As you know, OpenAI will soon show ads on ChatGPT, but now we are hearing that those ads will be charged on a pay-per-view, impression-based model, not a click-based, cost-per-click model.

Google Ads has posted new call and messaging ads terms that advertisers need to agree to in order to use those ad products. Anthony Higman posted about it on X and said, “There are some important new updates here.”

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

Google is testing adding to the verification section of the Local Service Ads detail screen various details and qualifiers. These details and qualifiers include attributes such as Passed License Check” , “Number Of Recent Bookings”, “Passed Background Check” And “Has Business Insurance.”

As you know, Google has appealed its search monopoly ruling and with that, filed a number of new documents with the court. One is an affidavit of Elizabeth Reid, Google’s Vice President and Head of Search. The other is of Jesse Adkins Director of Product Management for Search Syndication and Search Ads Syndication.

Google added an “Answer now” link or button to the Gemini app. Clicking “Answer now” will stop Google’s Gemini from thinking and then give you an answer right away using Gemini 3 Flash model.

Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind CEO, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that Google does not have “any plans” to bring ads to Gemini. This comes even after OpenAI announced ads are coming to ChatGPT.

Last week,I reported on January 15th of a Google Search ranking update with a lot of heated volatility. Truth is, it went through the weekend, but now it is spiking back up again as of yesterday and today – January 20th and 21st.

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

Google AI Mode is showing really light colored fonts for product pricing and inventory when you click on a product. This differs from the normal font type in the main Google Search results interface.

Navah Hopkins, the Microsoft Advertiser Ads Liaison, asked on LinkedIn if you will be adding Microsoft Advertising part of your marketing mix in 2026? The poll had over 200 responses, with most saying it is already included in that mix but 36% saying they will be adding it to the mix.

Back in May, Google announced updates to shopping in AI Mode. One of those announcements is to help you narrow down your AI Mode results for shopping queries using query fan-out. Well, here is an example of that where Google AI Mode is prompting you to narrow down the options.

Yep, back on comments from Google on the LLMs.txt file. Another question came up on Bluesky asking if the fact that some Google properties still have the LLMs.txt files up, if that is some sort of endorsement from Google. John Mueller from Google said, simply, “no,” it is not an endorsement.

Here is a weird one – one person named Kunjal Chawhan spotted a Google AI Overview that had an HTML font strikethrough in the text. So it looks like Google is offering an answer, but it’s struck through as a false answer…