Search Engine Roundtable

Google Search Serving Issue Google has confirmed a Google Search serving issue that is currently ongoing and impacting serving "some pages in some locales." This is a large enough issue that Google posted about it on its Google ...

Update: The Google Search serving issue is now resolved - story updated at seroundtable.com/google-searc...

Programming Note: Offline For Sukkot 5786 This is a programming note that Tuesday and Wednesday are Sukkot and I will be offline the next two days. I will be offline on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 7th and October 8th.

Programming Note: Offline Tuesday and Wednesday for Succos seroundtable.com/programming-...

Google Search Event Carousel Feature Missing? If you search for [events near me], Google may not show you any events near you. It seems like Google is not serving that events carousel right now. I suspect it is a bug and I wonder if this is relat...

Google Search events results outage www.seroundtable.com/google-searc...

Google Testing AI Overviews Show More Button That Jumps Into AI Mode Google is testing having the "Show More" button within AI Overviews jump you directly into AI Mode as opposed to loading more of the AI Overview beneath it. This appears to be a test, as I am unable ...

Google AI Overviews test has the "show more" button go directly into AI Mode www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-ov...

New Bing Places Dashboard Rolling Out As we reported earlier, Microsoft said a new Bing Places update is coming soon. Well, now it is rolling out to businesses in Bing Places for Business.

New Bing Places dashboard is live www.seroundtable.com/new-bing-pla...

Google Testing AI Generated Search Snippet Descriptions Google was previously testing placing AI-generated snippet summaries below each search result snippet. Now, Google is testing replacing the search result snippet's description with its own AI-generate...

Google tests AI-generated search result snipper descriptions www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-ge...

Microsoft To Discontinue Microsoft Advertising's Ad Grant Program Microsoft will be shutting down its Microsoft Advertising Ads for Social Impact ad grant program. It will officially be discontinued in December 2025.

Microsoft Advertising ad grant program shutting down in December 2025 www.seroundtable.com/microsoft-ad...

Google Sunset Call Ads Dates Revealed A year ago, we learned that Google would transition from Google call ads, call-only ads, to using call assets within responsive search ads (RSAs) but we didn't know the dates. Now, Google said this wi...

Google call-only ads sunset dates disclosed www.seroundtable.com/google-sunse...

Google Panda Handstand Here is a photo from the Google office in Montreal of a Googler, maybe a Googler, doing a handstand while wearing a Panda costume. I found this on Instagram and thought some of the older SEOs would ap

Google Panda handstand www.seroundtable.com/photos/googl...

Google Search Serving Issue Google has confirmed a Google Search serving issue that is currently ongoing and impacting serving "some pages in some locales." This is a large enough issue that Google posted about it on its Google ...

Google Search serving issue that impacts serving some pages in some locales www.seroundtable.com/google-searc...

YouTube video by RustyBrick Barry Schwartz Search Engine Roundtable Google AI Mode Visual Update, Ads Reporting Updates, ChatGPT Instant Checkout and More

SEO Video Recap: The new visual Google AI Mode, Google Ads reporting updates, ChatGPT Instant Checkout, Business Profile suspensions and much more www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s8_...

Google On Why Google Search Console LCP Is Not Wrong Barry Pollard from Google did a long explanation on Bluesky on why Google Search Console says an LCP is bad but the individual URLs are fine. I don't want to mess it up, so I will copy what Barry wro...

Why Google Search Console LCP metric is not wrong, according to Google www.seroundtable.com/google-searc...

Google Reviews With Incentivized Label Did you know Google can label some of the reviews in the product reviews section as "incentivized"? I am not sure I've seen this before, have you?

Google incentivized reviews www.seroundtable.com/google-revie...

Google Testing Light Gray Title Links On Hover Google is testing another variation to the title links in the Google Search results - a light gray effect. So when you hover your mouse cursor over the snippet, the title link turns grayed and washed ...

Google tests light gray title link effect on hover of the search result snippets www.seroundtable.com/google-light...

Google Merchant Center Next New Menu Bar Google has rolled out the new, more compact, menu bar for Google Merchant Center Next. This was part of a slew of user interface updates that Google has been slowly rolling out for Merchant Center Nex...

Google Merchant Center Next new menu bar www.seroundtable.com/google-merch...

Microsoft Testing Large Images In Bing Search Copilot Ads Microsoft is testing using really large images in the Bing Search Copilot ads. I don't believe I've seen such large ads in this ad unit before, so it seems new to me.

