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 rolled out the audio...

Google has begun rolling out the audio version, talk and listen version, of Search Live in the Google app to those who opt into the AI Mode experiment. This is not the video/camera/visual version, that won't be live in the app for a few more months - although you can access it now in the Gemini app.

Google is testing new report reviews options in the Google Business Profiles reviews section. You can access it, if you are in the test, by looking at your local reviews in Google Search and clicking on the report / alert icon next to any review.

Google has updated its URL structure best practices help documentation - it was pretty much a rewrite but the overall guidance is not new. Google said they added "clearer flow and is easier to navigate, with added examples based on real-world URLs we've encountered."

Google is testing swapping the site name with the URL in the search result snippets. So instead of the site name being shown at the top of the search result snippet, Google is showing the URL above that, followed by the site name.

Google seems to be testing a new way to preview ads within Google Search, specifically promotions. There is a new "Promotion Preview" tool that shows what your promotion will look like on Google Search before it goes live to customers.

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.

There are new signs of an unconfirmed Google search ranking update that touched down...

The term, The Great Decoupling has really been catching on over the past couple of weeks. It is being used to describe what we are seeing with impressions and clicks moving further and further apart since AI Overviews has become more of the norm in the Google Search results.

It's been almost ten days since I last reported on a Google search ranking update. Well, I had to stop the streak and cover what I've seen over the last 24 hours or so. It appears that the volatility in ranking positions in Google search results is shifting more than the norm.

Google is testing a new design for its sponsored search ads in the Google Search results. These have horizontal lines that are darkened or filled halfway through, alternating from left to right and right to left every other ad.