Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

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 Search ranking…

It has been a couple of weeks since we last reported on a Google search ranking update, I bet a ton of you were wondering if I was feeling off….

Yesterday, Apple’s Eddy Cue said searches on Google via Safari were down last month for the first time in 22 years. Then later, Google issued a statement saying there was…

Google is testing a slightly different layout for its search result snippets. Google seems to be indenting the title link, URL and description to the right and placing the favicon…

Google Business Profiles has another bug, this time with the toggle to hide or show the business address. The toggle for “Show business address to customers” just does not work…

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

Google held another Google Creator Summit where they invited 7 creators on a fully paid expense trip to their Washington, D.C. office to spend the first two days in some…

Google is testing moving the about results text, where it shows the count of results, to within the search tools menu. So when you click on “Tools” under the search…

Google has a “new feature,” as it labeled it, within Google Merchant Center, for event promotions. This allows you to promote an event, such as a sale, promotion or occasion,…

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

Here is a weird one – doing a site command and Google presenting an AI Overview summary of the results. In this case, the AI Overview was dead wrong –…

Google is now sending emails to business owners when a Google Business Profile information edit was rejected. The email subject line says “A recent information edit was rejected,” and then…

For the past week or so, news publishers from Brazil have not been happy with Google. It seems that Google Discover is broken for a lot of Brazilians, showing irrelevant…

We’ve seen variations of Google’s popular products section in the search results show both article and video content reviews. But now we are seeing another format for it, one that…

Six years ago, Google dropped some of its search tools date filters and then added new operators for before: and after: that let you filter content by specific dates. Well,…

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 is testing…

Google may be testing replacing local pack at the top of the Google Search results for “near me” related queries with an AI Overview. So instead of showing a map…

Google is testing a new label or green text on its shopping ads to tell you when the price of that item is low. The label says “Lowest in 30…

Google’s AI crawler, Google-Extended, the crawler it uses for Gemini and other related AI services, does render itself and can render JavaScript, just like Googlebot, Google’s main web search crawler.

Google announced a number of new tag, analytics and data strategies on Friday including a new Google tag gateway for advertisers. Google tag gateway for advertisers allows you to run…

Google AdSense will remove the ability to block the video games category of ads. So if you previously told AdSense not to show ads related to video games on your…

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 AI Mode…

Google is expanding AI Mode both in terms of features and access. Google is testing AI Mode in the wild with a limited number of searchers. Google also opened up…

Google added a new way to search for your products in the Google Merchant Center console. There is a new search button named “Search for Products” that you can click…

Microsoft is not only testing removing the name “Microsoft Bing” from its search bar and logo, Microsoft is also testing shortening the underline under the search tab to about half…

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 AdSense ads…

Here is our monthly Google Webmaster Report – the May 2025 edition – where I summarize the past 30 days or so of the big organic Google related news in…

Google AdSense has been testing serving and displaying ads within AI Chatbots. Bloomberg reported Google has already begun testing this within AI search apps iAsk and Liner and plans to…

Google has confirmed that Apple will be adding its Gemini AI service to Apple Intelligence by the end of 2025, reports are saying. We knew this would happen but we…

Google is testing showing favicons logos in its shopping ads, in the carousel of sponsored product results. Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ads Liaison, confirmed this with me on X last night.

Google is testing showing AI Overviews on the right hand side of the search results page. I am not sure if this is specific to local queries and a replacement…

Microsoft reported its third quarter 2025 earnings and it showed that its search and advertising revenue was up 21%, again. The previous quarter it was up 21% as well, then…

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 Search Console…

We know Google will be bringing Google Discover to the desktop interface, heck, we’ve seen Google testing it for a while now. But did you know that Google will also…

Google’s John Mueller said having “four identical links on a page to another page seems fine & common to me.” He said, don’t worry if you have that in your…

Google seems to be testing linking the “Reviews” button you see in the local panel, on a Google Business Profile, to AI Overviews. So when you search for a business,…

Google is testing a feature to let you get notified if there is a deal for the product(s) you are searching for directly in Google Search. It is named “Track…

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 added shopping…

OpenAI has begun rolling out shopping search features directly into ChatGPT Search across fashion, beauty, home goods, and electronics categories. These are not ads or affiliate-driven, but they are powered…

Microsoft is testing a new format for an AI Answer or AI Summary in the Bing Search results. This shows the AI generated answer as a list of terms that…

Google is testing a new design for the shopping ads format, one that looks a bit more like the image pack design than shopping ads.

