Industry News

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

Google is testing ways to get more people to try AI Mode with a new AI Mode button in the Google Search bar on the Google home page. We've seen Google test AI Mode promotions with banners in the search results but now Google is placing large buttons in the search bar to get people to use AI Mode.

Google seems to be on the verge of rolling out AI Overviews in within Google Search in more countries and regions. We are seeing signs of Google testing AI Overviews in the wild in Turkey, Sweden and the Netherlands. This is a week or so before Google's big conference, Google I/O.

Google has confirmed a "rare" bug with Google Ads reporting where it can lead to over-reporting click-through rate percentages. Brad Geddes posted about the issue on LinkedIn, and Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, responded with confirmation.

Google is testing a new recipe search feature that seems to be powered by AI Overviews, it also seems to be a Search Labs feature. This allows you to see recipe ideas, then filter by recipe replacements, ingredients, in this carousel format style.

Google has a new beta feature to encourage searchers to add comments and have discussions around a specific topic. It is called "Discussions" and has a beta label on it. You can add your own thoughts/comments to the topic and those comments can appear across a number of Google properties and services.

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

It's been calm for the past two weeks but we are seeing Google ranking volatility hit on May 8th. Google held another creator summit, this one in Washington, D.C. Apple said Google searches are declining in Safari, but Google said...

Google is showing the number of followers for a Facebook profile in the Google Ads, the search ads. We saw Google testing this for organic / free results two years ago, but now we see them being tested on sponsored search listings.

Did you know that you can quickly add parameters to the end of your Google Search URL to see search results in a specific language and/or country? Yes, you can do this from the advanced search settings screen in Google Search but you can also append &hl=(languagecode) + &gl=(countrycode) URL parameters, if you want to save some clicks.