Industry News

Lex Fridman had a really great interview with Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai. In that interview, Sundar explained that the "current plan is AI mode" will remain in a separate tab but over time, Google will "keep migrating it to the main page." Meaning, Google will move AI Mode features into AI Overviews and the main search experience.

Over the past week I've been hearing that some Google Business Profiles are vanishing or disappearing. I am told that Google is aware of the complaints and are investigating, but that was last week.

Ever want to find query data in Google Search Console where the query is a conversational query style? The long long queries that give you insight into how people may be finding your content via AI search engines, the ones where people talk their query and not type them?

Google recently rolled out the Live Search feature in the Gemini app. But now Google was caught testing that Live Search feature directly in the main Google Search app, the Google App.

Bing PubHub is being retired, exactly when, I am not sure, but it is going away. Microsoft posted the notice in Bing Webmaster Tools and it links to a document that says "PubHub will no longer be accepting new publisher applications effective immediately" but doesn't say when it will completely go away.

It seems the Google Search Console performance report for Google Discover has reported zero impressions and clicks starting Thursday, June 5th, or has underreported impressions and clicks significantly since that date. I am seeing a lot of complaints about this, and I am able to replicate this for several publishers I have GSC access with.

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

This week we covered the ongoing Google search ranking volatility that spiked on June 4th. Have you heard of the Great Decoupling? Did Google start indexing less in late May? Google updated its ranking algorithm...

Google is testing replacing the "Google Screened" label with a "Google Verified" label for the Local Service Ads. I am also seeing these results come up with no labels at all, outside of the normal "Sponsored" label.

Google is testing a new label on its search ads within the Google Search results that says "Learn more about Sponsored results." This label is on the bottom right of the ad and neatly tucked under the listing in the gray background style.