Search Engine Roundtable

Google Search has just updated its favicon documentation to now specify that Googlebot must be able to follow redirects from the homepage to the page where the favicon is specified. The document also explicitly says that these URLs must not be blocked by robots.txt or other means.

I know I just reported on an unconfirmed Google Search ranking update from this past Saturday, October 24th. But I am now seeing a larger spike in volatility, along with an increase in SEO community chatter around another unconfirmed update over the past 24 hours.

Google's John Mueller kind of downplayed the importance of the freshness of the Google Search Console page indexing report. He said on Reddit, in response to my coverage of the report's recent slowness, that "it can feel like it's important to focus on it, but honestly, save your energy."

Google advertisers are struggling to agree on whether a specific local ad unit in Google Search is a Local Service Ad or another type of local Google ad.

Google is testing placing dotted underlined links in the sponsored results ad descriptions. When you click on them, you go to the ad destination's URL, like you would if you clicked on the title of the ad.

Google Ads said it will update its Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE) ads policy this coming January. Google said this is being done as part of a "redesign of the policy, and to improve protections, clarity and transparency."

Here is a photo of the library at the Google office in Montreal, Canada. What I don't understand is that green button and QR code, what is that about? I can't read it.

Google has updated its Prevent user-generated spam on your site and platform help document to specify "tools that let users publish shared pages, generated content, or web apps." The update explicitly includes platforms and tools that let users create shared pages, generated content, and web apps.

AI Overviews now show up for over 80% of Google Searches, that is up from 50% in June of last year and about 15% from the year before that. This is from recent data from Semrush, SE Ranking, and seoClarity.

Google has published a new help document named About Review summaries that explains that "review summaries on Search are AI-powered summaries of online reviews that appear directly as part of your Search ads." We have seen AI-generated summaries for sponsored results in Google for some time now,…

OpenAI seems to be rolling out a new ad format for some ChatGPT Ad units that have a Learn more link, that is dotted and underlined, and also with an arrow going upwards. And in some cases, ChatGPT Ads seem to be served with Amazon DSP.

Google is reportedly testing disabling the ability to click on the sources button in the Google Discover card of articles. Normally, when you click on the sources, it will open up a new screen with all the source articles and links to them.

Google Ads updated its frequently asked questions page for AI Max search campaigns with a section on 1-click AI Max experiments. Google wrote in the document, "If your account is eligible, you may find a 1-click experiment recommendation on your Recommendations page."

Here is a photo of a custom Google baseball card. It says Google SFO Team and at the bottom it says field day all-star Google SFO field day at Oracle Park / October 15, 2026.

This past Saturday, October 24th, we saw some significant ranking volatility captured by many of the third-party Google tracking tools. There was also some heavy chatter within the SEO industry about ranking movement and Google traffic changes over the past couple of days. The two together make me…

SEO Video Recap covering Google Search ranking chatter, the massive PHP exploit, AI Search SEO worth it, Google Local, Ads, ChatGPT Ads and more www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJmg...

Google seems to be testing or rolling out AI-generated summaries within AI Overviews citation cards. So the cards on the right (or bottom) of the AI Overviews within Google Search can now show AI summary snippets/descriptions.

John Mueller at Google recently confirmed that Google Image Search and Google Discover don't yet support the JPEG XL image format. He said this on Bluesky recently, "FWIW if you're hoping to get images shown in Google Images & as previews in Discover, etc - JPEG-XL is currently not supported."

Google is testing a completely revamped performance report section within Google Business Profiles that includes metrics on engagement, reviews, search trends, audience and more. It also includes top recommendations and a more broken-out reviews detail view.

Last week, we reported that Google was launching its Universal Cart in the United States after demoing it at Google I/O in May. And yes, a few days after Google announced it, it was rolling out. I think most people started to see it show up in Google Search and Gemini starting on Friday and over…

Google updated its AdSense Video inventory restrictions policy to remove the placement requirement and the scroll-to-sticky requirements yesterday, October 22nd. Google removed this line from the policy, "For In-stream or Accompanying Content placements that transition to a sticky placement, the…

Google Ads is testing a scrolling marquee on some of the sponsored results within Google Search. Google will load in the reviews/ratings, number of visits and a visit site link in one of these tests. In the other test, Google underlines the domain name in the ad snippet.

Google Ads has added a new "Sourced videos" on/off toggle setting to the asset optimization section. This uses Google AI to identify relevant videos from your approved sources and add them to your campaign automatically.

Here is a photo from the Google office in Bangalore of a Googler holding a white Google umbrella. That is all.

Google has launched a new "home" for Google Business Profiles named Google Business Home. It is a beta, but I just received an email with access to the new Google Business Home. Google wrote, "This beta experience brings together your Business Profile, Merchant Center, YouTube, and Ads accounts…

Google is testing moving things around in the local knowledge panels in Search by swapping the position of the company name, ratings, description and action button with the business photos. It is a subtle change and it matches the current mobile design on Google Search more but it is a change.

