Industry News

In 2018, Google launched Google Posts Insights, a way to see how many views and clicks a Google Post within Google Business Profiles received. Google discontinued and sunset that feature in January 2023. Now, it seems Google is testing bringing back the view count - it now calls "people viewed."

In the past couple of days, I have seen a spike in the number of complaints around favicons disappearing from the Google Search result snippets. The complaints started a couple of days before Google's August 2026 spam update, so I doubt they are related to that, but they have indeed spiked. It makes me think that Google changed something on its end, versus all these site owners making a technical change.

Google has released version 25.1 of the Google Ads API, this is a minor release with several of updates. This update includes text disclaimer assets, AI Max tracking, Brand and Conversion Lift measurements, brand sentiment insights, and several more features and changes.

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

OpenAI announced it is expanding its ChatGPT Ads service and product to 31 European countries. These countries include Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Austria.

Google's John Mueller reiterated what Google has said numerous times already, that Google does not wait to announce the update. When Google begins rolling out the search update, whether a core or spam update, it will announce it shortly after it starts. Google does not wait a day or two to announce the update is rolling out.

Google seems to be showing the video carousel within Google Search a lot less often. Semrush had the video carousel showing up in Google Search at just over 30% of queries but now it is under 20% of the time. Some other data shows it dropping even worse.

Google Ads is now letting you bid more using the customer retention option named "Loyalty program members." This gives you the option to (a) Bid higher for loyalty program members and (b) Show member benefits to loyalty program members in eligible countries.

Google seems to be testing a revamped and updated Q&A feature for Google Business Profiles (GBP). There is an added Q&A button in the GBP dashboard in Google Search and a flow that prompts you with yes or no responses for questions tailored to your business.

Google Trends has added two new features this morning, explore maps and regional breakdown. Google said it "designed new interactive maps for clearer data storytelling...