Google is adopting new AI training controls, under consideration by the IETF, that should simplify and streamline AI training controls for publishers and site owners.
Microsoft just announced new Bing AI content controls "offering newer, simpler, and clearer preferences that allow you to make choices about training, grounding, or both while remaining eligible for Bing search results," Krishna Madhavan, Principal Product Manager, Microsoft Bing, wrote.
OpenAI just sent its weekly email update to advertisers announcing the ChatGPT Ads are live in 26 more countries, a new wider standard ad unit format, Multi-image ads are now available in open beta to all advertisers, Shopify integration is now available internationally and Shopify integration is no...
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Ads in Google AI Mode make Google less per search, but Google has more searches. Google's John Mueller said AI spam tactics will be caught...
This week, we reported on Google Search volatility not once but twice this week. Google warned tools on user-generated spam guidelines. Google downplayed the importance of fresh indexing reporting. Google explained...
Everyone has been asking, what is the click-through rate you get from Google Search AI features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode. Well, a new small study says the click-through rate is about 0.9%. The study also showed that when you opt out of showing in Google's Search generative AI, it also leads...
Microsoft is now showing ads within the Bing AI Overviews powered by Copilot. I don't think I've seen ads within the AI responses in Bing Search and I personally still cannot trigger them, but Khushal Bherwani shared a screenshot of an ad within an AI Overview in Bing Search.
Halloween is tonight/tomorrow and to celebrate both Google and Bing has special easter eggs (or should I call them pumpkins) for its search results. Google asks you to find a costume using AI Mode, which is boring. But Bing has a floating ghost that explodes into candy when you tap it.
Gary Illyes from Google was recently interviewed by Aneta Samkoff, host of the Odys Podcast. The topic was all about bots and crawlers and they covered a lot of ground. Gary said bot impersonation is more of a problem now because of AI. Bot impersonation is when rogue bots pretend to be someone the...
Google seems to have stopped appending UTM parameters on Gemini links, the cited URLs in Gemini's AI responses. Google started adding UTM parameters to links in Gemini in early September, but then, around September 28th, Google stopped.
Google Search may be bringing back the ability to see 100 search results per page by bringing back the num=100 parameter. As a reminder, Google dropped this feature in September 2025 as one of many methods to prevent crawlers from scraping its search results. As you know, third-party tracking tools...
Google's John Mueller was interviewed by David Iwanow, where he shared information on AI-generated content, the future of SEO, technical SEO, the crawl stats report, redirect chains, ecommerce product data and much more. John was asked about tactics, such as listicles, being used to rank well in AI ...
Google announced earnings yesterday, and during the earnings call, Philipp Schindler, Google's senior vice president and chief business officer, said that ads in AI Mode have a "lower monetization" than ads in traditional search.
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...
Google does not show all links, and not all spammy links, within the Search Console links report. This is not new, Google has long said that the link report only shows a sampling of links.
Google is testing query refinement bubbles at the top of the AI Overviews in Google Search. But clicking the refinement bubble does not change the query, instead, it takes you into AI Mode for that query set.
Google seems to be testing mixing sponsored products, ads, within the organic product results in AI Mode. Google has this line above the product results that can say "Sponsored" and "All products." Even as I look at screenshots of this, I am not sure if the "All products" are sponsored or not.
Google has released several updates to the Merchant API for October 26. The update expands YouTube Shopping and AI-commerce reporting, adds product attributes for videos and warranties, improves disapproval diagnostics, and introduces API integration enhancements and reporting deprecations.
Google may be testing removing the citations card on the Google AI Overviews section. So when you do a search on desktop and see an AI Overview, Google generally shows a citations card that has links to the sources you can click on. Google is reportedly testing removing that card from the interface.
Google seems to be rolling out access to the Google Business Profile AI-powered messaging feature to more businesses. I believe we covered this in June of this year, but since then, Google made some updates to the feature.
Google has finally added the ability to manage and control third-party ordering services on an individual basis for restaurants within Google Business Profiles. So you can disable features completely or partially from within Google Business Profiles.
Google announced it is expanding ads in AI Mode to several more countries including Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Singapore. Then in Q4 Google will also expand ads in AI Mode to Brazil, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.
Microsoft reported its first quarter 2027 earnings, showing that its search and advertising revenue was up 12%, indicating its ad growth was 2 points higher than the previous quarter. The previous quarter it was up 10%, before that was up 12%, before that up 10% before that, up 16% and the one befor...
