This is a programming note that Tuesday and Wednesday are Sukkot and I will be offline the next two days. I will be offline on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 7th and October 8th.

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

A year ago, we learned that Google would transition from Google call ads, call-only ads, to using call assets within responsive search ads (RSAs) but we didn’t know the dates. Now, Google said this will happen in two phases: February 2026 and February 2027.

Microsoft will be shutting down its Microsoft Advertising Ads for Social Impact ad grant program. It will officially be discontinued in December 2025.

Google was previously testing placing AI-generated snippet summaries below each search result snippet. Now, Google is testing replacing the search result snippet’s description with its own AI-generated description.

As we reported earlier, Microsoft said a new Bing Places update is coming soon. Well, now it is rolling out to businesses in Bing Places for Business.

Google is testing having the “Show More” button within AI Overviews jump you directly into AI Mode as opposed to loading more of the AI Overview beneath it. This appears to be a test, as I am unable to replicate it.

If you search for [events near me], Google may not show you any events near you. It seems like Google is not serving that events carousel right now. I suspect it is a bug and I wonder if this is related to the serving bug from Friday afternoon?

Google has confirmed a Google Search serving issue that is currently ongoing and impacting serving “some pages in some locales.” This is a large enough issue that Google posted about it on its Google Search Status Dashboard.

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

Google has rolled out the new, more compact, menu bar for Google Merchant Center Next. This was part of a slew of user interface updates that Google has been slowly rolling out for Merchant Center Next over the past several months.

Google is testing another variation to the title links in the Google Search results – a light gray effect. So when you hover your mouse cursor over the snippet, the title link turns grayed and washed out.

Did you know Google can label some of the reviews in the product reviews section as “incentivized”? I am not sure I’ve seen this before, have you?

Barry Pollard from Google did a long explanation on Bluesky on why Google Search Console says an LCP is bad but the individual URLs are fine. I don’t want to mess it up, so I will copy what Barry wrote.

This week we covered the Google AI Mode news that it is more visual for many queries, including shopping queries. Google AI Mode agentic capabilities can now be opted into. Google AI Overviews…