Category Archives: computers

All things computers/servers…

Is the ad a scam? How to tell before you click

You can trust a social media platform and still get scammed by an ad running on it

Google Updates Control What You Share With Google Search With Existing Options

Google updated its Control what you share with Google Search help document to add “include existing options such as the robots meta tag, data-nosnippet, X-Robots-Tag, and the Search generative AI control,” Google said. In addition to Google updating its URL structure best practices for Google Search help document this morning.

Google Merchant Center Specifies Fast Shipping Days By Country

Google has updated its about fast shipping in Merchant Center help document to detail the days Google expects for you to qualify for fast shipping in Merchant Center. This is specific for listings in the AU, CA, IN, JP, GB, US.

Google Updated Its URL Structure Best Practices For Hyphens In URLs

Google has made a minor change to its URL structure best practices for Google Search help document. Specifically, the “Use hyphens to separate words” section. The overall meaning of the section really did not change but Google did update it, so I wanted to point out the update.

Google Search Ranking Volatility & Chatter Heats Up October 20 & 21

Google Search rankings seem to be getting super volatile again, this is alongside the search industry chatter that has been spiking to unusual levels over the past 24 hours. As a reminder, the third-party tracking tools may still be struggling to track the volatility, but when I look at that, coupled with the industry chatter, […]

Google Ads New: Save & Test Asset Group Changes

Google Ads is possibly rolling out a new asset group A/B test toggle named “Save and test asset group changes.” This lets you measure the impact of changing headlines, descriptions, images and videos.

Google Ads Updates Smart Bidding Learning Doc With 7-Day Limit & Best Practices

Google Ads has updated the old “Duration of the learning period for campaigns and what affects it” to be renamed to “About Smart Bidding learning.” This is a major help document rewrite, not just a headline change. It mentions a new seven-day limit, a different explanation of what triggers and does not trigger learning and […]

OpenAI Auto Enabling Creative Enhancements In ChatGPT Ads

OpenAI sent out emails to advertisers, including me, telling me they have automatically enabled creative enhancements for my ChatGPT Ads. The email says this is starting on October 30, 2026 and I can opt out of creative enhancements or change your settings at any time in Ads Manager.

Google Ads Expands Financial Services Verification To US & Canada

Google has announced it is expanding its Google Ads Financial Services Verification requirements to the United States and Canada. Google is working with the American Bankers Association and Canadian Bankers Association for this.

Daily Search Forum Recap: October 20, 2026

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Google Removes AI Overviews Labels On Some AI Overviews

Google seems to be removing the AI Overviews label from some of the search results that are AI Overviews. The desktop version is missing the AI Overview label, while the mobile version has the AI Overview label.

Google Hotel Ads Legacy Length Of Booking Bid Adjustment Doc

The Google Ads team posted a new help document that talks about the length of booking bid adjustment in legacy Hotel campaigns versus Search campaigns for travel. Hotel campaigns multiply your base bid by the traveler’s itinerary length of stay (LoS) but Search campaigns for travel (SCT) don’t.

Google Search Internal Issues With Square Brackets [] Punctuations In URLs

Google Search had some issues handling square brackets punctuation marks (i.e. [ ]) within URLs. John Mueller from Google responded to former Googler, Vanessa Fox, saying that he is “seeing some of the issues internally that came up with these kinds of characters in the URL.”

Bing Tests Not Showing Sitelinks

Microsoft seems to be testing not showing sitelinks under the main Bing search result snippets. I am honestly not sure if this is new but I was able to replicate Bing showing sitelinks for the first search result snippet in one browser and for the same query, it not showing the sitelinks.

Google Business Profiles Verification With Government ID

Google is testing a new way to verify your Google Business Profiles, the method is by uploading a photo of your government ID. This is in addition ot the phone/text, email, live video call or snail mail verification methods.