This is the news from Thursday 12 November. Read the latest news
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Google’s November core update, ChatGPT Business Hub and more
Today in 30 seconds
- Google starts the November 2026 core update
- ChatGPT Business Hub lets you claim your business and see clicks
- Claude Meetings joins your Google Meet calls as a helper
- Gemini 4 Carbon opens to all paying developers at a launch price
- Modern Web Guidance 1.0 teaches your coding agent new web features
- Google warns that a new CDN can overload your server at first
- Windows updates fix an Outlook flaw that attackers already use
- GitHub Dependabot alerts will pause on inactive repositories
- Reddit Reviews turns subreddit chats into AI product reviews
- Apple Support Community forums close for good on 20 November
- Google’s $29.99 Pixel Tag finds your keys with any Android phone
Good morning. Google has started its last core update of the year, right before Black Friday. ChatGPT now lets you claim your business, and Claude can join your meetings. Let’s go.
Google starts the November 2026 core update
Google began rolling out the November 2026 core update on 10 November. It applies to all countries and all languages. Google says the rollout may take up to two weeks.
Google calls it a regular update. It aims to show “relevant, satisfying content” from all types of sites. The last two core updates came in March and May 2026. If it runs the full two weeks, it ends around 24 November, three days before Black Friday.
Why it matters Rankings will move for the next two weeks, in the busiest sales season of the year. Don’t make big changes to your site while it rolls out.
My advice: note your traffic today, then wait at least a week after the rollout ends before you compare. If you want a refresher on the basics, read why SEO matters, and 5 fixes you can start this week.
ChatGPT Business Hub lets you claim your business and see clicks
OpenAI has launched Businesses in ChatGPT in beta, with a new Business Hub. You can claim your business, check its details and add product feeds with prices. You verify it with a text, a phone call to your main number, or a DNS record.
The hub shows how often ChatGPT mentions you, clicks to your website and the topics people ask about. Business Agents, which chat with customers for you, start with eligible online shops and service businesses in the US. Shopify stores can connect through Shopify admin.
Why it matters This is the first real data on how ChatGPT sends people to your site. It is free to claim, so do it now before someone else edits your details.
We reported on 8 November that this was coming. It came fast.
Claude Meetings joins your Google Meet calls as a helper
Anthropic has launched Claude Meetings in beta for Team and Enterprise plans. Claude joins a Google Meet call as a visible guest and says so in the chat. It can draft plans, build timelines on a whiteboard and answer questions while you talk.
After the call, notes and action items wait in claude.ai. Claude won’t join calls with outside guests unless an admin allows it. Anthropic also added Claude Sheets and Claude Whiteboards in beta on paid plans, and Claude Data is now out of beta.
Why it matters Fewer people taking notes means more people listening. If you run client calls, check your admin settings before you switch it on.
Gemini 4 Carbon opens to all paying developers at a launch price
Google has made Gemini 4 Carbon available to all paying developers in Google AI Studio. Until 30 November it costs $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens. After that, the price doubles to $4 and $20.
Carbon is also rolling out to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the Gemini app, Antigravity and AI Mode in Search. GitHub Copilot and Vercel AI Gateway added it on the same day.
Why it matters If you want to test Carbon in your own app, this month is the cheap time to do it.
Modern Web Guidance 1.0 teaches your coding agent new web features
The Chrome team released Modern Web Guidance 1.0 on 10 November. It is a set of guides that coding agents like Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and Copilot can use. The new version can scan your HTML, CSS and JavaScript for safe upgrades.
Firefox and Edge now help write the guides too. You install it with npx modern-web-guidance@latest install.
Why it matters AI agents often write old-style code. This helps them use modern CSS and HTML features that browsers already support.
I like this one. Point it at an old project and see what it finds.
Google warns that a new CDN can overload your server at first
Google’s Gary Illyes has a new video about CDNs and Googlebot. When your site gets faster, Googlebot may crawl it more. But a new CDN starts with an empty cache, so your own server still answers the first requests.
