Google updated its help document to clarify that you have four days to reject a user suggested edit to your Google Business Profile. If you do not reject the edit within four days, Google may apply that edit to your Google local listing.

New data shows that Google is showing far more external links in its AI Overviews than before. A jump from close to 0% of AI Overviews containing external links to over 25% of AI Overviews containing external links.

Google AdSense has lowered the identity verification threshold from $10 to $0, according to an update to the help documentation.

Google has updated the localized versions of your page help document to change all the hreflang examples from lowercase codes to uppercase codes. It doesn’t matter because the hreflang value is case-insensitive; Google accepts lowercase and uppercase codes.

Google Ads is expanding access to AI Briefs and also added new AI Max reporting. Google said AI Brief audience targeting works now in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. Plus, there is a new AI Max reporting feature for looking at the Search Ads journey.

Google has updated the understanding page experience in Google Search results help document to add the new CrUX ad metrics which launched last week. To be clear, Google did not say this is a specific ranking signal for search, the CrUX ad metrics line was added to the “Page experience resources” section of the document.

Google is sending email notifications to Google Merchant Center users if their e-commerce platform supports Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and if so, telling them that “your products are now eligible for native checkout.” This means that your eligible products are automatically included, so if you don’t want people buying directly on Google, and you want […]

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

Google is now sending out Google Business Profile email notifications when its spam systems detect a spike in spam reviews on your Business Profile. The email says, “Protecting your Business Profile from spam reviews,” and adds, “Google has detected a spike in spam reviews on your Business Profile and removed them so they do not […]

Google is placing links, normal looking links, within the AI Overviews that take you into AI Mode instead of taking you to web pages and web sites. These links appear at the bottom of the AI Overview and prompt follow-up questions that take you into AI Mode.

Google added a new section to the Google Store ratings: An overview for Merchants within Google Merchant Center detailing the requirements for Google Store ratings. This was added a week or so ago, and it says you need at least 100 reviews, an average star rating of 3.5 to 5, a 24-hour timeframe and the […]

In Google Business Profiles, businesses can go in and mark their business as “Permanently closed.” But it seems that option went missing a few days ago. I no longer see it as an option, along with the option to select “temporarily closed” and some others.

It looks like spammers are taking advantage of Gemini Notebook, public NotebookLM, pages to spam Google with all sorts of content. This includes pages on sex toys, porn, peptides, coupon codes and more.

This is a programming note: I will be 100% offline from Sunday night (September 20th) through Monday night (September 21st) for Yom Kippur. I am not scheduling any stories tomorrow, Monday, Yom Kippur; nothing will be posted.