For real this time, Google has released the Google Search Console generative AI performance reports and Search generative AI controls to everyone globally. This follows a slow rollout that began in the first week of June and expanded access to the features over the past few months.

Google Ads has been testing AI-generated snippets and summaries in the sponsored results within Google Search for some time. But now Google is labeling a new section named “What customers love” as “AI-generated from the store rating reviews.”

On Friday, Google pushed out a pretty big overhaul of the Performance Max documentation within the Google Ads support area. I’ve been waiting to compare the old and new documents, but the Wayback Machine has been down for about a week now.

Google’s John Mueller was asked if Google would penalize a site for old outbound links to a site that once hosted quality content and now changed ownership and hosts shady content. John said Google won’t penalize such links; he said “no” and added, “the web is full of turmoil.”

Google has updated its Google European Search Dataset Licensing Program page with details on the program. Google has been designated as a “gatekeeper” under the DMA and is thus legally required to share its search data with competing search engines to foster fair competition.

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. Google Search is making AI Overviews fully expanded for some queries, making it more like AI Mode and pushing the core search results down…

Rajan Patel, VP of Engineering for Google Search, has confirmed that the Google Search team is still well-resourced in its fight against search spam. The spam team continues to update its spam algorithms, such as the latest Google August 2026 spam update, to help reduce spam in Google Search results.

Google is now showing shopping ads in a carousel format inline within AI Mode results. Plus, Google is also showing a similar ad unit at the bottom of the AI Mode results. We got a lot of ads in AI Mode now, and I guess Google is looking for more and more ways to monetize […]

Microsoft Advertising is previewing a new design and usability update for its ad platform. This update has a redesigned navigation and improved tables and layouts. This update should make managing your ad campaigns more efficient and intuitive.

Google posted a note that it has made enhancements to the Merchant Center’s Popular products reports. Specifically, the coverage and insights sections were improved back in June of this year, but Google just posted about this information on this past Friday afternoon.

Microsoft is now forcing all users to log in before using Copilot, but this currently does not apply to Copilot Search answers within Bing Search. When you try to go directly to Copilot, even by clicking on the Copilot button on Bing’s home page, you are asked to sign into your account.

Google Search is testing pushing searchers into AI Mode from the AI Overview by default, without having to click the “Show more” button. The new AI Overview experience that Google is testing shows a much fuller AI answer, like you’d get in AI Mode, and loads the follow up “Ask anything” box by default.

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. A first, Google won’t enforce a spam policy within the European region…

Google has two, well, maybe three, features that are being confused as one. The preferred sources, the tailor your feed and also search profiles. All kind of customize what you see across Google Search features including Google Search, AI Mode, Discover and so on. But they are all different features.