Search Engine Roundtable ::: The Pulse Of The Search Marketing Community
A well-rounded view on search engines and search engine marketing from five segments of the Web population represented by senior members of the major SEO/SEM forums on the Internet.
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 began rolling out the March 2025 core update yesterday...
For the original iTunes version, click here. This week we covered Google's March 2025 core update being released. Google responded to some complaints or concerns about Google's new AI Mode. A study showed Google grew 22% over the past year...
Google officially announced the rollout of the March 2025 core update yesterday at around 12:30 pm ET. This core update is expected to take up to two weeks to roll out. Google said this is a regular core update but did make a note about helping surface content from content creators.
Google Ads now allows some advertisers to do messages, like add WhatsApp numbers, to their Performance Max campaigns. Previously, Google Ads added messaging for WhatsApp about a year ago, but not it is also available for PMax campaigns.
Google is now testing a new accommodations carousel in the search results for hotel-related queries. The new accommodations carousel shows up under the hotel pack.
Microsoft is testing a new Copilot answer interface and layout in the Bing Search results. Instead of the grid/block design, Microsoft is testing a more bullet point design, and when you hover over each answer, you get the sources overlay.
Google is once again showing a local pack in the AI Overviews, formerly known as SGE (Search Generative Experience). Google removed the local pack from those AI Overviews back in September 2023 after having a 5 pack during the early months of SGE. Now, I am seeing them return.
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 says hotlinking protection is fine for search engines...
Google's John Mueller said that implementing hotlink protections with carve-outs for search engines are fine. He added that this is not really a thing sites do that much these days, stating it was a thing in 2010's or so but not now.
Google Merchant Center has apparently added the ability to dispute and/or request a review in bulk. This does not work for all notices but it works for some and it can save you a lot of time, if the same disapproval is issued across a number of products or issues.
Microsoft Advertising is reportedly testing a new reporting template design, which is refreshed and looks new to look at. The new design is under the reporting and then templates section of the Microsoft Advertising console.
Microsoft is testing placing a new tag on some sponsored ads within the Bing Search results. This tag is in blue and says "Local Business," which I guess helps promote local businesses near you.
Earlier this year, we spotted a new type of Google Ads campaign option named Search Max. Well, now it was spotted again, the configuration and set up of Search Max with a beta label on it.
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 increased the negative keywords for PMax from 100 keywords to 10...
Initially when Google Ads released the ability to add negative keywords to your Performance Max campaigns, Google limited it to 100 keywords. We asked why only 100 back then. Well, Google listened to the ad community and increased that from 100 to 10,000 negative keywords.
Google has updated its Google Ads review process policy documentation to clarify that it uses both AI and human evaluation for removing ads, assets, destinations, accounts and other content that goes against the Google Ads policies.
Google is testing a quick way to copy a link to a search results page and share it with a friend. There is this paperclip icon at the top right of the search results page that lets you copy link to the clipboard. That then generates a goo.gl URL shortener link to share.
Google has released version 2.9 of the Google Ads Editor. This new update brings a number of new features including support for manager account (MCC) owned labels, shopping ads on excluded brands, age exclusions in PMax campaigns, enhanced CPC deprecation, multi-tab export/import to Google Sheets, ad previews for RSA and asset groups and more.
Google Ads may now be pushing you to create an experiment ad when you dismiss the recommendations Google Ads is suggesting. So when you dismiss a recommendation, Google Ads can get feisty and push you to at least create an experiment based on that recommendation.
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. A new study shows AI search engines way too often gets the answer wrong...
Google sent out an email to advertisers yesterday about changes coming to Google Tag Manager. Specifically, Google Tag Manager will send events before loading a Google tag and Google calls this a "small change" that "will not harm measurement performance."
A new study from Columbia Journalism Review showed that AI search engines and chatbots, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Deepseek Search, Microsoft Copilot, Grok and Google's Gemini, are just wrong, way too often. I have said this time and time again, when I see an AI Answer, at this point, I just skip over it because I know I cannot trust it and this proves that.
A new data report from Rand Fishkin at Sparktoro says that Google Search has seen 21.64% growth in searches year over year. This comes after his study that showed 1/3rd of Google searchers don't search all that much.
Google can now show the "price at checkout" within the Google Shopping listings, both paid and organic. I am not sure if this is new, being that Google has had policies about suspending merchants who change their pricing at checkout and even allows Googlebot to add items to the cart for this reason.
