4, 2026) — for every 100 clicks you could historically earn for a top-ranking page, Google now keeps 58 (up from 34.5% click loss in April 2025)), Whitespark (Whitespark Q2 2025 local-search study — AI Overviews appeared on 15% of simple local-intent queries vs 92% informational vs 97% hybrid; local pack appeared on 93% of local-intent vs 6% of informational) and Local Falcon (Local Falcon (2025) — AI Overviews on 17.2% of commercial queries vs 58.3% of informational; including a location name reduced AI Overview appearance (35% vs 46%)) all have incentive to dramatise. They're labelled and corroborated where possible. Pew and Google's own announcements are the backbone.
• AI rollout status is moving fast and region-uneven. Figures like AI Overview prevalence fluctuate (Semrush tracked a swing across 2025) and Google adjusts behaviour frequently. Treat all "now" percentages as snapshots — re-verify before quoting in long-form work.
• The webhistory-01..11 long-form research notes were written earlier and end at ~2024; they remain reliable for pre-2024 history but do not contain the Canadian rollout dates (Oct 28, 2024 / Aug 21, 2025 / Dec 19, 2025) or the 2025 CTR studies.