Google answers the question before the click
Type "why is my AC blowing warm air" into Google and the first thing on the page is an AI Overview: a paragraph that names the usual suspects (dirty filter, low refrigerant, tripped breaker) and tells the reader to call a technician if the easy fixes fail. AI Overviews have been on US results since May 2024. In May 2025 Google added AI Mode, a full chat-style tab. Both sit above everything else.
Type "AC repair near me" and the page looks the way it did two years ago: Local Services Ads on top, the map with three businesses, then the paid ads. The AI answer appears on the question search and stays out of the hiring search.
What that does to a contractor's traffic: the blog post about warm air loses clicks, because the reader got the answer without leaving Google. The Business Profile and the Local Services listing matter more, because that is where the reader lands once the AI answer tells them to call someone. Spend on the pages that take a booking.
The refrigerant switch changed the replacement conversation
Manufacturers stopped building residential split systems on R-410A on January 1, 2025, and the sell-through of old stock ended on January 1, 2026. Everything you install now runs on R-454B or R-32. The R-454B cylinder shortage of spring 2025 is over. The price gap between the R-410A quote a homeowner got two years ago and the quote they get now is not.
Homeowners heard a version of this on the news, usually as "new AC units cost more now." Some of them are putting off a replacement they should make. Some are asking whether their old R-410A system can still be serviced (yes, for years). A replacement page that answers those two questions in plain language, with a real price range for your metro, outperforms one that lists SEER ratings.
The 25C credit is gone
The Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit paid a homeowner 30% of the cost of qualifying equipment, capped at $2,000 a year for a heat pump and $600 for a qualifying central air conditioner. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, ended it for equipment placed in service after December 31, 2025. This is the first cooling season without it.
Homeowners still ask about it on the phone, and a lot of contractor websites still say "up to $2,000 back." Those pages need to come down. We wrote a separate piece on selling replacements now that the credit is off the table.
Fake reviews are a federal matter
The FTC's rule on consumer reviews took effect October 21, 2024. Buying reviews, posting reviews from employees or relatives without saying so, paying for reviews on the condition that they are positive, and threatening customers to get a review taken down are each a violation, with civil penalties per review. Every HVAC owner has been offered a package of "50 five-star reviews, $300" at some point. Today that offer is a liability, and Google has become better at removing the reviews and, sometimes, the profile.
The clean way still works: ask every customer, at the truck, with the technician's name on the request. Reply to every review within a day.
Lead marketplaces kept selling the same lead
Angi, Thumbtack and HomeAdvisor still sell one homeowner's request to several contractors at once, and the contractor who calls first usually wins. Local Services Ads charge per lead as well, but the lead is yours alone, you can dispute the junk, and the listing carries your reviews and the Google Guaranteed badge. That difference is where most of our clients' repair budget has gone for two seasons now.
The older channels still work; trucks still need wraps and yard signs still get calls. What changed is the order: Business Profile and Local Services first, then search, then the rest.