Industry News

Google has changed how much it charges for message leads within Google Local Service Ads. Previously, it was 50% of the corresponding phone lead but now, Google said it is "typically priced lower than the corresponding phone lead price, although that's not always the case."

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

This week we covered the strong search ranking volatility post Google June 2025 core update and it continued through the week, with a spike on Thursday. A Pew Research study on AI Overviews shows clicks significantly drop when AI Overviews are on the page...

As we reported earlier this week, Google Search ranking volatility was more heated (and for longer) after the Google June 2025 core update completed than during the core update. Well, that volatility continues and it is not just the tools but the chatter within the industry is super high right now.

Google finally launched its virtual clothes try-on feature after launching it several times and then demoing it again at Google I/O. Google also launched price alerts to let users specify an amount that will trigger the alert.

Google Ads is adding more detailed data to RSAs, responsive search ads, reporting. Specifically, it now shows click and conversion data per RSA headline. This is instead of it just showing "good" or "bad" labels per headline.

Google launched a new Search Labs experiment it is calling Web Guide. It basically organizes the web search results for you by category. Google wrote, "Web Guide is an AI-organized search results page that experiments with how we find, surface and organize results from across the web."

I am seeing numerous tests now that seem to prove that OpenAI's ChatGPT search feature is using Google Search's index or search results page to serve its own search results.

Google is now also showing AI Overviews for explanations of lyrics. If you do some searches asking about the meanings of some songs, Google may give you an AI Overview with its answer.

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 says normal SEO works to rank in the Google AI Overviews. Google released the Google Trends API...