Google reported its earnings today, its Q3 2026 earnings report showed search ad revenues up by 10.5% at $82 billion and overall revenue was up 25% at $127.6 billion. As you know, I specifically like to dig in as best as I can on the search ad revenue side to see how Google Ads has performed.
Google Ads has just released a minor update to its Google Ads API, this is version 26.1. This update touches on assets, campaigns, local services, recommendations, reporting, and targeting.
Google announced today that you and your developers can now build apps for Google Search and Gemini. Google wrote, "today we're launching the preview of our Connected Apps Platform, a unified way for more app developers to bring their capabilities directly into Gemini and Search."
Google is out with a new video in The Non-Canonical Cabinet series, this one is on 404 pages and why they are not scary. I like how they also timed the video with a Halloween theme.
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...
Google has added a new interactive search button to some sports-related queries named "Fan POV." If you go to Google Search and search for [world series], Google will show a blue button that has a baseball emoji and the words "Fan POV." When you click on it, it opens a dialog box with drop downs tha...
Google is testing a new messaging button named Apple Messages on the Google Ads sponsored results. Google has placed messages button, message assets, on Google search ads for a long time now but I don't think I've seen the Apple Messages button before.
Google Ads seems to have rolled out the "All conversions" tab within the Goals and Conversions section. This allows advertisers to make one less click, where they can avoid clicking on "View all conversion actions."
Google is emailing businesses to let them know it is automatically adding Facebook (Meta) Messenger M.me links to their Google Business Profile. I don't think I've seen Google add m.me links to a Google Business Profile before, so this may be new.
Google is testing a new position for the Save button within Google Image Search. When you hover your mouse cursor over an image, you may see a "Save" button show up that you can click on. The previous method was to show the Save button when you click on an image and the image preview shows up in a ...
Microsoft Bing is testing adding a phone icon to the local pack on desktop, when you click on the phone button, it has a scan to call QR code with the phone number listed out. Google did this back in 2023 and now Microsoft Bing is testing it.
Google is asking some businesses to provide their EIN, Employer Identification Number and a link to their privacy policy when updating parts of their Google Business Profile.
Google Search has just updated its favicon documentation to now specify that Googlebot must be able to follow redirects from the homepage to the page where the favicon is specified. The document also explicitly says that these URLs must not be blocked by robots.txt or other means.
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...
I know I just reported on an unconfirmed Google Search ranking update from this past Saturday, October 24th. But I am now seeing a larger spike in volatility, along with an increase in SEO community chatter around another unconfirmed update over the past 24 hours.
Google's John Mueller kind of downplayed the importance of the freshness of the Google Search Console page indexing report. He said on Reddit, in response to my coverage of the report's recent slowness, that "it can feel like it's important to focus on it, but honestly, save your energy."
Google advertisers are struggling to agree on whether a specific local ad unit in Google Search is a Local Service Ad or another type of local Google ad.
Google is testing placing dotted underlined links in the sponsored results ad descriptions. When you click on them, you go to the ad destination's URL, like you would if you clicked on the title of the ad.
Google Ads said it will update its Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE) ads policy this coming January. Google said this is being done as part of a "redesign of the policy, and to improve protections, clarity and transparency."
Google has updated its Prevent user-generated spam on your site and platform help document to specify "tools that let users publish shared pages, generated content, or web apps." The update explicitly includes platforms and tools that let users create shared pages, generated content, and web apps.
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...
AI Overviews now show up for over 80% of Google Searches, that is up from 50% in June of last year and about 15% from the year before that. This is from recent data from Semrush, SE Ranking, and seoClarity.
Google has published a new help document named About Review summaries that explains that "review summaries on Search are AI-powered summaries of online reviews that appear directly as part of your Search ads." We have seen AI-generated summaries for sponsored results in Google for some time now, and...
OpenAI seems to be rolling out a new ad format for some ChatGPT Ad units that have a Learn more link, that is dotted and underlined, and also with an arrow going upwards. And in some cases, ChatGPT Ads seem to be served with Amazon DSP.
Google is reportedly testing disabling the ability to click on the sources button in the Google Discover card of articles. Normally, when you click on the sources, it will open up a new screen with all the source articles and links to them.
Google Ads updated its frequently asked questions page for AI Max search campaigns with a section on 1-click AI Max experiments. Google wrote in the document, "If your account is eligible, you may find a 1-click experiment recommendation on your Recommendations page."
This past Saturday, October 24th, we saw some significant ranking volatility captured by many of the third-party Google tracking tools. There was also some heavy chatter within the SEO industry about ranking movement and Google traffic changes over the past couple of days. The two together make me ...