SEO News Today - Hourly Aggregation from Top SEO Blogs

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

While I was offline, it seems the chatter within the SEO industry spiked around the topic of search ranking volatility. It is harder to confirm the volatility, now with the…

Google announced it will replace the “Ad networks” blocking control from Brand safety within in AdSense with a new “Authorized Buyers” blocking control. This will start on November 6, 2025,…

Google AI Mode is now available in over 200 countries and territories. Google said they are expanding AI Mode to “more than 35 new languages and over 40 new countries…

Google upgraded the Try On feature to now support shoes, in addition to other forms of clothing. Plus, Try on will soon also work in Australia, Canada and Japan, Google…

Google seems to be testing a new Insights feature for Google Business Profiles. The new insights section shows you profile suggestions, like tips on getting more reviews, what to update…

Google added Google NotebookLM to the list of Google crawlers, under the list of user-triggered fetchers. Google said they added this user-agent “based on feedback.”

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

Google has added a new promotion option to Google Merchant Center. The new option is Google Wallet. Google doesn’t detail what this promotion does but it likely lets you promote…

Microsoft is telling Bing Search users when it is using history for some of its search features. Bing will show section named “History” and then say what history is knows…

Google is testing a new, more publisher-friendly version of the AI Overviews for recipe results. The new design has the recipe cards at the top, citations at the bottom and…

Google is testing using the italic font type for the links in AI Mode. So the links have a bit of a slant to them, compared to the other text…

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

Microsoft is testing a new and updated layout for its Copilot product box/section within the Bing search results. It looks like they just swap the answer and product listing sections…

Google had a bug in Google Discover that showed the publisher’s name and logo twice on a story. The publisher’s name showed once at the top and once at the…

Google Search is testing a new carousel to promote AI Mode named “Ask AI Mode anything.” It gives you ideas on how to “Explore” new or related topics in AI…

Google updated the wording in the title documentation for Merchant Center, now suggesting you can use your own brand or company name in the short title of your products. That…

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

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…

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…

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…

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 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.

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

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….

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…

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

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….

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…

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?

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…

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…

Microsoft is testing using really large images in the Bing Search Copilot ads. I don’t believe I’ve seen such large ads in this ad unit before, so it seems new…

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

This is just a programming note that I will be 100% offline starting Wednesday night (October 1st) through Thursday night (October 2nd) for Yom Kippur. I am not scheduling any…

Google’s spam update completed after almost a month rollout, it was pretty wild and got even more wild after the rollout completed. Google AI Mode rolled out to more languages,…

Google is testing having the citations stick to the top (of the AI Overview section only) as you scroll down past the AI Overview. This keeps those citations more in…

Google announced that AI Mode had been updated to handle and respond more visually. So AI Mode responses both understand your queries in a more visual way and respond with…

Here is a new interview published yesterday by The Economic Times Podcasts with Elizabeth Reid, VP of Google Search. She spoke about Google’s progression of AI in Search, content quality,…

In June, Google began testing showing a new answer box for emoji related queries. So when you search for a specific type of emoji, Google will give you the emoji…

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…

OpenAI announced Instant Checkout in ChatGPT, allowing you to make purchases directly in ChatGPT. This is powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol that is built with Stripe.

Google is testing not underlining the search result snippets when you hover your mouse cursor over the snippet. Generally, Google will add an underline to the title of the link…

Google is testing a blue progress bar under the Shopping Ads carousel in the search results. As you scroll the carousel to see more products, the blue progress bar will…

Google added a new report to the Google AdSense reporting named traffic source breakdown. This report helps you understand the origins of your page traffic. It also categorizes traffic based…

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

We covered the topic of taking over an old domain name from someone else and how that can sometimes be problematic in the Google SEO world. But here is a…

Google seems to be testing or rolling out a new AI chat feature labeled “Ask Stores” within Google Shopping. The AI chat feature lets you “Ask about hard-to-find items, shopping,…

On Friday, I reported on some folks gaining access to agentic features in AI Mode. Well, Robby Stein from Google announced later that day that anyone in the US can…

A number of local SEOs are noticing a lift in the number of suspensions they are dealing with in Google Business Profiles. Many local SEOs are reporting that they are…

Google said it will be strict in enforcing accurate pricing for lodging listings on Google, both for ads and free booking links. There is no policy change but they will…

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. The Google Ads…

Google seems to be testing showing the local pack, Google Business Profile listings, at the top of the Google Shopping results in the Shopping tab. Normally, Google does not show…

Back in May, we covered how Google was testing a new sponsored results label that placed a few ads beneath it, as opposed to labeling each and every ad as…

A month ago, Google announced new agentic (agent based) features for AI Mode. Well, some are now seeing this live in AI Mode, specifically making reservations at recommended restaurants.

Google is sunsetting the session-related metrics for Google AdSense. Google said this includes all metrics that rely on ad sessions, such as “Ad sessions”, “Ad session RPM”, etc.