Industry News

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 shown in the Google Search Console core web vitals report. Well, as Google's Barry Pollard said, they look at "different measures."

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 don't think I've seen it look like this on desktop.

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 even a small publisher, I would not expect access to this API any time soon.

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 Merchant API.

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 we had a bit of a cooling period, where the chatter within the SEO community lightened up and the third-party tools showed lower volatility.

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 these updates were "designed to make your development experience smoother, faster, and more intuitive."

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 help document in the Google Ads help center.

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 button shows the preview within the same window.

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.