Industry News

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

For the original iTunes version, click here.

This week I covered how the third-party search rank checking tools seem to have cooled, but the chatter is still pretty heated. Maybe Google is blocking these tools...

Some are seeing a super scary Google Ads phishing scam in the Google Search ads slots. When you search, sometimes a scam may come up, sending you to a Google Sites address that is not managed by Google, where it asks you to login to your Google account with your username and password.

Google may be bringing Search Max to Google Ads soon. A "Search Max" option is showing up in the Google Ads match type report for some advertisers.

Google has updated the screenshot examples of the events and estimated salary sections of the Structured data markup that Google Search supports. I assume this update was to better match the newer updated designs that Google uses in the actual search results.

Google seems to be testing an AI-generated version of What People Are Saying in Google Search. This shows a similar video or social media type of search results but it says generative AI is experimental.

Google is updating its hotel prohibited practices policy to specify that (1) you are required to display final room availability and rates before requesting user information and (2) you are required to avoid price changes after users enter their personal information.

For the past week, we've been discussing how most of the third-party tracking tools have been showing much calmer and cooler search ranking volatility. This is all while the chatter within the SEO community still seems super heated. The reason may be that Google has been deploying new and more advanced blocking mechanisms towards these SEO tools.

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

Google has partnered with The Associated Press to provide more real time data for Gemini. Google said "the AP will now deliver a feed of real-time information to help further enhance the usefulness of results displayed in the Gemini app."