Strict bot protection can also block Googlebot by mistake. Google suggests you warm up the cache, allow verified crawlers and use rate limits for bad bots.
Why it matters A CDN move can hurt for a few days if you don’t plan it. Watch your server and Search Console crawl stats after the switch.
If you are moving to Cloudflare, my Cloudflare 101 guide covers the setup step by step.
Windows updates fix an Outlook flaw that attackers already use
Microsoft’s November Patch Tuesday fixes about 1,090 bugs. One of them, CVE-2026-124194 in Microsoft Outlook, is already used in attacks. A specially made Office file can leak your Windows password hash, which an attacker can use to pretend to be you.
Microsoft rates it 6.5 out of 10. The update also fixes several critical Windows bugs rated 9.8, including flaws in Windows Search and LDAP.
Why it matters Install this month’s updates now. Open Settings, then Windows Update, and restart. Office updates too, so open Outlook and let it update.
GitHub Dependabot alerts will pause on inactive repositories
From 8 December, GitHub Dependabot alerts will turn off on most repositories with no activity in the past year. Old alerts are archived, not deleted. Any push turns alerts back on and restores them.
Repositories with an enforced security setting for Dependabot are not affected. The change covers github.com, but not GitHub Enterprise Server.
Why it matters An old site repo can still run live code. If it is still in use, push a small change so you keep getting security alerts.
Reddit Reviews turns subreddit chats into AI product reviews
Reddit Reviews is now rolling out to all US users on iOS, Android and the web. It gathers product talk from Reddit into review pages, with an AI summary of what people like and dislike. It starts with about 10,000 products.
Reddit began testing it in February with electronics, games and beauty. It plans to add more categories and countries later.
Why it matters Reddit already shows up a lot in Google and in AI answers. If you sell products, what people say about you on Reddit now matters even more.
Apple Support Community forums close for good on 20 November
Apple is shutting down the Apple Support Community forums on 20 November 2026. The site is now read-only, and you can’t post new questions. Apple points people to support.apple.com instead.
Apple has not said what happens to the old threads after the close.
Why it matters Many old Mac and iPhone fixes live in those threads. If you rely on one, save a copy this week.
Google’s $29.99 Pixel Tag finds your keys with any Android phone
The Pixel Tag is now on sale for $29.99 (US), or $99.99 for four. It works with any phone on Android 9 or newer, through Google’s Find Hub app. It uses Bluetooth and ultra-wideband, plus a network of over a billion Android devices.
It has a loud chime, IP67 water resistance and a coin battery you can swap yourself. Google says the battery lasts about a year. The Pixel Drop for November also landed, with custom icon styles for the Pixel 6a and newer.
Why it matters Android users finally get an AirTag-style tracker from Google itself, at a fair price.
Quick hits
- Yahoo Pivot Search lets you jump between normal results and a Yahoo Scout AI answer. Search Engine Roundtable
- Adobe released a local MCP so ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini can use Photoshop and Premiere features. TechCrunch
- Vercel Speed Insights now tracks custom environments like staging separately from Preview. Vercel
- Apple TV adds sign language interpreters to some shows in iOS 27.2, made by people, not AI. TechCrunch
- Meta’s Muse AI agent now works on Apple Watch and Wear OS watches. TechCrunch
- Google Fi now switches between two carriers when your signal gets slow, on Pixel 9 and newer. Engadget
- iCloud Mail, Calendar and Contacts had an outage on Tuesday, Apple’s status page showed. MacRumors
- Cloudflare explains why it picked QuePaxa, a new consensus algorithm, for an experimental service. Cloudflare
You're all caught up
That's today's web, tech and SEO news. The next edition lands tomorrow morning, around 3 am Melbourne time.That was the news from Thursday 12 November. A newer edition is waiting for you.
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That’s you caught up. If the core update has you nervous before Black Friday, my SEO team can take a look. Now go claim your business in ChatGPT. See you tomorrow.
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