Daily Search Forum Recap: January 9, 2026
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
This week’s SEO Pulse highlights the tensions emerging as search engines tighten quality standards for sites while defending their own AI outputs. The post SEO Pulse: Core Update Favors Niche…
This week, yep, we had another story on Google Search ranking volatility. I posted the Google webmaster report for January 2026. Google Discover seems to be showing too many…
Google’s Danny Sullivan and John Mueller spoke on the Search Off the Record podcast about whether hiring an AEO/GEO or buying an AI-optimization tool is any different than hiring an…
Google’s Danny Sullivan said on the Search Off the Record podcast that was published yesterday that Google does not want you to turn your content into bite-sized chunks to rank…
Microsoft announced its AI-agents agentic experiences under the names of Copilot Checkout and Brand Agents. Copilot Checkout lets you shop and checkout directly in the Copilot chat experience and Brand…
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…
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…
Build a disciplined yet agile SEO process with daily, monthly, quarterly, and annual planning that drives lasting performance. The post SEO Maintenance: A Checklist For Essential Year-Round Tasks appeared first…
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
AI answers aren’t neutral by design, and this breakdown shows where preference forms and how it reshapes modern discovery. The post Being Right Isn’t Enough For AI Visibility Today appeared…
In this article, we find out if there’re any differences between how AI systems handle JavaScript-rendered or interactively hidden content compared to traditional Google indexing. The post Ask An SEO:…
Microsoft is hiring a “very” Senior Product Manager who will initially work on fighting spam across Bing and Copilot. Fabrice Canel said this is a “very” senior PM role and…
Greg Gifford, a veteran automotive and local SEO, published a hard warning to vendors suggesting that they tell automotive dealerships to set up separate Google Business Profile department listings for…
John Mueller, a Google Search Analyst, responded to a question on Reddit named Is SEO still enough, or do we need to start thinking about GEO too? In short, John…
Adam Wathan the creator of Tailwind CSS posted that he had to let go of 75% of his engineering team because of AI. He said traffic to the Tailwind help…
Google seems to be testing showing call assets on Vehicle Ads within Google Search. So on the Vehicle Ads there is a way to call the dealer or seller, like…
With AI tools at everyone’s fingertips, what does “great” content writing mean in 2026? Content writing is about using words and psychology to deliver value, earn trust, and move readers…
Google’s John Mueller says “Page Indexed without content” errors typically indicate server or CDN blocking of Googlebot, not JavaScript issues. Here’s what to check. The post Google’s Mueller Explains ‘Page…
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
This analysis explains why AI-driven search surfaces out-of-market sources and how organizations can align semantic authority with commercial usability. The post Why Global Search Misalignment Is An Engineering Feature And…
Turn fragmented SERPs and AI summaries into an advantage by building a brand structure that search engines and users can trust. The post How Search Engines Tailor Results To Individual…
There are a number of SEOs and site owners complaining that they saw a large drop in Google Search rankings yesterday, January 6, 2026. This unconfirmed Google update does not…
Google will update how it handles multi-channel products, products sold both online and locally in the store, to help with managing inventory. Google emailed merchants that this applies to and…
Microsoft is testing a much larger “Ask Copilot” button on the Bing home page. Normally, Bing only has a small Copilot logo on the right of the search box but…
Google’s Robby Stein confirmed (again) that Google is personalizing some of the AI experiences, including AI Overviews and AI Mode. He said this on the CNN, Terms of Service podcast…
Google is hiring a Chief of Staff on Search Intelligence, Strategy and Operations. This job is to “help architect the next era of Search with AI,” Rajan Patel, the Vice…
Google Ads quietly implements a powerful multimodal AI that improves Google’s ability to catch fraudulent advertisers. The post Google Ads Using New AI Model To Catch Fraudulent Advertisers appeared first…
They’re the keywords with the highest average search volume increase from our database of 28.7 billion keywords. These topics are trending or trended in the United States: Here’s how to…
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
AI search is replacing ranked results with single answers. This guide explains how brands earn retrieval, citations, and user trust. The post State Of AI Search Optimization 2026 appeared first…
Google posted a new job listing looking to hire a new Senior Software Engineer, Search, AI Answers Quality. The job post says “Help the AI Answers Quality team deliver AI…
A month ago, Google added LLMs.txt files to many of its developer and documentation sites including the Search developer docs. As you know, Google pulled it off the Search developer…
Microsoft Bing is testing a new home page design where it promotes its AI-powered search and answer engine, Copilot. It seems to be a limited test and is not fully…
Last November, Google announced it was dropping support for a number of structured data types and search features. One of those was practice problem structured data types, and now, Google…
Google Ads will update its advertising policies to allow ads for Prediction Markets starting on January 21, 2026. This will be allowed in the United States, but only for federally…
Google quietly published a research paper that shows how to improve recommender systems like Google Discover and YouTube. The post Google’s Recommender System Breakthrough Detects Semantic Intent appeared first on…
Early analysis of Google’s December core update points to gains for specialized sites over generalists. News publishers saw heavy volatility across surfaces. The post December Core Update: More Brands Win…
This study examines which technical SEO factors show measurable correlations with AI citations, and where long-held assumptions start to blur.
