Microsoft Advertising Releases Guide To AEO & GEO
The Microsoft Advertising team released a new PDF guide named “From discovery to influence: AEO A guide to and GEO.” This guide offers “Practical data strategies to empower retailers for AI search, AI assistants and AI browsers.”
Official: Apple Intelligence & Siri To Be Powered By Google Gemini
It is now official, Google confirmed it has entered “into a multi-year collaboration” with Apple to power Apple Intelligence features and Siri with Google’s Gemini models and cloud technology.
Microsoft Advertising Now Allows Up To 50 Search Themes In PMax Campaigns
Microsoft Advertising has expanded the number of search themes it allows to 50 search themes for Performance Max campaigns. This should be live now but Microsoft will announce it sometime this week.
Possible Google Search Ranking Volatility Around January 12
I am seeing signs of a possible Google search ranking update or volatility around January 12, 2026. This is weird in that most of the tools, not all, are mostly calm, but the chatter has picked up and many SEOs are noticing ranking fluctuations.
Google Shopping Promotions Support Subscription Fees & Abbreviations
Google Shopping is updating its promotions policy to now allow for promotions on subscription fees and abbreviations. This was updated as of this month, January 2026.
Google Hotel Knowledge Panels Posting Currently Turned Off Bug
Google seems to have a bug that prevents searchers from leaving hotel reviews directly in the Google Search desktop interface. It works fine within Google Maps and Hotel search interfaces but not in the web search interface.
Google Integrates Core Search Signals Into AI Experiences
Google’s Robby Stein reiterated that Google’s AI experience, such as AI Mode and AI Overviews, integrates Google’s core search signals. This helps Google provide more useful and helpful responses to users in the AI experiences. But it doesn’t always ge…
Google AI Mode Direct Offers Ads & Universal Commerce Protocol
In a rare Sunday launch, Google announced new AI Mode ads named Direct Offers. Google also announced branded AI agents and a new open standard for agentic commerce it calls Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP).
Google Ads Performance Max A/B Testing Assets
Google Ads has a new experiment feature for Performance Max campaigns that lets you A/B-test assets. This allows you to compare the performance of 2 different sets of assets within the same asset group to find out which creative combination works best …
Google Merchant Center Business Agent – Branded AI Agents
Google announced new Business Agents, branded AI Agents, a “new way for shoppers to chat with brands, right on Search,” Google said. “It’s like a virtual sales associate that can answer product questions in a brand’s voice, enabling retailers to connec…
Google Ads Brand Linking Experiment
Google Ads seems to be slowly rolling out a new Google Ads experimental feature in the Google Ads Lab section named Brand Linking. Brand linking lets you “Link customers to brands,” it reads.
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Volatility, Personalized Google AI Answers, Microsoft Copilot Checkout & More SEO & PPC News
This week, yep, we had another story on Google Search ranking volatility. I posted the Google webmaster report for January 2026. Google Discover seems to be showing too many…
Google Talks On Hiring A GEO/AEO/SEO & Buying AI-Optimization Tools
Google’s Danny Sullivan and John Mueller spoke on the Search Off the Record podcast about whether hiring an AEO/GEO or buying an AI-optimization tool is any different than hiring an SEO or buying an SEO tool. In short, the advice is the same – both Go…
Google: Don’t Turn Your Content Into Bite-Sized Chunks
Google’s Danny Sullivan said on the Search Off the Record podcast that was published yesterday that Google does not want you to turn your content into bite-sized chunks to rank well in LLMs. He said, “we don’t want you to do that” and he even spoke to…
Microsoft Agents: Copilot Checkout & Brand Agents
Microsoft announced its AI-agents agentic experiences under the names of Copilot Checkout and Brand Agents. Copilot Checkout lets you shop and checkout directly in the Copilot chat experience and Brand Agents lets you add AI-chat experience to your sit…
Bing Tests Retro Local Pack In Search Results
In September, we posted about a number of local pack design tests from Microsoft Bing. But now, Bing might be testing a more retro, older-looking interface for the local pack in the Bing search results.
Microsoft Advertising Reminds Advertisers To Configure Email Settings
Navah Hopkins, the Microsoft Ads Liaison, posted a reminder on LinkedIn, encouraging advertisers to ensure the email settings are all configured properly. You can get monthly invoices, billing alerts, account notifications, ad and keyword rejection no…
Microsoft Hiring Very Senior PM To Fight Spam On Bing & Copilot
Microsoft is hiring a “very” Senior Product Manager who will initially work on fighting spam across Bing and Copilot. Fabrice Canel said this is a “very” senior PM role and the job description says the “initial focus on reducing Spam in Copilot, Bing,…
PSA: Don’t Create Separate Google Business Profile For Department Listings
Greg Gifford, a veteran automotive and local SEO, published a hard warning to vendors suggesting that they tell automotive dealerships to set up separate Google Business Profile department listings for separate services. He said, do not, do not, do th…
Google’s John Mueller Answers If You Should Invest In GEO
John Mueller, a Google Search Analyst, responded to a question on Reddit named Is SEO still enough, or do we need to start thinking about GEO too? In short, John said you should look at the “full picture, and prioritize accordingly.”