Google’s Gary Illyes: Focus On Originality In 2025
Gary Illyes from Google reportedly said at event the other day that it is important for us to focus on originality in the coming year. “Originality is something we’re going to be focusing on this year. That’s going to be important,” is how he was quoted.
Google’s Gary Illyes: Focus On Originality In 2025
Gary Illyes from Google reportedly said at event the other day that it is important for us to focus on originality in the coming year. “Originality is something we’re going to be focusing on this year. That’s going to be important,” is how he was quoted.
Google: Don’t Update Lastmod Date With Copyright Date Changes
Gary Illyes from Google ranted on Bluesky about folks updating the lastmod date in their sitemap files when all they have changed was the date in their footers copyright line from 2024 to 2025. Gary said, don’t do it, it is not enough of a change to t…
Google: Don’t Update Lastmod Date With Copyright Date Changes
Gary Illyes from Google ranted on Bluesky about folks updating the lastmod date in their sitemap files when all they have changed was the date in their footers copyright line from 2024 to 2025. Gary said, don’t do it, it is not enough of a change to t…
ChatGPT Search More Open; Google Expands Gemini 2.0 & Microsoft Think Deeper in Copilot
OpenAI announced big news that its ChatGPT Search service is now open and no longer requires a login or an account. It comes the same day that Google expanded access to Gemini 2.0 to all users and where Microsoft said Think Deeper in Copilot is free f…
Google Search Ranking Volatility Hits February 4th & 5th
I am seeing a lot of renewed chatter within the SEO industry of a possible unconfirmed Google search ranking update touching down in the past 24-hours or so. The weird thing is that the tools are not really showing much of a spike in volatility but th…
Microsoft Advertising Lists Performance Max & Feature Updates
Microsoft published its new Microsoft Advertising features that it released over the past month. This goes across Performance Max tools, reporting, new values, targeting, and more.
Google AI Overviews With Detailed Comparison Mode
Google AI Overviews are now able to show super detailed comparison within Google Search. If you search for two very specific models, Google may give you a ton of details directly in the AI Overview.
Alphabet Google Ad Revenue Up 10% Again, Hitting $72.5 Billion
Google / Alphabet reported its Q4 2024 earnings last night, where its ad revenue hit $72.46 billion, up 10.6% from last year’s quarter of $65.52 billion. Google’s revenue was up 12% with $96.47 billion and its profit was up 30.7% to $30.9B. Search reve…
Report: Google AI Overviews Are Killing Click Through Rates
The folks at Seer put together a study looking at how the click-through rates of the Google organic and paid search results are impacted by having AI Overviews on the page. And the short answer is, AI Overviews seem to be hurting the click-through rate…
Generative AI Mentions In Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines
As you know, Google updated its Search Quality Raters guidelines with 11 new pages a couple of weeks ago. But with that, Google also added the term “generative AI” to the quality raters guidelines for the first time, and it is listed 14 times.
Google Writing Popular Products Descriptions With Generative AI
Google is now testing using generative AI to write descriptions within the popular products section in Google Search. We’ve seen this with knowledge panels, local listings and many other parts of Google Search but I don’t think I’ve seen it for the pop…
Yahoo Search AI Features Powered By Microsoft Copilot?
Ever since we began seeing the new Yahoo Search AI features and AI Chat, we’ve been asking if they were powered by their own AI, by maybe OpenAI or maybe Microsoft Copilot. Well, it seems there is evidence that these features are powered by Microsoft C…
Google: Embedded Resources Are Cached For A While
If you embed resources on your pages, those embedded resources can be cached longer than other parts of the page in Google Search.
Google Ads Prompt To Book A Tagging Appointment
Google Ads is offering some advertisers the option to book a tagging appointment with a Google Ads representation through the Google Ads console. This will help you set up an appointment to have a Google rep help you set up proper tracking of your camp…
Daily Search Forum Recap: February 3, 2025
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 using AI to generate backgrounds automatically for your shopping campaign images…
February 2025 Google Webmaster Report
While this month was not as busy as last month, it was still a pretty stressful month for a lot of site owners and SEOs. I was expecting more core updates this past month, but we had none, whereas the previous report, we covered three confirmed Google…
Google To Test AI Generated Background Images For Your Shopping Ads
Google is sending emails to some advertisers letting them know that they can opt out of a test, where Google will use AI to automatically create backgrounds for their images in Google Shopping Ads.
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Ranking Volatility, Site Reputation Abuse, AI Overviews 2.0, Yahoo Search AI & More
We are seeing more Google search ranking volatility hit both over the weekend and also mid-week. Google expanded its site reputation abuse enforcement to Germany. Google AI Overviews powered by Gemini 2.0 can go insanely deep. Google launched a ne…
Google: Demographic Exclusions To Apply To Google Ads Shopping Inventory in PMax
Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, has confirmed that demographic exclusions will apply to Shopping inventory in Performance Max campaigns. Marvin added that the reporting on how this is shown to advertisers is still to be determined, but the goal i…