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 Discover seems…
Learn to quickly build a report that helps you track both SEO and AI Visibility.
Learn how Profound alternatives compare in terms of features, ease of use, and pricing, so you can choose the option that best fits your needs.
It is January 2026, and it is now time for the monthly Google Webmaster report, where I recap the most important Google organic stories of the past month. Obviously, the…
Google has been showing social media posts in Google Discover, including posts from X for a while now, and Google may even show more posts from those you follow. But…
Google is working on fixing an issue where some searchers are seeing squished images within the Google Search knowledge panels. I personally cannot replicate this but it seems to be…
Google Search Console’s link report seems to be either missing data or is now showing fewer links. I suspect it is a bug but I also don’t think Google spends…
Google added a new button to the Google Ads Change history report that lets advertisers quickly jump to different campaigns and ad groups in this report. It should be a…
Learn how to diagnose whether AI Overviews are causing your traffic drop, which pages are affected, and what to do.
Find out why your competitors show up in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews while you don‘t. And what to do about it.
Google Web Guide is a new Search Labs experiment that organizes search results into thematic clusters. Learn more in this guide.
AI chat is changing how people shop for fashion — fast. Before AI, buying something as simple as casual leggings meant typing keywords into Google. Then, sifting through pages of…
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Google completed the December 2025 core update this week and it hit some news publishers incredibly hard. I posted the annual Google algorithm update infographic. Google’s Frankenstein AI-recipes are a…
Choosing the right mix requires clear performance modeling, transparent forecasting, and alignment on how each channel contributes to pipeline, CAC, and strategic growth. The post How To Get The Perfect…
Now that the December 2025 core update is officially done, some are looking at the damage it caused. A number of very visible news publishers saw some significant declines in…
For the past several years now, John Mueller of Google would come out with what he calls the “Mueller Report of SEO memes.” Well, here is his 2025 edition of…
Google is testing a blue “Send” button in the search query box on its home page. When you type in your query, you can click “Send” to search Google for…
Adobe Commerce/Magento’s flexibility comes with technical complexity. Here’s how to turn it into a search-optimized, AI-ready growth engine for 2026. The post The Technical Guide To Common Magento (Adobe Commerce)…
Google has been saying that 404 error codes are a normal part of the web, that 404s are not a low quality signal and that they don’t use up your…
John Mueller, who works on the Google Search team, responded to a question that asks, “Does extensive Schema markup actually help Large Language Models (LLMs) understand your entity better, or…
Just like with Christmas day every year, so to with New Year’s Day – Google’s John Mueller and often other Googlers, are out and looking to respond to some questions…
This is weird. It is 2026, and Google.com, the Google Search home page, is still showing yesterday’s New Year’s Eve doodle of 2025 going into 2026. But it is after…
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 Business Profiles…
How enterprise brands can stay visible and credible as AI transforms search behavior and measurement in 2026. The post 5 Key Enterprise SEO And AI Trends For 2026 appeared first…
Google has rolled out fewer confirmed search ranking updates in 2025, then it did in all the past years where Google confirmed these updates. Google rolled out only four confirmed…
Several months ago, back in March, Google added a screen to request reviews by sharing a link or QR code with your customers. Now, it seems Google has added a…
The Search terms report within Google Ads has this quick dropdown filter that lets you filter by search terms, search terms and landing pages from AI Max, search terms from…
The Search Engine Roundtable is made up of what you, the search community, are talking about. What are you, the search community, noticing in the search results, whether it be…
Here are the most popular articles on the Search Engine Roundtable by number of comments. In other words, these are the articles with the highest number of comments posted in…
Google has posted the New Year’s Eve Doodle and New Year’s Day Doodle on the Google.com home page for when it is New Year’s Eve for you and New Year’s…
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 December…
