Industry News

Google's John Mueller pretty much said that using image streaming techniques will not result in an SEO friendly outcome. He actually said, "It's a great way to prevent your images from being found through search engines."

Google is testing a new version of the mobile search results snippets where the URL is now blue, still clickable. Also, a variation where they are switching the placement of the URL and the site name.

Microsoft Advertising has temporarily suspended the ability for agencies to send out client connection requests. Instead, the agency needs to reach out to Microsoft support and wait 5-7 days to hear back to be able to manage their client's ad campaigns on Microsoft.

Google seems to have added a new section to music knowledge panels named "Behind the music." It seems that this is generated using Google's Gemini AI and gives you a bit of background on the song.

Microsoft is now showing two rows of shopping ads at the top of the Bing Search results. There is even an option to expand them to show more ads.

Google reported earnings and their ad revenue is up again year-over-year, with an increase of 8.5%, and overall revenue is also up 12%. I should note, it is down from Q4 because Q4 is always Google's best performing quarter, which is why you don't really compare the it to the last quarter, but rather the same quarter from a year ago.

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

Over the past few days, I've noticed signs of increased Google Search ranking volatility. I held off reporting on it until now because I wanted to see how things settled, but it does seem like Google is testing ranking algorithm updates, on and off, over the past few days.

Google AdSense has updated its policy center by adding three new issue labels; policy issue, regulatory issue, and advertiser preference and also adding new filters. Google said this is to "help you better understand, prioritize, and resolve your issues."

Google updated its Google Merchant Center merchant listing structured data documentation to removed the EnergyConsumptionDetails properties and added an alternative solution to the certificationIdentification property. But keep in mind that the hasEnergyConsumptionDetails is backwards compatible for those who have already implemented it.