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

Google seems to have a bug that prevents searchers from leaving hotel reviews directly in the Google Search desktop interface. It works fine within Google Maps and Hotel search interfaces but not in the web search interface.

Google Shopping is updating its promotions policy to now allow for promotions on subscription fees and abbreviations. This was updated as of this month, January 2026.

I am seeing signs of a possible Google search ranking update or volatility around January 12, 2026. This is weird in that most of the tools, not all, are mostly calm, but the chatter has picked up and many SEOs are noticing ranking fluctuations.

It is now official, Google confirmed it has entered “into a multi-year collaboration” with Apple to power Apple Intelligence features and Siri with Google’s Gemini models and cloud technology.

Microsoft Advertising has expanded the number of search themes it allows to 50 search themes for Performance Max campaigns. This should be live now but Microsoft will announce it sometime this week.

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

In a rare Sunday launch, Google announced new AI Mode ads named Direct Offers. Google also announced branded AI agents and a new open standard for agentic commerce it calls Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP).

Google’s Robby Stein reiterated that Google’s AI experience, such as AI Mode and AI Overviews, integrates Google’s core search signals. This helps Google provide more useful and helpful responses to users in the AI experiences. But it doesn’t always get it right, as many of you know.

Google Ads seems to be slowly rolling out a new Google Ads experimental feature in the Google Ads Lab section named Brand Linking. Brand linking lets you “Link customers to brands,” it reads.

Google announced new Business Agents, branded AI Agents, a “new way for shoppers to chat with brands, right on Search,” Google said. “It’s like a virtual sales associate that can answer product questions in a brand’s voice, enabling retailers to connect with consumers during critical shopping moments and help drive sales,” Google added.

Google Ads has a new experiment feature for Performance Max campaigns that lets you A/B-test assets. This allows you to compare the performance of 2 different sets of assets within the same asset group to find out which creative combination works best for your Performance Max campaign.

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

Navah Hopkins, the Microsoft Ads Liaison, posted a reminder on LinkedIn, encouraging advertisers to ensure the email settings are all configured properly. You can get monthly invoices, billing alerts, account notifications, ad and keyword rejection notices, optimization and performance tips and more.

In September, we posted about a number of local pack design tests from Microsoft Bing. But now, Bing might be testing a more retro, older-looking interface for the local pack in the Bing search results.