Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

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

This week we had our first Google spam update in 8 months, the August 2025 spam update. This update touched down very quickly, likely within 24 hours. I also posted…

Often, but not always, when Google releases an algorithm update, we don’t see the impact for the first few days. However, with the August 2025 spam update, we are likely…

Some SEOs are noticing that when you look at your sitemaps report in Bing Webmaster Tools, for some sitemaps, some are missing the Index Coverage button. I personally can see…

Google may show a new “Profiles” button in the Google Business Profiles NMX dashboard. It may show if you manage multiple Google Business Profiles and you are in this test.

Google has added new guidance to the “Fix Search-related JavaScript problems” help document, specifically addressing JavaScript-based paywalls.

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. There are many…

There may be a new reporting bug in Google Search Console’s performance report specific to the Android App search appearance filter. It seems some are reporting that Google stopped showing…

Microsoft Advertising is testing using larger font sizes for the sponsored ads in the Bing search results. This makes the sponsored results stand out just a bit more than the…

Microsoft Bing is testing bolding the site name in the search results snippet when you hover your mouse cursor over the search result snippet. This is similar to Bing bolding…

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

Google has released the August 2025 spam update on August 26, 2025 at around 12:00 pm ET. This update applies globally and to all languages and will take a few…

While Google expanded AI Mode access to 180+ countries and regions last week, Google is testing AI Mode in currently unsupported regions. Such regions including countries in the European Union,…

A new survey from NP Digital says that only 4% of the 1,000 people surveyed said they do not click from the Google AI Overviews. 13.3% of people surveyed said…

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

Google’s Robby Stein said that over the coming weeks, Google will be testing changes to AI Mode that will aim to encourage clicks to publishers. He said on X that…

Did you notice that one of the only reports in Google Search Console that does not have a “last updated” time stamp is the links report. I asked John Mueller…

I’ve covered the almost invisible and incredibly hard to see experiments with Microsoft Advertising placing hard to see search/sponsored ads in the Bing search results many times. Well, now that…

New research released by Rand Fishkin and friends at Sparktoro says that traditional search is not dipping in usage, even as searchers continue to adopt AI search features and tools….

To those of you who run advertising campaigns with Microsoft Advertising to show ads on Bing and other Microsoft properties, here are the dos and don’ts of handling suspensions and…

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

Google posted a new job for an External Communications Manager, Search – this job seems a lot like what Danny Sullivan, the former Google Search Liaison, did, but I am…

The last time I covered the ongoing Google search ranking volatility was when I said there was a bit of a cooling period. The weird thing is that most of…

Google is now testing adding an “Ask Anything” box within the AI Overviews, and when you type in that box and click search, it takes you into the Google AI…

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 has…

This week, we did a check in on the ongoing Google Search ranking volatility. Google AI Mode expanded to 180 countries, added agentic experiences, got more personalized and gained sharable…

Google is now showing the deals and loyalty benefits details in the retailer/merchant knowledge panels. Plus, Google Shopping Ads show a “discount code” link that opens a dialog box with…

Google seems to be testing a new publisher entity landing page from the Google Discover feed. When you click on the publishers name from your Google Discover feed (it is…

Google is testing moving the follow button within the knowledge panels in Google Search from a primary button on the main search results page to within the three dots menu…

Myriam Jessier asked Google about what would be good attributes of a web crawler. In which both Martin Splitt and Gary Illyes gave some responses to.

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 expanded AI…

OpenAI made some updates to its ChatGPT systems, which are impacting the amount of traffic ChatGPT is sending out from its interface. Josh Blyskal from Profounds posted on LinkedIn that…

Google announced it will replace the existing Local Services Ads badges, including Google Guaranteed, Google Screened, and License Verified by Google badges and icons with a new verified badge. This…

Google has expanded AI Mode to 180 countries, up from being available in the US, UK and India. Google also announced new agentic capabilities and personalized responses, and a new…

A month ago, Google announced the Google Trends API and allowed folks to apply to gain access to the API as an alpha release. Google then told us that SEOs…

