Industry News

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

I ran a poll yesterday on X asking Would you block Google from using your content for AI Overviews and AI Mode. About 33% of the over 350 responses said they would block Google from using and showing their content in the AI search experiences. 42% said they would not block Google and 25% are not sure yet.

Google seems to be testing showing up to 10 sitelinks on some of the search result snippets. Normally, Google will show about 4 sitelinks, but here Google is showing 6 more.

Google is moving the Google Ads verification page to a new section within the Google Ads console. It is moving to the Admin, then Policy and Account section.

We covered the topic of Google's AI Frankenstein recipes and how bad it is for recipe bloggers and publishers. But when you have Google's Personal Intelligence serve up these Frankenstein chunks of content, it makes it so much worse.

Google has released version 23 of the Google Ads API, this is a major release with dozens of updates. Updates include Performance Max reporting data with Ad Network type breakdown, more incentives, reporting and conversion controls - plus much more.

Microsoft reported its second quarter 2026 earnings and it showed that its search and advertising revenue was up for 10% but growth is down over the past two quarters. The previous quarter it was up 16% and the one before that was 21% and this quarter, it is only up 10%.

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 is exploring ways to let us block our content from being used in AI search...

After three years of Yahoo dropping hints at its return to search, Yahoo has announced Yahoo! Scout - its new AI search engine feature that is embedded within Yahoo Search, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports and so on - as well as at scout.yahoo.com.

Google is testing the ability to add color to your search results page with a color palette picker. There is this palette icon at the top of the results that when clicked on says "Add a splash of color to the top of Search," and "Pick color."