Industry News

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 Ads announced AI Max is rolling out to all as a beta...

Google announced a number of updates to Google Ads at Think Retail yesterday, including the global rollout of AI Max for Search campaigns, new Google Merchant Center features, AI updates to Asset Studio, and more.

Microsoft is testing putting link icons in the sitelinks carousel buttons within the Bing search ads from Microsoft Advertising. Normally, you'd just see the carousel of sitelinks below the search snippet but here Microsoft is testing adding a link icon to them.

Google is testing adding search refinement options in the sponsored ads in a carousel format. The test shows refinements named "fine-tune your search," "search specific products" and "specify your search." But I bet there are more.

Google is testing replacing the review stars at the top of the hotel knowledge panel with listing the hotel's website URL and the hotel's phone number.

Google seems to be testing a new format for local ads in the search results. These look more like that older card format test we saw a year or so ago. There are these two local cards at the top and when you click on them, the local panel for that Google Business Profile opens up.

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.

We are seeing a lot of movement and indexing complaints over the past 24 hours...

The Google August 2025 spam update seems to be heating up again. I am seeing both chatter within the SEO spike, while also seeing many of the third-party Google tracking tools show heated weather in the past 24 hours or so.

Google Ads is testing new ways to maximize budget utilization and hit volume goals during planned or last-minute promotions. There are a few new options Google is testing, including promotion mode, campaign total budget and more.

Google is testing placing the arrows next to the sitelinks on the left side of the sitelinks. Normally those arrows are on the right side of the sitelinks.