Google Ads is now rolling out the Translation tool within the advertiser console. This allows advertisers to "Translate your campaigns to reach global customers and boost your conversions," Google wrote.

Google Ads is rolling out three updates to customer lifecycle goals to help advertisers before the holidays. These three updates include (1) expanding high value mode to Shopping Campaigns, (2) expanding customer retention goals and (3) new percentage multipliers.

There are three new studies out over the past week that suggest that spending time, money and resources on AI visibility and AI search may not be worth it. In short, the studies all show that AI Search or AI services send a tiny fraction of traffic (and conversions) when compared to Google Search.

Google Ads is testing showing Sponsored Products results that dynamically expand to show product attributes at the bottom of the ad units in a gray background color.

Back in 2022, Google paused showing ads to users in Russia. That still seems to be active, but Google just posted a new message in the Google Ads and Merchant Center help documentation that it has "also paused ads on Google properties and networks globally for advertisers based in Russia."

The Googlebox, Google telephone booth, is not new, we covered it a lot here. But for some reason, it keeps getting moved around, unless there are many of them in the Google London office...

Gary Illyes and Chery Prommawin released their second video in the Non-Canonical Cabinet series; this one is named What can you actually put in a robots.txt? Here they discuss what is, and is not, supported by robots.txt files. And while Google may support features or directives, other search…

The World Wide Web is rushing now to fix and patch its servers for the critical PHP exploit known as PHP2Shell. Most are able to patch these without downtime but many sites are going offline until the patch is implemented, just to be super safe. Google's John Mueller offered advice on how to…

Google updated its Control what you share with Google Search help document to add "include existing options such as the robots meta tag, data-nosnippet, X-Robots-Tag, and the Search generative AI control," Google said. In addition to Google updating its URL structure best practices for Google…

Google Search rankings seem to be getting super volatile again, this is alongside the search industry chatter that has been spiking to unusual levels over the past 24 hours. As a reminder, the third-party tracking tools may still be struggling to track the volatility, but when I look at that,…

Google Ads is possibly rolling out a new asset group A/B test toggle named "Save and test asset group changes." This lets you measure the impact of changing headlines, descriptions, images and videos.

Google Ads has updated the old "Duration of the learning period for campaigns and what affects it" to be renamed to "About Smart Bidding learning." This is a major help document rewrite, not just a headline change. It mentions a new seven-day limit, a different explanation of what triggers and…

Google has updated its about fast shipping in Merchant Center help document to detail the days Google expects for you to qualify for fast shipping in Merchant Center. This is specific for listings in the AU, CA, IN, JP, GB, US.

Google has made a minor change to its URL structure best practices for Google Search help document. Specifically, the "Use hyphens to separate words" section. The overall meaning of the section really did not change but Google did update it, so I wanted to point out the update.

Here are some cupcakes that caught my eye, being that they are in the Google colors, at the Google office and in the form of butterflies. They are called fairy tale desserts.

OpenAI sent out emails to advertisers, including me, telling me they have automatically enabled creative enhancements for my ChatGPT Ads. The email says this is starting on October 30, 2026 and I can opt out of creative enhancements or change your settings at any time in Ads Manager.

Google has announced it is expanding its Google Ads Financial Services Verification requirements to the United States and Canada. Google is working with the American Bankers Association and Canadian Bankers Association for this.

Google seems to be removing the AI Overviews label from some of the search results that are AI Overviews. The desktop version is missing the AI Overview label, while the mobile version has the AI Overview label.

Google is testing a new way to verify your Google Business Profiles, the method is by uploading a photo of your government ID. This is in addition ot the phone/text, email, live video call or snail mail verification methods.

The Google Ads team posted a new help document that talks about the length of booking bid adjustment in legacy Hotel campaigns versus Search campaigns for travel. Hotel campaigns multiply your base bid by the traveler's itinerary length of stay (LoS) but Search campaigns for travel (SCT) don't.

Google Search had some issues handling square brackets punctuation marks (i.e. [ ]) within URLs. John Mueller from Google responded to former Googler, Vanessa Fox, saying that he is "seeing some of the issues internally that came up with these kinds of characters in the URL."

Microsoft seems to be testing not showing sitelinks under the main Bing search result snippets. I am honestly not sure if this is new but I was able to replicate Bing showing sitelinks for the first search result snippet in one browser and for the same query, it not showing the sitelinks.

Google Business Profiles review appeals are delayed again. Dan Boguslavsky from the Google team posted about the delay last Friday saying, "Due to high volume of review related appeals, processing times are currently extended."

Google is testing removing the HR, thematic line break or horizontal rule line, that is found under the search tabs under the search box in the search results page.