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

Have you seen those Google Discover notifications that pop up and seem like news notifications from the Google app but what they do is drive you into Google AI Mode. I find them incredibly annoying, because every time I click on it, I think I am going to a news article but instead, I am […]

Google is testing prefilling the search bar in a new Chrome tab, with teasers to encourage you to search deeper with AI Mode. Google is putting in the search box, “Research a topic,” “Write something new,” “Ask Google,” and “Make a plan.”

Google Ads added a new channel control for Demand Gen to show ads in Google Maps. Some advertisers see the ability to select Maps as a placement in Demand Gen.

Google Search has been sending 25 percentage points less traffic to news publishers over the past two years, according to the folks over at Newzdash. In 2023, Google Web Search made up over 51% of traffic from Google surfaces to news publishers; that number is now down to 27%.

Some Google Ads MCC, Manager Accounts, are seeing channel performance reporting. This does not seem to have been rolled out to all advertisers yet, but Mike Ryan noticed it was rolling out on some of his MCC accounts.

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. We had big Google search ranking volatility over the weekend, likely from the end of the December core update…

OpenAI has added local knowledge panels to the ChatGPT results. When you ask for local information and then click on a business name, ChatGPT will load a local knowledge panel on the right side.

Anish Kattukaran, CPO at Google Home & Nest announced in the Google Gemini forums that Gemini will not be replacing Google Assistant by the end of 2025. He wrote, “We’re adjusting our previously announced timeline to make sure we deliver a seamless transition, and will continue our work to upgrade Assistant users to Gemini on […]

GMBapi posted data that looks at tens of thousands of Google Business Profiles across multiple countries and showed that review deletions have increased significantly over the year, compared to previous periods.

Google quietly updated its AI Overviews ad documentation to say that ads in AI Overviews are supported in Australia, Canada, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, and US. Previously, it just said it was available in the US and “will expand to select English speaking countries soon.”

Google is testing appending “learn more” links to the end of the Google search ads text. So the Google Ad will have its normal ad description and at the end, Google is testing adding “Learn more” with an arrow to the right, in blue anchor underlined text.

As you all know, Google announced the Google December 2025 core update on Thursday afternoon, December 11th, we saw some significant volatility hit early on December 13th and then it seemed to cool a bit towards the middle of the week. Now, I am seeing signs of more intense volatility hit on Saturday, December 20th.