Industry News

Google is testing the ability to highlight portions of the response, to do a follow-up question on what you highlighted. It is similar to past tests on the AI Overview, but this is within AI Mode.

Google is testing the paperclip style icon in the search results, by the search result snippets and description. Clicking anywhere on the paperclip or the snippet will take you to the webpage.

Google has added price tracking data charts for each retailer within Google Search. On the right side, after you click on a product, Google may show a price chart with pricing over time. Google may also let you click on the available merchants and retailers to see how the price has changed for that specific merchant over time.

Google now supports Sitelinks for local search ads in the Google Maps interface. They show in the form of a carousel, under a sponsored ad listing in the Google Maps interface.

The crawl stats report in Google Search Console is missing a day of data again. The data gap is for October 14, 2025. If you look at the chart, you will see a hole in the data, where it is missing a full day of data.

This is an essay I think everyone should read, front to back. It’s about all the things we are living through right now, but it’s especially about work (and AI):

I’m not sure hiring can ever be much more efficient, because neither side has reason to show themselves as they really are, warts and all. Idealistically, both would come straight; pragmatically, it is a game of chicken. Candidates polish résumés and present curated versions of their abilities, listing outcomes and impact...

There may have been another unconfirmed Google search ranking update that occurred between October 15th and October 18th. The bulk of the volatility seemed to be around Thursday, the 16th.

Wild story:

Multiple people we spoke to for this story lamented feeling “ganged up on” as a partner used chatbot outputs against them during arguments or moments of marital crisis. One of these sources, a man who’s now in the process of selling his home as he and his spouse barrel toward divorce, recounted feeling voiceless as his partner turned to ChatGPT to pathologize their relationship. “I was really hurt by the way [ChatGPT] was being used against me,” said the man, speaking through...

This is a beautifully-written love letter to the CD—and I agree completely:

The commitment for the listener is light—one press of the button—and the challenge for the artist is pleasantly tough. You have to make all the songs work in a row, and there is a very good chance the listener will hear the entire album. One long unbroken work is also like a stage play, which is what I knew best in high school. […] The CD still delights me and helps me frame the idea of a collected set of songs....

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's head of search, Liz Reid, was interviewed about Google Search, AI, ad clicks, publishers...