Industry News

Google has updated its Google Ads policies around suspensions yesterday. While no changes have been made to enforcement of these policies, Google has really updated a lot of the content, and examples provided in these policies.

Pretty much every data provider that tracks AI Overviews in Google Search are showing that Google is showing AI Overviews more often today than they were a month ago. I am sure this is no surprise to many of you, I mean, we see them so often now.

Google announced it has refreshed its Shopping tab listings report which it initially launched in November 2022 and renamed it to the Merchant opportunities report. The refreshed report now includes details about payments methods and store ratings, Google said.

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

On Friday afternoon, Danny Goodwin covered a 170 or so page PDF that Search Engine Land received from an anonymous tip named "Preference Ranking Guidelines." It looks to me similar to the Google Quality Raters guidelines that continuously leaked until Google began publishing them for all to see.

Google can show search ads with video formats. I mean, Google has been doing this for a while now, but they are kind of rare to see. This latest one is a video ad from Adidas.

After initially going live on Wednesday morning, Microsoft did not officially announce the launch of Copilot Search in Bing until late Friday afternoon. Microsoft said, "Copilot Search seamlessly blends the best of traditional and generative search together to help you find what you need '" and meet you where you're at in your discovery journey."

Google has a new search refinement or expansion feature they are titling "Relevant topics." This reminds me of People also ask, Things to do, and the other ways Google tries to get you to search more after conducting your first search.

Google's John Mueller said if you have hreflang tags that point to a 301 redirect, it is probably okay. But you probably also want to automate the process of setting up those hreflang tags so that there is no redirect.

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