Industry News

Catch up on interesting new discussion and industry news.

    Report: Google AI Overviews Continue To Drive CTR Downwards

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Nov 5, 2025
    Earlier this year, we covered that Google's AI Overviews are killing click-through rates from the Google Search results. Well, Seer Interactive updated the numbers and that CTR decline has continued to decline and get even worse.

    Google Tests A New Version Of AI Mode

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Nov 5, 2025
    Google is testing a new version of AI Mode responses in the wild, directly in the Google Search AI Mode interface. Google even tells the searcher, "You're giving feedback on a new version of Al Mode. Which response do you prefer?"

    Google Merchant Center Adds Promotions For Top Performing Products

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Nov 5, 2025
    Google added a new promotion method in Google Merchant Center for Top-performing products. This lets you just promote your best performing products in Google Shopping and Google Search.

    Google Reviews Updates Services Summary Box

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Nov 5, 2025
    Google is testing an update to the reviews services summary box. We know Google does ask for services attributes and other attributes from both the business owner and reviewers but this review box seems newish.

    Google AI Mode Gains 3 New Agentic Capabilities

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Nov 5, 2025
    Google's Robby Stein announced three new agentic capabilities within AI Mode - (1) booking event tickets (2) booking beauty appointments and (3) wellness appointments.

    Daily Search Forum Recap: November 4, 2025

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Nov 4, 2025
    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 added a new user agent to the list...

    Google Discover Tests Infinite Endless Scroll

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Nov 4, 2025
    Google is supposedly testing an endless, infinite scroll for Google Discover. When I scroll through Google Discover, it eventually just stops and doesn't keep going. But Gagan Ghotra said he is seeing it go on and on forever.

    Google Merchant Center Smart Cropping - You Can Opt Out

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Nov 4, 2025
    Did you know that Google Merchant Center will automatically crop your product images in Google Shopping if it thinks it will look better in Google Search? Did you know that you can also opt out of what they call "Smart Cropping"?

    November 2025 Google Webmaster Report

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Nov 4, 2025
    We had a few unconfirmed but big Google search ranking updates but we are still waiting on an official core update...

    Ongoing Google Search Console API Bug Impacts Search Appearance Filter

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Nov 4, 2025
    Google Search Console has a bug with its API when filtering on the searchAppearance dimension. This bug occurs when using the notEquals or notContains operators, it will only return rows with the excluded value, instead of excluding those rows.