Industry News

Google will be bringing content and titles related exclusions to the account level to Google Ads AI Max later this year. It will give you the ability to always exclude any other content you don't want to use in your ads at the account level, Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, said on LinkedIn.

It is 2026 and finally Bing Places for Business is finally mobile friendly. Microsoft Bing sent me an email letting me know of this update, saying, "We're excited to share that Bing Places for Business now offers a mobile-responsive experience, making it easier to view, update, and manage your business profile from any device-desktop, tablet, or mobile."

Google sent out emails notifying applicable advertisers that they will default call recording to Yes, to always record calls, if you don't pick an option yourself. Google wrote, "Starting July 01, 2026, if you haven't made a selection for your "Call recording" setting, it will automatically default to "Yes"."

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 is showing the full author name and the source, like LinkedIn - and name or Medium - and name, for the citations. It makes sense for these social platforms to show the name, because anyone can write anything on these platforms, so knowing the name makes it more useful.

Google is testing an update to the citations, anchor links, and favicons within the AI Mode results. This new experience seems to make the citations more clickable because the embedded links have larger favicons and seem to appear more often, near the text it is referencing.

In February, Google announced that UCP, Universal Commerce Protocol, powered checkout is available in AI Mode. Well, now you can use UCP powered checkout in the main search results for some retailers like Wayfair.

Google is testing letting searchers select the Gemini 3 model they want to use directly in the Google Search bar. The options can include, Pro, Fast or Auto, from what I can see.

A few weeks ago, we uncovered the beta self-serve Ads Manager for ChatGPT Ads. It was before it officially launched but now OpenAI officially announced its "beta self-serve Ads Manager that allows advertisers in the US to sign up and purchase ads directly to appear in ChatGPT."

The Google Local Service Ads account access tab has not been loading and working for advertisers for the past several days. There are numerous reports of it failing throughout the day and it has become a huge frustration for a number of Google advertisers.