Industry News

Starting maybe late Thursday, into Friday, November 7th, I started to feel a Google Search ranking update and volatility brewing. Like I've been saying since the num=100 parameter change, it has been harder to validate those feelings, but based on the chatter I have been seeing in the SEO community and some of the third-party Google Search tracking tools, I think there was a Google update around November 7, 2025.

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

Google dropped a number of search features and structured data types. Google is testing a new version of AI Mode. Google AI Mode gained three new agentic capabilities. Google AI Overviews continue to result in a drop in click-through rates...

Google added a new promotion targeting option to Google Merchant Center for audience targeting. The option is labeled "preferred audience" and is available when setting up a promotion.

Google announced it has added Waze ads inventory to Performance Max for store goals campaigns and Channel performance reporting is now available in all Performance Max campaigns in Google Ads.

Google has been adding AI features to Google Finance - like what can go wrong? Recently Google's Rose Yao announced Google Finance added live audio, instant transcripts and AI insights.

Google added a new navigation button to Google Merchant Center labeled "Creative Content." I believe this is where you access Product Studio, and all your videos and assets for your Merchant Center campaigns.

As VP of Engineering for Search at Google, Rajan Patel said months ago - "We're experimenting with various approaches to X in Discover." Google has been super busy with testing various approaches to Google Discover. Here are some of the more recent tests I found via Damien (andell) and Gagan Ghotra over the last few weeks.

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 a number of search features and structured data types...

Google's John Mueller announced Google is "simplify the search results page" by removing "some features that aren't being used very often and aren't adding significant value to users." This means more structured data types will be removed, but for some reason, Google did not specify exactly which ones are going away.