Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

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…

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…

Google has confirmed there is a bug with Google Ads dynamic remarketing tracking where the data is not flowing into the reporting. Adesh, from the Google team, responded that the…

For the past 15 or so years, Google would post holiday-specific decorations at the top of its search results for Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. Well, this year Google did not….

Fabrice Canel and Krishna Madhavan from the Microsoft Bing team posted a useful blog post named Does Duplicate Content Hurt SEO and AI Search Visibility? The short answer is yes,…

Google is testing pushing advertisers to use Google Ads Advisor from within the Google Ads reporting section. Google Ads suggested questions and prompts at the top of the report, which…

Microsoft is testing a “more sources” section within the Bing Search results. This seems to load a different user interface, with long card-shaped search results that you can slide through…

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

Some Google Ads MCC, Manager Accounts, are seeing channel performance reporting. This does not seem to have been rolled out to all advertisers yet, but Mike Ryan noticed it was…

Google Ads added a new channel control for Demand Gen to show ads in Google Maps. Some advertisers see the ability to select Maps as a placement in Demand Gen.

Google Search has been sending 25 percentage points less traffic to news publishers over the past two years, according to the folks over at Newzdash. In 2023, Google Web Search…

Google is testing prefilling the search bar in a new Chrome tab, with teasers to encourage you to search deeper with AI Mode. Google is putting in the search box,…

Have you seen those Google Discover notifications that pop up and seem like news notifications from the Google app but what they do is drive you into Google AI Mode….

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. We had big…

Google is testing appending “learn more” links to the end of the Google search ads text. So the Google Ad will have its normal ad description and at the end,…

GMBapi posted data that looks at tens of thousands of Google Business Profiles across multiple countries and showed that review deletions have increased significantly over the year, compared to previous…

Google quietly updated its AI Overviews ad documentation to say that ads in AI Overviews are supported in Australia, Canada, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore,…

Anish Kattukaran, CPO at Google Home & Nest announced in the Google Gemini forums that Gemini will not be replacing Google Assistant by the end of 2025. He wrote, “We’re…

OpenAI has added local knowledge panels to the ChatGPT results. When you ask for local information and then click on a business name, ChatGPT will load a local knowledge panel…

As you all know, Google announced the Google December 2025 core update on Thursday afternoon, December 11th, we saw some significant volatility hit early on December 13th and then it…

On Friday, Google announced it had filed a lawsuit against SerpApi for scraping the Google search results. Google alleges that SerpApi is running an “unlawful” operation that bypasses Google’s security…

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

This week, we have a status update on the ongoing Google December 2025 core update. Google also said it does not pre-announce core updates or quality updates. Gemini 3 Flash…

Google reportedly has a bug that displays incorrect product reviews in Google Search for a retailer. It is now pulling from text on the page that includes the Google Business…

Google is testing a number of new sports-related search features within Google Search. These include a “What’s new” section, “Discover more” section, a Play-by-play section, What people are saying and…

Google Ads recently added a beta to bring in videos from your social campaigns into your ad campaigns. And now, Google is testing bringing in videos in Merchant Center.

Google has updated the Google Business Profiles verification issues support form. This makes it easier to pick a specific issue you had when trying to verify a business within Google…

Google updated its JavaScript SEO documentation for the third time this week, this time to say that “while pages with a 200 HTTP status code are sent to rendering, this…

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

John Mueller from Google had Danny Sullivan from Google on the Search Off the Record podcast to talk about “Thoughts on SEO & SEO for AI.” In short, they both…

Google updated its JavaScript SEO best practices document with a new section on how to set the canonial URL when using JavaScript. Google wrote, “The best way to set the…

Google is bringing Gemini 3 Flash to AI Mode, bringing much of Gemini 3’s power without waiting too long – hence the “Flash” part of the name. Robby Stein from…

Back in October, many businesses reported that reviews left on their Google Business Profiles were disappearing. It wasn’t happening to every business, but it was widespread. Last night, I was…

Microsoft is also testing underlining the text of the Bing Ads search snippets and descriptions. I am not sure if those underlined words are links or not but I assume…

After almost a month delay with the page indexing report within Google Search Console, the report is now back to its normal timeframe. This morning it was reading that the…

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

Google Discover is testing and maybe rolling out an option to “Tailor your feed.” This allows you to tailor the feed with “Say in your own words what you want…

If you submitted a review appeal within Google Business Profiles it will likely take longer than normal to hear back. Google’s review appeals are delayed and Google cannot provide a…

Google is testing extremely long and expandable search result snippet descriptions in the search results. These are also AI-generated snippets, which we’ve seen before, but not this long. This goes…

Google has updated its Manage customer reviews help documentation to expand and clarify the “Understand what happens to your replies” section. It now specifies why a business reply to a…

Microsoft is testing the ability to upload an image directly within the Bing search bar. You click on a plus sign and Bing shows you “search with an image” and…

