Industry News

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.

The Google Ads sponsored results grouping interface expanded and it is borderline deceptive...

This week we covered the completion of the Google August 2025 spam update and then we saw ranking volatility heat up again post spam update. Google Search Console impressions are impacted by Google blocking bots...

Google Ads seems to be rolling out a change to the campaign set up screen and flow. Instead of being asked what ad format you want to run, you must select all for PMax or specific campaign types for display, search, discover and so on.

Google seems to be testing showing the local pack, Google Business Profile listings, at the top of the Google Shopping results in the Shopping tab. Normally, Google does not show local packs in the Shopping tab, I believe...

Back in May, we covered how Google was testing a new sponsored results label that placed a few ads beneath it, as opposed to labeling each and every ad as sponsored. Well, that version seems to be expanding and more and more people are seeing it and many are not liking it.

A month ago, Google announced new agentic (agent based) features for AI Mode. Well, some are now seeing this live in AI Mode, specifically making reservations at recommended restaurants.

Google is sunsetting the session-related metrics for Google AdSense. Google said this includes all metrics that rely on ad sessions, such as "Ad sessions", "Ad session RPM", etc.

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

Over the past couple of days, especially since the Google August 2025 spam update officially completed, the Google search results have been rumbling. It is a bit hard to track due to the changes with the third-party rank checking tools, but there has been a lot of chatter within the SEO community over the past few days.

Cloudflare announced Content Signals Policy, a new addition to robots.txt that allows you to express your preferences for how your content can be used after it has been accessed. This aims to block Google from using your content in AI Overviews, but Google would have to comply, which they have not yet, for this to work.