Google Ads Mystery Shopping Rating – What?
Have any of you heard of the Google Ads mystery shopping rating? Well, it may be used by Google for the overall store rating, which is calculated from customer reviews and a “Mystery Shopping Rating,” according to a Google Ads rep.
Google Ads Triple Serving Ads On Same Search Results Page
Last December, Google confirmed they are testing double serving ads on the search results. Double serving ads is showing the same ad from the same advertiser more than once on the search results page. It was something against the Google Ads policy. We…
Google Tests AI Overviews In Germany, Switzerland, Italy & More
While we’ve seen AI Overviews in the United States for a while now, and while Google has expanded them to 100+ countries – they are still not officially launched in many European countries like Germany, Switzerland, Italy and others. Well, now we are …
Google Vehicle Ads Now Allow RVs & Campers
Google now accepts RVs (recreational vehicles) and campers in Google Vehicle Ads. Google posted this on Friday afternoon and wrote, “Vehicle ads will be expanding to include recreational vehicles (RVs) and campers.”
Google Merchant Center Shipping Rates Bug Ongoing
Retailers have been complaining for the past several days that there is a bug in Google Merchant Center when trying to add the shipping rates and costs. Step four of that process just bugs out and it is preventing some merchants from completing their …
First Search Central Live in South Africa
On April 2, 2025 we’ll be in Johannesburg, South Africa for the very first Search Central Live event in Africa!
We’re excited to welcome you at Search Central Live South Africa and talk about all things Google Search!
8 Free AI Writing Tools To Speed Up Your Content Creation Process
Struggling to create quality content fast? Discover 8 free AI writing tools that streamline your workflow, boost creativity, and drive better results.
Many Google Ads Accounts Not Serving Or Delivering Ads Since March 1
Since March 1st, there are many Google Ads accounts that are not serving ads. The Google Ads forum is filled with complaints about this and as far as I can tell, I cannot find a single response from an official Google Ads representative (as of yet).
October 2023 Google Spam Update – The Terminator Algorithm
Preface: After a reread of this, I realised 10 years ago I would have been gone within any sign of anything like this happening to a site I was working on. I’m not used to looking at this kind of destruction. On most sites with ranking problems, the is…
March 2024 Google Core Update / Judgement Day for independent publishers
For the small publishers who even made it to March 2024, the March 2024 Google Core Update brought together all of Google’s corrective algorithms launched in 2022 and the ones in the news in late 2023 into one update period. By the last Spam algorithm …
December 2024 Google Spam Update Analysis
The December 2024 Google Spam update followed in the wake of the October 2023 and March 2024 Google Spam updates. From analysis on 100+ Search Console accounts I have had access to, this too looks to have targeted unknown, or disconnected entities in G…
Unannounced February 2025 Google update activity
I’m looking into noticeably impactful and unannounced Google update activity in February 2025, on the surface, unrelated to the entity issues (Google’s understanding and representation of entities in Google Search) I’ve been sharing in the Discon…
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Search Volatility, Google Sued Over AI Overviews, Google Ads Auction Changes & Bing and Apple Intelligence
Another week and more Google search ranking volatility hit mid-week, did you notice? Google’s crawler might be causing issues on your site this week. Google still is making its crawling more efficient and better. Google Search Console’s API had delayed…
Bing Copilot Answers With Map & Local Results (with Ads)
Microsoft Bing Search’s Copilot Answers now can show maps and local results, including local ads. The AI answer has a map on the left side and then on the right side it has local organic and paid listings with the company name, address, phone, website…
Google Emails Reminder About Business Profile Policies
A couple of days ago, Google sent out an email to owners of Google Business Profile listings. The email was a reminder about the Google Business Profile policies, and it highlighted policies around reviews.
Google iOS App Drops Gemini Toggle
A year or more ago, Google added a toggle switch to use Gemini directly in the iOS Google Search app. Well, that was removed this week and you now need to go to the native Gemini app to use Gemini, you cannot use the Google app.
Bing Tests Outlining Search Result Snippets
Microsoft is testing outlining the individual search result snippets within Bing Search. So when you look at a snippet, it has this outline around it, and then when you hover your cursor over it, it highlights more.
Google Shopping Adds Search Google Button For Some Queries
If you go to Google Shopping and enter a query that is not shopping related, Google will add a button above the shopping results asking you to search Google for that query.
What is Index Bloat? — Whiteboard Friday
Deep dive into index bloat – a critical SEO challenge affecting medium to large websites. Learn how to identify URLs consuming your index quota without delivering traffic, understand the difference between crawl budget and index bloat, and discover pra…
Daily Search Forum Recap: February 27, 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.
We are seeing new shuffling with the Google search results…