Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

Google seems to be rolling out the Asset Studio, in beta, to some advertisers now. I believe Google announced this at Google Marketing Live a few months back, and now…

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…

Google Ads seems to be rolling out full placement reporting for the Search Partner Network (SPN). This is a feature advertisers have been begging and praying for, for probably 20…

Google seems to have launched a more toned down version of the clippable coupons within the search result snippets. Now it just says “copy code” next to the percentage off,…

Google will be updating the Google Ads Child Sexual Abuse Imagery policy (CSAI)on October 22, 2025. The update will “improve clarity and transparency,” according to Google.

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…

Microsoft has updated the Bing Search Copilot AI answer design to move the sources section under a “read more” tab, which I assume Microsoft is testing to see if it…

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)…

While I think SEOs spend way too much time and effort on Core Web Vitals, many do ask why does the Google Chrome UX report often not match what is…

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…

As I briefly mentioned two weeks ago, Google has updated the Google Ads API documentation. Now, Google had told us what exactly was updated from the previous version. Google said…

Google Ads will be removing the language targeting setting from Google Ads Search campaigns by the end of 2025. This notice was posted quietly at the top of a Google…

Google may have added a new convenient feature in the Google Ads console that lets you preview ads directly from the view assets detail screen. Clicking on the preview ad…

Google has updated its Gambling and games policy to now allow sports betting ads in the state of Missouri. This change is in effect as of August 15, 2025.

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 recently launched the preferred sources for top stories within Google Search. But there is no way for publishers to know how many of their readers selected their website as…

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…

Google Ads is reportedly rolling out a new cost toggle in the Performance Max reporting to show you the share of cost for each channel within your PMax campaigns.

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 Ads has added the gender exclusions feature for Performance Max campaigns. This was previously announced last week and is now showing up in the Google Ads interfaces for advertisers.

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…

Google announced it has new AI and large language models to fight invalid ad traffic or as Google calls it “IVT.” Google explained they have used AI for a long…

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

Google has updated fourteen different help center documents, specific to Google Ads policy. Google said the updates “improved organization and readability” of those help center articles.

Microsoft is testing placing “Recent searches” at the top of the Bing Search results page. This is instead of it being placed at the bottom or the side.

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…

Google Analytics seems not to be functioning properly again. The real-time reporting feature is underreporting numbers for many sites. Google had a similar issue last month and a couple months…

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…

Google is testing a horizontal line about the search ads, the sponsored results, within the Google search results. We’ve seen Google show a blue side color on these ads, we’ve…

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…

Google announced a number of new Google Ads Performance Max controls and reporting features. They include new controls such as campaign-level negative keyword lists, more search theme limits, more demographic…

Bing not only added new filters by device and country, but also Bing added several more months of historical data – from 16 months to 24 months of data to…

Google is testing adding the “people also search for” section within the Google AI Mode results. This shows below the link cards on the right, and shows other queries people…

Did you ever see your Google Analytics code, for your website, on someone else’s site? It happens for some reason here and there. But if it does, there is no…

Yesterday, OpenAI announced GPT-5 and it is free for all users within ChatGPT and other platforms. That includes Microsoft Copilot, which now is also using GPT-5’s models.

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’s Liz Reid, in response to all the third-party studies, wrote on the Google blog, “Overall, total organic click volume from Google Search to websites has been relatively stable year-over-year.”…

Apple sent out an email update to some of those using Apple Business Connect to announce that it now supports UTM parameters for action links. This means you can more…

Google has released version 21 of the Google Ads API, this is a major release with dozens of updates. Updates include AI Max for Search campaigns, PMax changes, reporting updates…

Microsoft is testing moving the search tools links that is typically below the search box, to above the search box. At least I think that is where Bing places those…

Google has added the AI Mode button to the Google Search App. I am not sure if this is super new, as I don’t use the Google app all that…

Microsoft has added two new options to the Bing Webmaster Tools Search Performance report. There is a new list by for “device” and for “country,” which was added to the…

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 rankings…

I am seeing a huge spike in chatter within the SEO industry over the past 24 hours. This comes a day or so after we saw some Google search ranking…

Google seems to be rolling out a sticky search bar, so as you scroll down the page, the scroll bar sticks to the top. Google actually made this official in…

Google sent out an email and posted an update that it will update the Political content policy for Google Ads to include the following regional restriction for the European Union…

Google’s Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, was asked if negative keywords are included in the algorithms to help train smart bidding. Ginny Marvin responded, saying they are one of…

Google is testing adding an icon and a line separator/divider for the AI Mode tab under the search bar. Google always placed the AI Mode tab at the first spot…

Google is testing the Ask Anything In AI Mode feature, which we saw in the people also ask, now in the Google Search product listings. So when you click on…

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

Google has rolled out an update to the Google Business Profiles Google Posts creation tool. We covered Google testing these changes earlier but now it is officially live as of…

Did you know that Google can show AI Overviews within AI Overviews. We’ve seen AI Overviews in people also ask, we’ve also seen AI Mode in people also ask. But…

Gary Illyes said that despite what people are saying, he did not confirm Google uses MUVERA – Multi-Vector Retrieval via Fixed Dimensional Encodings. He said that Google might use something…

Navah Hopkins, the Microsoft Ads Liaison, posted about new updates released to the Microsoft Advertising Audience Planner. Hopkins said her favorite feature of this tool is that it can tell…

It looks like Google Search is indexing and also ranking Google Maps search results pages for some [near me] types of queries. Google is listing these Google Maps search results…

Similar to the AI Audio overviews in Google Search, Google is testing “AI Catch Up.” These give you summaries of the highlights from the latest game you Googled to get…

Did you know that your sitelinks in your Performance Max (PMax) campaigns can impact the overall ad strength? Google actually has a help document that lists that and the ad…

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

The past month was a bit intense with Google search ranking volatility. With the June 2025 core update kicking off the day before July 1st, we started to see ranking…

Google is reportedly pitching advertisers to buy into ads in AI Mode. The folks over at AdAge have some slides from a Google presentation with the pitch. “Google is getting…

As you all mostly know, Reddit had an amazing earnings statement and its stock is up 25% since earnings day. But let’s dig into the statements Steven Huï¬man, Reddit’s CEO,…

Microsoft has updated its exclusions controls and reporting for Microsoft Advertising Audience Ads and Search Ads. You can now centrally manage website exclusions across accounts and campaigns, apply exclusions in…

Google is testing adding a rainbow effect to the AI Mode and Web tabs within the search bar. We’ve seen this on the AI Mode button on the search box…

Danny Sullivan is no longer the Google Search Liaison. He is switching roles within Google to work on new projects on the Google Search team. Danny Sullivan started at Google…

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 rankings…

Google’s search ranking volatility continues and continues, it is weird at this point. Google Search Live with video is finally rolling out. Google AI Mode added file uploads…

Guess what – another story on Google Search volatility and how it is heated and the chatter within the SEO industry is pretty high right now. We reported about it…

Fabrice Canel, long time Microsoft employee and the Bing Search Product Manager, said the way you optimize for AI Search is by following SEO guidelines. He echoed Google’s statement that…

Google has been outspoken about not being a fan of the LLMS.txt file. Now, Gary Illyes from Google said it is a lot like the keywords meta tag in the…

Google has replaced the promotions section in the merchant local knowledge panel with a deals section. There are still clipable coupons but it is renamed “Deals” instead of it saying…

Google is testing a sort by button filter at the top right of the Google Shopping interface. This is instead of Google putting the sort by on the left-hand bar,…

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