Michigan fraud warning this week, plus the free Bing report that shows where AI answers skip your site (October 19, 2026)

This Week in Web and AI

Michigan business owners got a direct fraud reminder on October 13. The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency marked Cybersecurity Awareness Month by inviting Michiganders to join the fight against fraud and learn simple steps to protect against scams. UIA Director Jason Palmer said workers and businesses alike must know how to keep themselves safe online.

The timing matters because attacks keep landing on small companies. More than half of US small businesses, 56 percent, experienced at least one cyberattack in the past year, according to the 2026 Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report. Three steps the agency recommends:

- Review your account regularly for unfamiliar activity and report anything suspicious right away.
- Log out completely when using a shared or public computer.
- Report unemployment fraud or identity theft at Michigan.gov/UIA.

Tip You Can Use Today

Publish one page of original, first-hand information this week, because AI assistants now reward source material over summaries. Ahrefs compared US ChatGPT responses from March and September and found citation patterns shifting toward original research, government agencies, regulators, and firsthand product testing, with PubMed climbing from 64th to fourth among cited domains while WebMD fell from 18th to 79th. Reddit's share of cited answers dropped from 19.1 percent to 2.3 percent, and Wikipedia's from 14.1 percent to 2.9 percent.

Here is the 30-minute version for a small business:

- Pick one question customers ask you every week.
- Answer the question with your own numbers: job counts, pricing ranges, turnaround times, before-and-after results.
- Add a dated byline with your real credentials and years in business.
- Publish the page on your own domain, then link to the page from your service page and your Google Business Profile posts.

Tool Worth Knowing

Bing Webmaster Tools now shows the topics where AI answers cite you and where AI answers skip you, at no cost. Microsoft added a beta feature called Topics Portfolio to the AI Performance report on October 13, 2026, grouping the grounding queries where a site is cited in AI answers into topic clusters and listing opportunity queries where other sites are cited and yours is not. Sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools, open the AI Performance report for your site, and select the Topics tab.

Two cautions before you act on the data: Bing warns that topic labels are AI-generated, that small sites may see no tab at all, and that competitor brand queries can appear as opportunities, with date windows limited to one, two, or three months.

Talk to AppWT

If the Topics Portfolio report shows competitors cited in your topics and your site missing, AppWT can close the gap with original content built for AI answer engines. Schedule a free consultation at https://appwt.com/schedule, call +1 (888) 565-0171, text +1 (734) 203-0171, or email sales@appwt.com. Family-owned in Michigan since July 1, 1997, serving 9,536+ clients. Under-promise, Over-deliver.