The examples in this article prove the opposite: AI’s value is removing grunt work and constraints, not replacing the humans who understand your market, your brand, and your customers. A…
See how embeddings, Pinecone, OpenAI, and Vertex AI come together to automate internal linking at scale inside WordPress. The post Free AI WordPress Plugin To Automate Internal Linking For SEOs…
Adam and Joanne Gallagher from the food recipe blog, Inspired Taste, has been documenting a lot of really painful and shameful tactics Google is using for its AI responses to…
Microsoft Bing is testing loading more people also ask options as you click on them. This is something Google has done for a long time now, but now when you…
Google Search is showing a carousel in the merchant / retailer panel that lets you scroll through the merchant’s delivery, return and payment options. This information has been in the…
Google has removed the visit website button from the first screen of the Google Maps hotel results. Instead, you first need to click on the “Check availability” to get to…
Microsoft made a small update to the Microsoft Advertising console where there is now an “All accounts” tab. This lets you see all your accounts in one place with quick…
Build a disciplined yet agile SEO process with daily, monthly, quarterly, and annual planning that drives lasting performance. The post SEO Maintenance: A Checklist For Essential Year-Round Tasks appeared first…
Google’s December 2025 core update is now done rolling out, it took 18 days and 2 hours to complete. The core update started on December 11, 2025 at around 12:25…
I am sad to report the passing of Andy Drinkwater, a super-experienced SEO and a friend to the search marketing industry. Andy was a UK-based SEO who loved educating his…
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 questions the…
Google’s John Mueller posted one of his one-liners, where he called some forms of SEO content as “digital mulch.” He wrote, “And let’s be honest’”most of that SEO content is…
Microsoft has added the ability to add custom columns to the Microsoft Advertising user interface and advertising console. But it doesn’t offer every metric, including missing the segment by conversion…
Google is testing an option to read aloud the AI Overviews by clicking on a speaker icon at the top of the AI Overview within Google Search. And the crazy…
Google is testing swapping out the Gemini button at the top right of the Chrome browser, with a “Browse with AI” button. The button is more colorful and in your…
Google’s John Mueller questioned the need for all websites to use ccTLDs, different domain names, to take their websites international. He said on Reddit, “you both make things harder on…
2025 was notable for GEO, Google patents, and research papers. WordPress entered the year with uncertainty and ended it roaring into 2026. The post Review Of 2025: Highlights & Lowlights…
Matt Diggity Nothing in the SEO world is slowing down as we approach the end of the year. In this roundup, you’ll get the latest news about Google’s recent big…
Ahrefs research showed that biased inputs can still produce actionable insight for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). The post Ahrefs Tested AI Misinformation, But Proved Something Else appeared first on Search…
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
This week in search, we covered an update on the Google December 2025 core update. Google Search traffic to news publishers continues to vanish, but there is Google Discover. A…
A report from The Information outlined a number of avenues OpenAI is looking at for ad formats in ChatGPT. The main one that is reportedly being thrown around at the…
Google has been publishing these videos from advertisers on the number one Google Ads launches of the year 2025. Bug Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, was asked and she…
Google is testing placing the search results in the center of the screen, instead of aligning it more to the left of the screen. This is an ongoing test we…
Google’s John Mueller said on Reddit that when picking a site name, make sure to pick something that you can reasonably expect to rank for. In short, don’t go online…
Navah Hopkins, the Ads Liaison for Microsoft Advertising, made it crystal clear that exact match is prioritized even over Ad Rank. Navah Hopkins wrote on X and LinkedIn, “Exact match…
Every year, for the past 18 or so years, Google’s John Mueller has been working on Christmas to provide support to those who need help with their Google Search ranking…
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Earlier this year, Google lowered the size of your data segment customer lists to 100 active visitors for the Google Display Network. Now, Google updated that to also be 100…