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

A new tool from Tim Souo and Ahrefs at chatgpt-vs-google.com aims to show the growth rate of ChatGPT’s referral traffic compared to Google Search. Tim said the chart shows that…

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

Google AI Overviews has this feature where you can select the text in the AI Overview and an overlay with explain this, related images and copy text (sometimes other features)…

Google is testing vertical images within the Top Stories section of the Google search results on desktop. We’ve seen vertical or portrait layouts for top stories on mobile, but I…

As you know, Google released the Google Trends API as an alpha release last month. And many SEOs have already applied for access. But if you are an SEO or…

Over a decade ago, Google released the Content API for Shopping to let merchants manage their Google Merchant Center feed programmatically. Well, that has been officially replaced by the Google…

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

It has been week after week of intensely heated Google search ranking volatility, and it is time I start reporting when the volatility cools or calms down. Well, this weekend…

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

The Google search ranking volatility has not calmed down since the June core update and we are in mid-August and expecting another core update soon. Google launched the preferred sources…

The studies we have thus seen from third parties have all said traffic from Google Search to websites has declined a lot since AI Overviews came out. But we have…

Google’s John Mueller replied to a lot of the hype around all GEO, AIO, AEO, etc topics floating around the SEO space. John said on Bluesky, “The higher the urgency,…

Google Search started to roll out the age verification that it said it would begin doing a couple of weeks ago. Yes, it is not just YouTube, it goes across…

Google is testing adding a “loyalty benefits” section to the merchant/retailer knowledge panels. This would show on the right side of the page, under the description of the retailer.

It looks like Microsoft Copilot, formerly Bing Chat, is using Google Maps reviews for its local AI results. It also links directly to the Google Maps business profile listing when…

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. Microsoft says SEOs…

Fabrice Canel from the Microsoft Bing team said that search engines, like Bing, have “limited visibility” into the conversions after the click from AI search and it is up to…

An SEO consultant posted on LinkedIn that one of his websites saw a 50% decline in traffic in a two week period. This was due to the site being hacked,…

OpenAI updated its ChatGPT iOS app to let you select Google Maps instead of Apple Maps as the maps provider for local results. I am told this is new as…

Google is now experimenting with keyboard shortcuts to the overlay menu in the AI Overviews within Google Search. Rajan Patel, VP, Engineering for Google Search, said this is just an…

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

Google has launched the Preferred Sources top stories feature fully in the US and India, after testing it in Search Labs for a bit over six weeks. As I said…

Google and Bing are busy testing changing the search results snippets title. In one case, Google is expanding the title of the search result on mouse hover. In another case,…

Google has removed some of the restricted countries from the list of countries not allowed to serve Dating and Companionship ads. Specifically, Google removed Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and…

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

Google is testing a new section in the Google Search results titled “From online stores.” We’ve seen a similar section for nearby stores but I am not sure if we’ve…

Google is now showing the energy-saving label with a green leaf icon in the product listings side panel within Google Search. We saw these on special compare and save type…

Google Merchant Center now lets you preview your promotions, your sponsored ads, before adding them. Google also added two check boxes to your customer service section for live versus chatbot…

Google Trends seems to be broken or stalled over the past few hours. If you filter Google Trends for a specific region and then say only show me trends over…

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. Another weekend…

This weekend I am seeing a spike in chatter within the SEO community on the topic of, you guessed it, Google search ranking volatility. Truth is, it really has not…

There are numerous reports that Google may be using a more generic and undocumented Googlebot, Google crawler. The crawler user agent is just named “Google,” and it is not listed…

Kenichi Suzuki and Rio Ichikawa from Farber Company in Japan sat down with Gary Illyes of Google to interview him on AI Search, AI content, SEO and other topics. It…

Google seems to be testing a new “Deep Dive” button in the search results. This button is on some of the knowledge panels, specifically, this one is for a movie…

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 GPT-5…

This week, we covered the ongoing Google search volatility, which cooled for a bit and then got heated again. Google’s Liz Reid said that website clicks from Google are relatively…