Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google 7/11 Update, Bing Penalties, Google Images, AI Overviews AI Images, Google Ads Updates, ChatGPT Ads Features & Apple Maps
This week, we saw some Google Search ranking volatility around July 11th, so I called it the 7-Eleven update. Bing said it does not do one-off search penalties because it is not scalable. Google Images celebrated its 25th anniversary…
Google Ads Making Broader Smart Bidding Updates? Google Says No.
The PPC community has been going wild over the change that is coming to Google Ads around bidding for campaigns limited by budget on August 18th. There is some belief that this is going to be a broader smart bidding update than what Google communicated.
Did Google Maps Turn Off OpenTable Reservations?
Google has removed its help document named “Make OpenTable reservations in Google Maps” yesterday. It looks like that implies that Google Maps removed the integration it has with restaurant listings and making reservations with OpenTable.
Google Renamed NotebookLM Useragent To Google-GeminiNotebook
As many of you know, Google has user-triggered fetchers including Google-NotebookLM. But with NotebookLM being renamed to Gemini Notebook, Google had to update the user agent name of Google-NotebookLM to Google-GeminiNotebook.
Google StoreBot Accessibility Issues Help Document Updated
Google has updated the help document named How to fix: Google StoreBot crawler can’t access your in-store product page. The document has a number of big updates with a lot of clarifications including the user-agents, checking robots.txt, blocking IP ad…
Bing Tests Black Magnifying Glass Icon In Search Bar
Microsoft Bing is testing using a black colored magnifying glass in the search bar and box. This is instead of a gray or black outlined icon, the test is a fully colored in icon.
Google: Discovered vs Crawled Not Indexed Quality Issues & AI-Generated Content
Google’s John Mueller and Martin Splitt spoke about the Google Search Console indexing report in its latest Search Off the Record podcast. One item was on how quality issues, including low-quality AI-generated content, can result in those pages not bei…
Google: Discovered vs Crawled Not Indexed Quality Issues & AI-Generated Content
Google’s John Mueller and Martin Splitt spoke about the Google Search Console indexing report in its latest Search Off the Record podcast. One item was on how quality issues, including low-quality AI-generated content, can result in those pages not bei…
Apple Maps Ads Bans Home Service Businesses With Updated Terms
Apple has posted new Apple Maps policies where it now says it is prohibiting home services, such as plumbing, electrical, locksmith, HVAC, pest control, roofing, or general contracting services. It also says bail bonds, cryptocurrency ATMs and some med…
Google Ads Performance Max Product Reporting Now Uses All Networks
Google Ads updated its Performance Max product level reporting back on June 15th. This report now uses data from all Performance Max networks, rather than the subset it previously pulled from.
Google Manufacturer Center Removed Manual Update Or Add Products
Google sent out an email to those who use the Google Manufacturer Center to remind them that the ability to manually add or update products directly in Manufacturer Center has been removed. Instead, Google said use the Manufacturer Center API or upload…
Google: You’re Are Better Off Without Lastmod Dates When They Are Incorrect
Gary Illyes from Google said that you are better off not using a lastmod date in your XML Sitemap if those dates are wrong. He said on Bluesky, “probably better off without the lastmods. at least you save a few bytes.”
Google To Merge Google Shopping Ads & Free Listing Policies To One Policy
Google announced it will consolidate and merge the Shopping ads and free listings policies into a single Shopping policy sometime in September 2026. Keep in mind, there may be specific ads or free listing policies listed in that consolidated policy doc…
Google Ads To Turn On Local Inventory Ads By Default For Shopping Campaigns
Google just sent out an email to Google Ads advertisers noting that it will turn on local inventory ads by default in your Shopping campaigns. Google added that you can change this setting by August 31st by using the “inventory filter” instead of the “…
Daily Search Forum Recap: July 15, 2026
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 Image Search turned 25 years old and with that…
Google Image Search Home Page Goes From Simple Search Box To Gallery
Google Image Search turned 25 years old and to celebrate, Google revamped the Google Image Search home page. Instead of a clean image search box, Google added an image gallery and placed a search bar at the top of the page.
AI Image Generation Now Within Google AI Overviews
Google AI Overviews can now generate AI images based on your questions, directly in the AI Overview response in Google Search. Google wrote, “To help bring those unique ideas to life, we’re bringing image generation directly into AI Overviews in Search.”
ChatGPT Ads Get Location & Audience Exclusion Controls
OpenAI added more features to ChatGPT Ads Manager, the ability to exclude your ads from showing based on geo-location and/or audience lists. ChatGPT Ads Manager continues to rapidly add new advertising features to its ad platform.
Google Confirms Testing Hide Sponsored Products In Shopping Results
Google has confirmed that it is testing the hide and show sponsored results within the Google Shopping search results interface. Google launched the hide/show sponsored results in the main search results last October and is now testing this feature wit…
Google: Significant Differences With A/B Tests Can Show In Search Results
Google’s John Mueller noted that if your A/B tests are “significantly different” from one and the other, then that “could be visible in search results too.” He also said, “Depending on your setup, what might happen is that one or the other version is u…