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Google’s Gemini 3 and AI Overviews are reshaping how search works—and how your content gets discovered. At the same time, enterprise agent platforms like Microsoft’s Agent 365, OpenAI’s AgentKit, Salesforce Agentforce, and Amazon’s Nova Act are making it practical to run agents as always‑on teammates. This guide shows founders and e‑commerce teams how to ship an “Agentic SEO Ops” stack in days using MCP, Google Search Console (GSC), and OpenTelemetry—plus the guardrails to keep it safe and compliant. Sources: Wired on Gemini 3, Google on AI Mode, Wired on Agent 365, TechCrunch on AgentKit, Agentforce 360, Nova Act.

What you’ll build

An “Agentic SEO Ops” system that:

• Runs a daily Topic Radar to spot rising queries, content gaps, and decays in rankings.
• Triggers a Content Refresh Agent to create briefs and update pages safely.
• Maintains a Machine‑Readable Layer (titles, headings, schema, FAQs) aligned with Google’s guidance on gen‑AI content and spam. Guidance, policy context.
• Is observable with OpenTelemetry (token metrics, latency, success rate) and governed with OPA approvals.

Why this matters for 2026 SEO

• AI Overviews and AI Mode are appearing more often and in more countries, changing how links surface and what gets cited. Your site must be extractable and current. Google, Google.
• Agents are moving from hype to operations. Managing them like services—with registries, policies, and tracing—separates teams that scale from those that stall. Wired, TechCrunch.
• Security remains a top concern (impersonation, unsafe actions). Put approvals and a firewall in front of write operations. Business Insider.

Reference architecture

Build on an MCP‑ready agent with a registry and policy layer:

1. Agent Registry (identity + secrets): store agent IDs, scopes, and API creds. See our guide: Agent Registry.
2. MCP Connectors:
   • GSC API (read) to pull queries, CTR, impressions. docs.
   • CMS API (write) to propose draft updates.
   • Slack/Email for approvals and notifications.

   Learn MCP basics: Anthropic MCP.

3. Policy & Approvals: Open Policy Agent (OPA) enforces “who can change what,” plus a human approval step for high‑risk edits. OPA docs.
4. Observability: Emit OpenTelemetry spans and GenAI metrics (token usage, errors, model latency). OTel GenAI metrics, OTel blog.
5. Safety perimeter: Route actions through an Agent Firewall with prompt‑injection checks and domain allow‑lists.
6. CI/CD for agents: Shadow test, canary, and add kill‑switches before turning on full automation. Agent CI/CD, Reliability Lab.

Daily Agentic SEO workflows

1) Topic Radar (discover, prioritize, brief)

1. Pull last 14–28 days from GSC grouped by query → page; flag: rising impressions, falling CTR, new queries with high impressions/no landing page. example queries.
2. Cross‑reference with your product/news roadmap; auto‑draft briefs (title, H2s, FAQs, schema) and propose internal links.
3. OPA policy gates: low‑risk metadata updates can auto‑merge; content edits require human approve.

2) Content Refresh Agent (fix decay, improve CTR)

• Detect pages with falling clicks but steady impressions; generate variant titles/meta; schedule A/B tests via CMS.
• Ensure a Machine‑Readable Layer: every claim in hero banners exists as text and, where relevant, schema markup. Align with Google’s guidance on gen‑AI content and spam policies. policy.

3) SERP Change Watcher (respond to AI Overviews)

• Monitor queries where AI Overviews appear more often; identify what the overview cites (patterns like definitions, step lists, prices) and ensure your pages expose equivalent, current facts.
• Refresh FAQs and add citations to authoritative sources when helpful. Track impact weekly.

4) Internal Link Optimizer

• Suggest links from high‑authority evergreen posts to newly published or refreshed pages, especially for seasonal peaks (e.g., BFCM). For e‑commerce ideas, see: BFCM Agent Automations.

Governance, safety, and cost control

• Guardrails: Put a human‑in‑the‑loop for page‑body edits; auto‑approve non‑risky metadata and link updates. Use our 48‑hour governance checklist.
• Security: Limit tool scopes; prevent impersonation risks; require approvals for external posts. Firewall, Cohere perspective.
• Observability: Trace every run with span attributes: query count, tokens in/out, approval outcome, publish delta. Start with OTel’s GenAI metrics. spec.
• Cost control: Cap tokens per run, use routing and prompt diet. See our 14‑day plan: Cut Spend 20–40%.

MVP in 48 hours: step‑by‑step

1. Day 1 morning: Stand up an Agent Registry and connect MCP to GSC (read‑only) and your CMS (draft‑only).
2. Day 1 afternoon: Emit OpenTelemetry spans and metrics (token usage, latency, errors, approvals). Ship dashboards and error alerts. Reliability Lab.
3. Day 2 morning: Implement OPA policies and human approvals; enable kill switch; route all writes through the Firewall. CI/CD, Firewall.
4. Day 2 afternoon: Turn on Topic Radar + Content Refresh in shadow mode; compare CTR and clicks; after review, promote low‑risk changes.

KPIs to track weekly

• New query coverage: % of rising queries with a mapped landing page.
• Refresh velocity: briefs → approved → published cycle time.
• CTR lift: on refreshed pages vs. baseline.
• Token cost per net new click: use our cost playbook to keep it in check. Playbook.

Notes on vendor landscape

Enterprise agent management is accelerating: Microsoft’s Agent 365 for bot oversight, OpenAI’s AgentKit for agent building, Salesforce’s Agentforce 360, and Amazon’s Nova Act for browser control. Plan for interoperability and observability from day one. Sources: Wired, TechCrunch, TechCrunch, TechCrunch.

Wrap‑up

SEO is shifting from campaigns to systems. By combining MCP connectors, Search Console data, OPA policy, and OpenTelemetry, you can keep your content fresh, machine‑readable, and safe—ready for Google’s AI‑driven search in 2026.

Call to action: Want a ready‑to‑ship Agentic SEO Ops template? Subscribe for playbooks or start with our Control Plane blueprint, then book a free 30‑minute consult with HireNinja to tailor it to your stack.