Industry News

Google said it again, it will soon test ads within its AI Overviews. Philipp Schindler, senior vice president and chief business officer for Google, said this in the earnings call on Tuesday night. He said, "soon we'll actually start testing search and shopping ads in AI Overviews for users in the U.S."

Microsoft announced yesterday it has begun testing its new Bing generative search experience - so Bing GSE (versus Google SGE). "By combining the power of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) with the search results page, Bing's generative search creates a bespoke and dynamic response to a user's query," Microsoft wrote.

On July 1, 2024, Reddit updated its robots.txt file to prohibit most search engine and AI crawlers from accessing its content - including blocking Microsoft Bing. Reddit did not block Google Search, which we covered here a few weeks ago.

Apple has launched a public beta version of Apple Maps on the web after launching the mobile app back almost 12 years ago on September 19, 2012. "Apple Maps on the web is available in public beta, allowing users around the world to access Maps directly from their browser," Apple wrote.

Google Local Service Ads can now show the business's phone number in the ad unit when you hover over your mouse cursor over the ad. It will then dynamically expand the ad to show the advertiser's phone number.

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

I probably should have covered this yesterday but I have been seeing more ranking volatility starting late on Monday, July 22nd, through yesterday, July 23rd and into today July 24th. This may be a continuation from what we saw last week or maybe something new - it is hard to tell.

Aleyda Solis posted the results of a poll she ran, which showed 54% say their sites have seen mostly a positive effect from Google Updates in the last couple of years. John Mueller from Google replied to that poll saying, "While there are exceptions, life as an SEO or when working on the web is not about doom & gloom."

Google has added new ad budget options and features to Local Service Ads. You can now set a maximum monthly ad spend limit for the month for some accounts.

Google / Alphabet reported its Q2 2024 earnings last night, where its ad revenue hit $64.62 billion, up 11% from last year's quarter of $58.14 billion. Clearly, Google's advertising business continues to grow despite any economic downturn we may have seen.