Outlet
SERoundtable
Google continues rolling out AI features across Merchant Center, adding dashboard summaries, search suggestions, and chat history access.
Bing is testing a blur/fade effect on related search suggestions to highlight the hovered option and reduce visual clutter.
Google is overhauling its gambling ads certification process and requirements effective August 26, 2026, requiring new application forms and stricter compliance standards across all gambling verticals.
Google has replaced its Comparison Listing ads with CSS Product Listing ads, which appear alongside merchant listings in shopping carousels.
Google is discontinuing the Related Search ad format for AdSense auto ads effective August 6, 2026, with no action required from publishers.
Major publishers are considering blocking Google Search over declining traffic value while the EU fined Google $1B for DMA violations.
Major publishers including USA Today, Politico, Reuters, and others are seriously considering blocking Google Search entirely as traffic from the search engine continues to decline.
Google is rolling out structural changes to EU hotel search results, introducing a multi-provider Hotel Multi-Pack and direct hotel website module in response to Digital Markets Act compliance requirements.
Google is now notifying users when their reviews don't post and offering an appeals process, rolling out globally this week.
Google has released Ads API v25, a major update bringing new reporting features and goals support across campaigns, planning, conversions, and more.
Google is testing rounded corners and white borders on images in the Discover feed, a visual design experiment first spotted by researcher Damien Andell.
The EU fined Google €890 million ($1B) for self-preferencing its own services in Search results and restricting app steering on Google Play, with 60 days to comply or face penalties up to 5% of global turnover.
Google's Q2 2026 search ad revenue grew 14.5% to $81.6 billion, driven by AI Overviews and AI Mode adoption.
Business owners report their review replies have vanished from Google Business Profiles, though replies remain visible in incognito mode and the issue appears widespread.
Google deployed Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite to Search, a court dismissed its scraping lawsuit against SerpApi, and Google Ads enforced new appeal deadlines and reorganized features.
Google has begun rolling out its Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite model in Search to power faster agentic search experiences and conversational query understanding.
Google and ChatGPT are separately testing whether moving citation cards from top to bottom of AI-generated answers affects user click behavior.
A federal judge dismissed Google's DMCA anti-circumvention lawsuit against SerpApi, ruling that publicly accessible search results and snippets are not copyrighted works Google can legally protect.
Google Ads now prevents appeals of policy violations older than 6 months, effective July 21, 2026.
Google refreshed its crawl budget guidance to clarify that all sites start with the same conservative crawl capacity limit, which can expand automatically if demand and health metrics support it.
SERoundtable's daily recap covers Google Local Services Ads moving to the main Ads platform, PMax documentation updates, and new Bing search features.
Google is consolidating Local Services Ads into its main Google Ads platform via a new Performance Max campaign type, rolling out in phases from August 2026 through 2027.
Google made minor grammatical updates to its Performance Max help docs, with the text customization section remaining substantively unchanged.
Bing is testing an expandable sitelinks interface with an "Open" button that toggles a side panel showing domain links, a departure from traditional sitelinks display.
Bing is testing an image section within its shopping panel display, spotted by a user but not yet widely replicated.
SERoundtable's daily forum recap highlights search ranking volatility, Google's confirmation that AI features drive billions of clicks weekly, and warnings about Shopify app reinstalls and AI label placement.
Google's search leaders claim AI features drive billions of weekly clicks to websites, but Barry Schwartz notes this conflicts with data showing search traffic and CTR are actually declining.
Google explicitly warns Shopify merchants not to uninstall and reinstall the Google & YouTube app, as the Content API to Merchant API migration will happen automatically by August 18.
Google is accepting extension requests to delay the August 18, 2026 sunset of its Content API for Shopping, with businesses able to apply for delays until October 15 or December 31, 2026.
Google softened its guidance on AI label placement in image ads, moving from a specific 5.5% margin rule to vaguer language about avoiding corners.
SEO tracking tools detected ranking volatility over the July 18-19 weekend, though Google has not confirmed a new update.
SERoundtable's daily forum recap covers Google Ads bidding updates, Google Maps' apparent removal of OpenTable integration, and Gemini Notebook rebranding across Google's suite.
SERoundtable's weekly video roundup covers Google's July 11 ranking volatility, AI-generated images in AI Overviews, Smart Bidding stance, local inventory ads rollout, and new ChatGPT Ads metrics.
Google removed its OpenTable help document from Maps support but confirmed the partnership remains active after documentation consolidation.
Google renamed its NotebookLM user-agent from Google-NotebookLM to Google-GeminiNotebook to align with the product's rebranding to Gemini Notebook.
Google updated its StoreBot crawler troubleshooting documentation with clarifications on accessibility, robots.txt, IP blocking, and reprocessing timelines.
Bing is experimenting with a filled black magnifying glass icon instead of its previous outlined design in the search bar.
SERoundtable recaps significant search updates including Google's indexing guidance, Apple's home services ad ban, and a September consolidation of Shopping policies.
Google's John Mueller clarifies that low-quality and AI-generated content often triggers reduced crawling and indexing, showing as 'crawled—currently not indexed' in Search Console.
Apple has updated its Maps Ads policies to prohibit home service businesses, bail bonds, crypto ATMs, and certain medical services from advertising on the platform.
Google has removed the ability to manually add or update products in Manufacturer Center, requiring users to switch to the API or file uploads instead.
Google's Gary Illyes says sites are better off omitting lastmod dates in XML sitemaps entirely if those dates are incorrect or unreliable.
Google is consolidating its Shopping ads and free listings policies into one unified document in September 2026, though enforcement rules remain unchanged.
Google is turning on local inventory ads by default in Shopping campaigns and replacing the "Local products" setting with an "Inventory filter" by August 31, 2026.
Google revamped Image Search with a gallery layout, added AI image generation to AI Overviews, and is testing sponsored product hiding in Shopping results.
Google redesigned its Image Search homepage to feature a dynamic, personalized gallery of images instead of a simple search box, rolling out over the coming weeks.
Google is rolling out AI image generation directly within AI Overviews, allowing users to create custom visuals from text prompts without leaving search results.
Google is testing a hide/show toggle for sponsored products in Shopping results, extending a feature it launched for main search ads last October.