Google is testing a new shopping ad format. This format expands product listings available within a store, shows the products with larger images and product details and then lets you swipe through a carousel of those items.
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...
No surprise here - Google will be testing and experimenting with ads in Google AI Mode. Google told Adweek that they will be "explore bringing ads into" Google AI Mode.
Google has updated its manual actions documentation around site reputation abuse, to expand on the next steps and actions you can take if you receive this manual action. Google now more clearly says that you should not block that content with your robots.txt file, if you use the noindex rule.
Google's VP of Product at Google Search, Robby Stein, has responded to concerns from publishers around the new AI Mode. Specifically, the concerns around this new AI search interface not being all that encouraging for users to click over to publishers' sites.
Google is testing a knowledge panel that includes a places card that can be expanded to show a map and local pack results. I cannot replicate this, which makes me think this is a test. I do see the places section below the knowledge panel, but not one that you can click to expand.
Google is now using a much larger font for the knowledge panels shown in Google Search. The font size looks jumbo and it does not seem to be test, it seems to be live - I think.
Google Search is testing a feature to quiz you on the product you are looking for and then to give you more tailored recommendations for product suggestions. This box is titled "get tailored recommendations" and it reminds me of the AI powered recommendation ads, but these are different.
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 dropped the horrid page annotations feature, thankfully...
Google released its much anticipated AI Mode, which is in beta now, but it super cool. Google AI Overviews are now powered by Gemini 2.0. Google had more search ranking volatility this week. Google said they answered...
Google sent out emails to Local Service Ads advertisers notifying them that their Google Business Profile accounts are not affiliated to your Local Service Ads account. That means your reviews will only be accepted through your Google Business Profile link and not the Local Service Ads link.
Google Ads has updated its interface for when you select when you want your ads running in specific regions/locations. Now, it has a button to "add locations in bulk," which should help you add locations faster.
Google may be bringing channel reporting to the Google Ads Performance Max campaigns. I spotted this via Kirk Williams who posted a photo of a slide from Google Think event in Amsterdam where Arjan Schoorl attended. The slide says "Channel Reporting" will be coming to PMax and Demand Gen for increased transparency and controls.
Google has shut down, turned off, and disabled, its new page annotations feature. The feature where Google hijacked your content, placed links in your content, links you didn't add yourself, and directed your content to Google Search. It is no longer, Google shut it down.
Google has this new "Know before you go" section in the search results. I mean, it is new for search, not new for Google Maps and not new for local. But I've never seen a Know before you go box in the search results before.
Microsoft is now showing why it selects or chooses to show a specific ad directly in the Bing search results. When you click on the arrow down by the URL of the search ad snippet, you will get window dialog that may explain why the ad was shown.
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 launched its AI mode, but it is in beta and you need to be added to a waitlist...
Google has officially announced Google AI Mode, after hearing rumors about it for months and then seeing leaked screenshots of it a few weeks ago. Google said AI mode gives you more advanced reasoning, thinking and multimodal capabilities so you can get help with even your toughest questions.
In December, Google told us they are testing powering AI Overviews using Gemini 2.0. We think we even saw Google testing this in the wild with deeper AI Overviews with tons of links. Well, now, in the U.S. AI Overviews are officially powered by Gemini 2.0, it is no longer a test.
Google is testing more favicon designs within Google Search. I mean, we cover these way too often but hey, I like favicons, don't you?
It looks like Microsoft is testing search ads that auto expand to reveal sitelinks under those ads within the Bing Search results. You don't need to click or do anything and the ad will dynamically expand to show more sitelinks underneath the search ad unit.
Rajan Patel, a VP, Engineering for Search at Google and the Co-founder of Google Lens, is now also offering an assist to Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liason. For the past several weeks, Rajan Patel's X profile also was tagged as being associated with the Google Search Liaison account.
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...
I've been watching the volatility ever since the unconfirmed February 26th or so ranking volatility when the tools didn't show much of a spike but the chatter was super high. Well, the tools started to show the spike around March 1st and the chatter is still heated.
Google is now using generative AI, and labeling it as such, within the Google Search product details overlay. When you click on a product listing in Google Search, the overlay window has a section called top insights. That section can be generated using AI.
Google now supports expressive reactions for Google reviews on mobile search and maps. This shows up when viewing a Google Business Profile's reviews on mobile.
You can subscribe to this RSS to get more information