Industry News

Google has renamed the Local Services platform policies document to Local Services Ads requirements. I am not sure if this was renamed and reworded because the Google Local Service Ads platform is being migrated into the main Google Ads platform but it just seems weird to do this now?

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

Here is the big Google Webmaster Report for August 2026, including of course the ongoing Google search ranking volatility; we saw volatility on...

Google is testing adding keyword-rich anchor text hyperlinks to the ad descriptions in the sponsored results within Google Search. Clicking on the link takes you to the same ad landing page URL as it would if you clicked on the main title link in the ad.

The Google Ads Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool, where you can preview your ads in the Google Search results, within the Google Ads interface is broken. It loads a CAPTCHA box and doesn't let you remove the CAPTCHA from being displayed. So you cannot use the tool to preview your Google Ads.

Google Ads is testing a new text disclaimer feature that lets you set the text disclaimer to override descriptions pinned to position 1. This is labeled as "new" under where you add text disclaimers in the Google Ads interface.

Google is currently beta testing a new Search Profiles feature named Handle Swapping. Handle Swapping allows you to switch your handle to any of your linked verified platforms within Google. Some sources say it's launching very soon.

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 seeing Google Search ranking volatility starting on August 1st and kicking up today...

I am seeing signs of another Google Search ranking update with a lot of volatility hitting this past weekend again. This one started on Saturday, August 1st, and has continued thus far through today, August 3rd. Both the third-party tracking tools are showing a spike and there is chatter within the SEO community about a lot of this ranking shuffling.

The Google Business Profile help page on Help protect against fraudulent calls and texts has been updated. It now includes how to identify legitimate texts over WhatsApp and RCS messages, it also updated a lot of the examples of the types of calls and messages you get, plus more.