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. I am seeing signs of a big update lurking with Google Search…

Google is testing a text-based link format for ads within AI Mode. So the ads look like normal AI Mode responses, with normal looking text links with anchor text, but they are labeled as “Sponsored” above the AI-generated response.

Google has posted the date of when the Google Ads bidding update, the target-based bid strategies rolled out, completed globally. It started on yes, August 17, 2026 and completed on August 27, 2026.

Google Ads added a new option within your Performance Max campaigns to select “Where should people go after clicking your ads?” The two available options for that question are (1) Your website and (2) Google Business Profile (optimized for ads).

Google Search seems to be heating up this morning, I am seeing a huge spike in chatter in the past few hours and the tools may be starting to heat up as well. We will know more tomorrow but I am suspecting we are seeing the start of a Google update, hopefully one Google will […]

Google announced a delay in processing applications for access to the Google Business Profile API. This was posted by Victoria Kroll in multiple languages in the Google Business Profiles support forum.

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 is testing a way to pay publishers for using their content in AI Mode…

Google’s John Mueller said it is normal for Google Search to take a while to update image thumbnails in its search results with updated images from the website it pulls from. And it can take even longer if the image is still on the page, but was only moved down the page later, even if […]

I’ve been pretty quiet on posting reports Google updates recently, in fact, I have not posted about one since late August. But while most sites seem calm in the Google rankings, there was definitely some sort of ranking blip around September 4th, and in some cases, the September 4th impact reverted on September 13th. It […]

Google is testing a blue background color on the “More” link within the product results in Google Search. The link is normally just a basic “more” link with no prominence or color that calls it out but in this test, Google is using a blue highlight color for the link.

Google continues to test new query expansion methods in AI Mode, beyond standard follow-up questions. Now Google is testing questions with multi-selection tools, a query refinement option and those recent paginated responses.

Did you know that Google AI Overviews can also quiz you on various knowledge topics? Google announced this with AI Mode a few weeks ago, but it is also available in Google Search.

Google Ads has a new beta named Product Value Optimization that allows advertisers to configure value adjustments to guide automated bidding to optimize for the products that matter for your business goals.

Google is doing a small test where it is paying publishers for using their content within the Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini and other AI search features. This is called the AI contribution pilot, something we actually spotted back in April 2026, but are now learning more about today.

Google Analytics is rolling out dashboards where you can create your own custom dashboards using Google Analytics data. Google explains that you can “create custom visualizations to quickly pull actionable insights from your Google Analytics data, all in a single, consolidated page.”