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 is testing link cards at the top of the AI Overviews...

Google is testing placing the link cards at the top of the AI Overviews box within Google Search. Instead of having them deep at the bottom, they are being tested at the top, which would clearly drive more clicks to publishers than the current implementation.

Google Ads announced updates to its Search ads query matching and brand controls that made advertisers happy (it has been a while). The updates include better reporting for misspellings, negative keywords now block misspellings, and changes to brand inclusions and brand exclusions.

Google has announced a number of new search-related features to its mobile version of the Chrome browser. These updates include new local Chrome Actions, new search shortcuts, trending in search suggestions and more.

Google seems to be testing (or maybe it is a bug) having the search results page slide over right to the next page (visually at least) when you enter a new query. It seems like some new animation when you change your query from the Google Search results page.

Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, said it again, that "there's clearly more we should be doing" with ranking websites that deserve to rank better in Google Search. He clarified that this is not something Google does manually, on a per-site basis. Instead, Google does this at scale by updating its ranking systems and algorithms, he said.

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 Search has dropped continuous scroll in its desktop search results, with mobile search to follow...

Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, responded to some new SEO advice floating around the SEOverse that suggests you should not add the brand name of the products you are reviewing in your review content. Sullivan disagreed with this advice and said, "you shouldn't be afraid to mention the brand name of something you are reviewing."

Google is testing a new ads insights box and report that shows target ROAS insights for Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns. The report shows if your actual ROAS is within the expected range. The Graph shows weekly ROAS averages, including projected conversions.

Google Search is rolling back its continuous scroll user interface and bringing back the legacy Google Search pagination bar. Google told us that starting yesterday it will stop offering continuous scroll on desktop, with the mobile search interface to follow in the coming months.