Bing tests large image ads in Copilot results in Bing Search www.seroundtable.com/large-images...

Dark-sided Flycatcher at Google Supposedly this bird, the Dark-sided Flycatcher, drew a crowd to the GooglePlex, the Google office in Mountain View, California. Like other flycatchers, its feeding technique is to perch on an exposed

Dark-Sided Flycatcher at the Google office www.seroundtable.com/photos/dark-...

Programming Note: Offline Thursday For Yom Kippur 5786 This is just a programming note that I will be 100% offline starting Wednesday night (October 1st) through Thursday night (October 2nd) for Yom Kippur. I am not scheduling any stories on Yom Kippur.....

Programming Note : Offline tonight through late tomorrow night for Yom Kippur - more at www.seroundtable.com/yom-kippur-5...

October 2025 Google Webmaster Report: Spam Update, AI Mode, Num, Quality Raters & More Google's spam update completed after almost a month rollout, it was pretty wild and got even more wild after the rollout completed. Google AI Mode rolled out to more languages, is more visual, is test...

October 2025 Google Webmaster report is now available www.seroundtable.com/october-2025...

Google Ads New Message Assets Requirements Google announced new message assets requirements for Google Ads. These new requirements aim "to ensure a good user experience" and go into effect on October 30, 2025.

Google Ads message asset requirements go into effect Oct 30 www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-m...

Google AI Overviews With Citations That Stick As You Scroll Google is testing having the citations stick to the top (of the AI Overview section only) as you scroll down past the AI Overview. This keeps those citations more in view, as you scroll over the AI Ov...

Google AI Overviews with sticky citations as you scroll www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-ov...

Google AI Mode Gets More Visual Google announced that AI Mode had been updated to handle and respond more visually. So AI Mode responses both understand your queries in a more visual way and respond with more visual responses. Goog...

Google AI Mode is more visual now www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-mo...

Google Ads Performance Max Gets Segmentation In Asset Reporting & More Channel Performance Reporting Features Google Ads has announced several new features, including segmentation in asset reporting and enhancements to channel performance reporting. Google told me that this continues to provide advertisers wi...

Google Ads PMax gets new segmentation in asset reporting and new features for channel performance reporting www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-p...

Elizabeth Reid, Head Of Google Search, Interviewed On AI, Search, SEO & More Here is a new interview published yesterday by The Economic Times Podcasts with Elizabeth Reid, VP of Google Search. She spoke about Google's progression of AI in Search, content quality, SEO, blue li...

Google's Liz Reid interviewed on AI, Search, blue links, SEO and more www.seroundtable.com/liz-reid-goo...

Google Rolls Out Emoji Answer Search Box In June, Google began testing showing a new answer box for emoji related queries. So when you search for a specific type of emoji, Google will give you the emoji options that you can copy directly fro...

Google Search emoji search answer box seems ot be fully live www.seroundtable.com/google-emoji...

Reflex Training At Google Here is something new, this Googler, is doing what is called reflex training at the Google office. These sticks fall from the top of the device, and you need to catch them before they fall.

Google reflex training www.seroundtable.com/photos/refle...

Google Ads Reporting Also Impacted By Num=100 Change? As a reminder, Google dropped its unofficial support of showing 100 search results per page, which caused issues for third party tracking tools and even Search Console itself. The theory with Search C...

Google Ads reporting impacted by the num 100 change? www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-r...

OpenAI ChatGPT Instant Checkout With Agentic Commerce Protocol OpenAI announced Instant Checkout in ChatGPT, allowing you to make purchases directly in ChatGPT. This is powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol that is built with Stripe.

ChatGPT Instant Checkout with Agentic Commerce Protocol www.seroundtable.com/openai-chatg...

Google Testing Search Result Snippets With No Underline On Hover Google is testing not underlining the search result snippets when you hover your mouse cursor over the snippet. Generally, Google will add an underline to the title of the link (sometimes the whole sn...

Google tests removing the underline from the search results on hover www.seroundtable.com/google-snipp...

Google Testing Progress Bar For Shopping Ads Carousel Google is testing a blue progress bar under the Shopping Ads carousel in the search results. As you scroll the carousel to see more products, the blue progress bar will indicate how much of the carous...

Google tests blue progress bar under the Shopping Ads carousel www.seroundtable.com/google-progr...