Since Google launched AI Overviews (and AI Mode), there was an apparent lag or delay from when a web page would be removed from the Google Search index, including after getting a manual action penalty, to when it would also be removed from the AI Overview (or AI Mode). That delay is reportedly gone.

We knew Google would appeal the search monopoly ruling; in fact, Google asked the courts to pause the remedies until the appeal is handled. Google was ruled an illegal monopoly in August 2024 but then the courts refused to break up Google as part of the remedies in September 2025.

Back in March, we were the first to talk about Microsoft Bing testing a new AI version of Bing image search. Microsoft was not talking about it, but it was clear that this was an AI-curated, categorized, and grouped image search experience. Now, Microsoft has released and announced this version to the public.

As you know, Google announced the May 2026 core update on Thursday afternoon and it didn’t take long for the update to be felt by the SEO community. Many, not all, but many, started to feel the impact of this core update over the weekend.

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 launched the May 2026 core update on Thursday afternoon. Google Search Console links report drops tons of links…

Are you the type of SEO that digs into all the Google Search Console reporting every single day, to find technical issues or other problematic issues? Or do you sit back and just wait for an email from Search Console warning you about an issue you need to address?

Microsoft Bing is testing showing the sale price in the shopping ads within the Bing search results. Bing highlights the sale price in green and crosses out the original price, while also showing a price in a blue highlight. I am not sure what the blue highlight is.

For many many years, some SEOs have a strategy of breaking up their XML sitemap files into categories. SEOs do it for various reasons, sometimes it is dependent on the site and site structure.

OpenAI sent out an email a couple of days ago to advertisers announcing three updates to the ChatGPT Ads manager and new ChatGPT Ad experience updates. ChatGPT Ads Manager can now handle daily budgets, geo-targeting, and list view totals.

This week, we had both Google I/O and Google Marketing Live, so we have a lot of news. Google launched a new search box it is calling the intelligent search box. Google also launched Gemini 3.5 Flash, which is now powering…

It looks like the Google Search Console link report has gone haywire and is broken pretty badly. Tons of SEOs are seeing zero links in the report, whereas others are seeing huge drops in the link counts in the report.

This is a programming note that I will be completely offline for the holiday of Shavout/Shavous on Friday, May 22, 2026. Any stories published here will be scheduled, written beforehand, and not written during the holiday hours…

Google officially announced the rollout of the May 2026 core update just now, on Thursday at around 11:43 am ET. This core update is expected to take about 2 weeks to roll out. Google said this “is a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites.”

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 Marketing Live is done and we covered the new conversational discovery ads and highlighted answer ads…