Google Merchant Panel With Delivery, Return & Payment Options Carousel
Google Search is showing a carousel in the merchant / retailer panel that lets you scroll through the merchant’s delivery, return and payment options. This information has been in the Google Search results for a while, but this carousel feels new to me…
Google Maps Hotel Results Drop Visit Website Button
Google has removed the visit website button from the first screen of the Google Maps hotel results. Instead, you first need to click on the “Check availability” to get to the visit website button.
Microsoft Advertising With All Accounts Tab
Microsoft made a small update to the Microsoft Advertising console where there is now an “All accounts” tab. This lets you see all your accounts in one place with quick access to account summaries, recommendations and more.
Bias and Prejudice in AI Search
When Claude Met DEJAN I was helping a developer debug a machine learning pipeline. Forty million training samples, weighted loss functions, checkpoint management — technical work. At some point, they asked me to generate test queries for their keyphrase volume classifier. I needed examples across the search volume spectrum, from high-volume head terms down to […]
Google December 2025 Core Update Has Finished Rolling Out
Google’s December 2025 core update is now done rolling out, it took 18 days and 2 hours to complete. The core update started on December 11, 2025 at around 12:25 pm ET and ended on December 29, 2025 at around 2:05 pm ET…
The Industry Mourns The Loss Of Andy Drinkwater – Experience & Friendly SEO
I am sad to report the passing of Andy Drinkwater, a super-experienced SEO and a friend to the search marketing industry. Andy was a UK-based SEO who loved educating his industry by contributing content and attending local events.
Most People Don’t Read
This is a qualitative study on a small number of anonymized users while collecting a very large number of datapoints from each one. In December 2025, we published an article asking a simple question: Do you read or skim? We tracked 269 visitors using mouse movements, scroll patterns, and time-on-page data, then asked them to […]
Daily Search Forum Recap: December 29, 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 questions the need for ccTLDs for all websites that go international. Google’s John Mueller calls…
Google’s John Mueller Calls Some SEO Content – Digital Mulch
Google’s John Mueller posted one of his one-liners, where he called some forms of SEO content as “digital mulch.” He wrote, “And let’s be honest'”most of that SEO content is just digital mulch. (…) If your blog exists solely to rank, it’s living on …
Microsoft Advertising Adds Custom Columns For Advanced Reporting
Microsoft has added the ability to add custom columns to the Microsoft Advertising user interface and advertising console. But it doesn’t offer every metric, including missing the segment by conversion action metric.
Google AI Overviews Tests Speaker Play Button In US
Google is testing an option to read aloud the AI Overviews by clicking on a speaker icon at the top of the AI Overview within Google Search. And the crazy thing, this is being tested in the US.
Google Chrome Tests Replacing Gemini Button With Browse With AI Button
Google is testing swapping out the Gemini button at the top right of the Chrome browser, with a “Browse with AI” button. The button is more colorful and in your face, which probably gets more users to notice it.
Google Questions Need For ccTLDs For Some International Websites
Google’s John Mueller questioned the need for all websites to use ccTLDs, different domain names, to take their websites international. He said on Reddit, “you both make things harder on yourself, but you also make it harder for search engines to under…
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Core Update Status, News Publishers Traffic Distribution, Ads In AI Overviews Expand, ChatGPT Ads & Christmas
This week in search, we covered an update on the Google December 2025 core update. Google Search traffic to news publishers continues to vanish, but there is Google Discover. A report shows Google has deleted a ton…
ChatGPT Ads May Prioritize Sponsored Content In AI Responses
A report from The Information outlined a number of avenues OpenAI is looking at for ad formats in ChatGPT. The main one that is reportedly being thrown around at the AI company is to show sponsored content within the AI responses given by ChatGPT.
Google: #1 Google Ads Launches Of 2025
Google has been publishing these videos from advertisers on the number one Google Ads launches of the year 2025. Bug Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, was asked and she picked PMax channel performance reporting as her number one feature release for…
Google Continues Centering Search Results Test
Google is testing placing the search results in the center of the screen, instead of aligning it more to the left of the screen. This is an ongoing test we have seen on and off over many many years and it is still going on.
Google: Pick A Reasonable Site Name To Rank For In Search
Google’s John Mueller said on Reddit that when picking a site name, make sure to pick something that you can reasonably expect to rank for. In short, don’t go online and complain that your site is named Best SEO blog and you don’t rank in the number o…
Microsoft Advertiser: Exact Match Trumps Ad Rank On AI Surfaces & More
Navah Hopkins, the Ads Liaison for Microsoft Advertising, made it crystal clear that exact match is prioritized even over Ad Rank. Navah Hopkins wrote on X and LinkedIn, “Exact match will get the priority if it’s there, otherwise Ad Rank determines eve…
Google’s Trajectory: 2026 and Beyond
AI is shifting from tool to utility. Agentic AI Becomes the Default Interface 2026 prediction: Expect Google Search to become agentic by default. Not “here are 10 links” – more like “I booked the restaurant, here’s the confirmation.” Operator-style functionality baked into Search and Gemini app. Gemini 4 Likely Late 2026 The pattern is clear: […]