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…

Nick Fox is the SVP of Knowledge and Information at Google was interviewed again on the AI Inside channel by Jason Howel and Jeff Jarvin. He said a lot of…

Google updated its JavaScript SEO documentation to warn against using a noindex tag in the original page code on JavaScript pages. Google wrote, “if you do want the page indexed,…

Google can not show ads in AI Overviews with the exact match type. This is a change from back in May, where Google said otherwise. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads…

Earlier this month, we documented that the average position sharply increased for many sites when Google made that num 100 change blocking a lot of automated queries. Well, for some…

Google Search Console’s performance report seems to finally be all caught up and up-to-date as of last night and this morning. I am seeing the normal two-hour or so delay,…

After several months of testing, Google seems to be rolling out the “Read more” links at the end of some of the search results listings. We saw Google test variations…

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. We are starting…

On Friday, Google announced a number of updates around translation, language, audio, voice interactions and thus Search Live. Google said it released a more “fluid and expressive conversations when you…

Google’s John Mueller said that it is impossible for Google to pre-announce quality improvements to Google Search, including core updates. He said, “having quality changes ready for a specific date/time…

Microsoft is testing a “see more” button in the Bing Search results, which, when you click on it, loads more search results in the middle section.

Google is testing showing full detailed property sale listings within the Google Search results. This is getting a lot of interest from those in the real estate business.

Google confirmed it is essentially removing the Q&A feature within Google Maps, and instead, searchers can use the new AI-powered Ask button on a Google Business Profile to get the…

Google announced the Google December 2025 core update on Thursday afternoon, December 11th, and it already has a significant impact on Google Search results. The most noticeable day of the…

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

In this week’s recap, we covered that the Google December 2025 core update was unleashed. Google also said more core updates are definitely on their way and one should be…

Google announced that Gemini can now respond to your local questions with local results in a “rich, visual format.” Google will visually lay out the local results to include photos,…

Brad Geddes dug into how he felt “AI Max can trump your existing exact and phrase match keywords and then claim credit for the conversions and revenue.” And then Google’s…

Google Maps is updating its share buttons by removing the options to share on X and adding the options to share on Reddit and Facebook.

On Wednesday, Google announced a number of new AI features, which we covered (links below) but one other feature Google spoke about was “AI-powered article overviews.” This is an experiment…

Google is now sending email notifications for when Google Business Profiles has removed the restrictions on your reviews and ratings. The email says, “Restrictions on your reviews and ratings have…

Google officially announced the rollout of the December 2025 core update on Thursday at around 12:25 pm ET. This core update is expected to take about 3 weeks to roll…

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

Google announced it has updated the links in AI Mode to encourage searchers to click more. Google also introduced contextual introductions to embedded links in AI Mode responses.

Google announced that Preferred Sources is now rolling out globally, after launching just in the US and India in August, following its beta period in June. Plus, Google announced Spotlighting…

In June, Google moved Offerwall out of its AdSense beta, making it available to all. Now, if you are using Offerwall, Google will opt you into Offerwall optimization.

Microsoft is testing out the new Google Ads sponsored results label, ad grouping and hide button with its own Bing Search results ads. Microsoft Advertising search ads in Bing are…

Google has officially expanded the Web Guide to the “All” tab. Originally when it launched as a Search Labs beta, it was under the “Web” tab but as we saw,…

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 updated its…

Google has told us that core updates impact visibility within Google Discover, but that may have changed at some point. Andy Almeida from the Google Trust and Safety spoke about…

Google is testing incorporating Ads Advisor into the contact us page for Google Ads support. Google was doing this for policy disapproval support requests as well.

14 months ago, Google updated its documentation around its shopping related structured data warning not to generate your structured data dynamically through JavaScript. Yesterday, at the Search Central Live event…

Google updated its core update documentation to say it does smaller core updates and does not announce those updates. This is not new; Google told us this back in 2019….

Microsoft is testing moving the ad labels in the Bing Search results from the left side of the ad to the right side of the ad. I am not sure…

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

Google’s John Mueller said at the Google Search Central Live event in Zurich today that Google is still working on the next core update. This update should be out soon,…

OpenAI has updated its spider/crawler it uses for ChatGPT, OAI-SearchBot. The AI company updated the description and details of the crawler information removing that it is used for links and…

Google’s Vice President, Global Ads at Google, Dan Taylor, said that there are no plans to bring ads to the Gemini app. This comes after AdWeek reported based on sources…

With Google Ads releasing AI Max globally back in September, more and more advertisers are trying it out. While some of the early data can show it underperforms, some are…

Google has a bug with the Google Ads offline conversion uploads feature. Much, but not all, of the offline conversion data you upload is not being added to Google Ads….

Google rolled out Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor a few weeks ago and did you know that it can reference and cite third-party external sources, outside of just Google’s own…

Google announced today at the Search Central Live event in Zurich that Search Console is rolling out more granular data. Google launched weekly and monthly views in Search Console for…

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…