Microsoft is testing removing its name, i.e. Microsoft Bing, next to the logo in the Bing Search bar. Normally the search bar has the Microsoft Bing name next to the…

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

Google uses its search engine data and signals to help train its Gemini AI models, we learned from documents from the DOJ deposition testimony. Although, we kind of knew that…

Microsoft Bing is testing placing a “more videos” section in the Bing Copilot answers. Recently we covered how Bing placed images and video links but this implementation makes more sense.

Last December, we reported how Google was showing a payments option section in the retailer/merchant knowledge panel. Google is now testing a clearer version of it, while adding shipping and…

Apple has made some updates to its Applebot documentation, primarily explaining the difference between the normal Applebot crawler and the Applebot-Extended crawler. To be clear, Applebot-Extended is not new, Apple…

I am hearing reports that the Google Search Console API and tools that use the API, including Big Query exports, bulk exports and third party tools, are stuck with data…

In my Friday video, I mentioned some more volatility heating up on Friday morning and I promised to cover it if I see more signs of that update. Well, many…

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 reported earnings…

This week, guess what, we saw more Google search ranking volatility heat up mid-week. Several new studies have come out showing that AI Overviews hurt click-through rates from search results….

Google’s John Mueller pretty much said that using image streaming techniques will not result in an SEO friendly outcome. He actually said, “It’s a great way to prevent your images…

Google is testing a new version of the mobile search results snippets where the URL is now blue, still clickable. Also, a variation where they are switching the placement of…

Microsoft Advertising has temporarily suspended the ability for agencies to send out client connection requests. Instead, the agency needs to reach out to Microsoft support and wait 5-7 days to…

Google seems to have added a new section to music knowledge panels named “Behind the music.” It seems that this is generated using Google’s Gemini AI and gives you a…

Microsoft is now showing two rows of shopping ads at the top of the Bing Search results. There is even an option to expand them to show more ads.

Google reported earnings and their ad revenue is up again year-over-year, with an increase of 8.5%, and overall revenue is also up 12%. I should note, it is down from…

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

Over the past few days, I’ve noticed signs of increased Google Search ranking volatility. I held off reporting on it until now because I wanted to see how things settled,…

Google AdSense has updated its policy center by adding three new issue labels; policy issue, regulatory issue, and advertiser preference and also adding new filters. Google said this is to…

Google updated its Google Merchant Center merchant listing structured data documentation to removed the EnergyConsumptionDetails properties and added an alternative solution to the certificationIdentification property. But keep in mind that…

Google’s Lisa Landsman interviewed Google’s Google Business Profiles Verification Product Manager, Sheerna. They discussed a lot of the concerns many local SEOs and small businesses are dealing with around GBPs…

Google is relaxing its photo guidelines for Local Service Ads. This may result in photos that were not previously allowed, may be allowed after May 22, 2025. I am not…

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 AI Overviews…

In February, we covered how Google’s AI Overviews really hurt the click-through rate of the search results and paid ads. Well, several more recent studies have come out that back…

Google Posts/Updates are starting to disappear from the local panels within Google Search. I saw complaints about this yesterday and tested it by adding a post myself on my business,…

Google has added video previews to the video verification within Google Business Profiles. Google’s Lisa Landsman said this will help with “submitting, ensuring clarity and accuracy ‘” saving you valuable…

Google sent emails to Google Ads advertisers about new Local Service Ads additions to its terms for its providers that they must accept by June 5, 2025 or else their…

Google has just given up on a third-party cookie alternative. Google announced it will maintain its “current approach to offering users third-party cookie choice in Chrome, and will not be…

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

Google Ads announced they will “now allow relevant Search ads from advertisers who showed amongst top ads to also participate in the bottom ads auction.” Honestly, I thought this update…

About a year ago, we covered numerous tests with shaded site name and favicon sections of the snippet. Google continues to test this, but we’re now seeing a blue gradient…

Google is testing a newish section in the Google local panel to tell searchers how far that business is from your location. Google is testing adding either a “Get there”…

Microsoft is testing adding a read more link to the Bing Copilot Answers in Bing Search. The read more link will expand the answer to show more content, generating a…

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

The folks at Google did a live demo of Android XR, Google’s AR glasses with Gemini, at the TED 2025 event. It is pretty wild to watch this demo, so…

The IAB and PwC released their annual Internet Advertising Revenue Report, which showed search ad grew 15.9% with $102 billion in ad dollars in 2024. Search ads made up the…

Fabrice Canel said Microsoft will streamline the Bing Webmaster Tools notifications because, at times, it can be a bit overwhelming. Fabrice wrote on X, “working to streamline things” when Martin…

Microsoft launched the Copilot Merchant Program, a way to feed Copilot more details about your products. Microsoft said this is a way to “integrate your shopping experience with Copilot to…