Google Search Ranking Volatility & Chatter Heats Up October 20 & 21
Google Search rankings seem to be getting super volatile again, this is alongside the search industry chatter that has been spiking to unusual levels over the past 24 hours. As a reminder, the third-party tracking tools may still be struggling to track the volatility, but when I look at that, coupled with the industry chatter, I think we have an unconfirmed Google update going on.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: October 23, 2026
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Search Chatter, PHP Exploit, AI SEO Worthwhile, Google Local, Google Ads, ChatGPT Ads & More
This week, yes, we saw even more Google search ranking volatility chatter but still no official core update. Google shared how to handle Google Search if you need to take down your site for the PHP exploit fix. There are three new...
Search Video Recaps
Google AI Overview Citation Cards With AI-Generated Summary Snippets
Google seems to be testing or rolling out AI-generated summaries within AI Overviews citation cards. So the cards on the right (or bottom) of the AI Overviews within Google Search can now show AI summary snippets/descriptions.
JPEG XL Image Format Not Supported By Google Images & Google Discover
John Mueller at Google recently confirmed that Google Image Search and Google Discover don't yet support the JPEG XL image format. He said this on Bluesky recently, "FWIW if you're hoping to get images shown in Google Images & as previews in Discover, etc - JPEG-XL is currently not supported."
Google Business Profiles Tests New Advanced Performance Reports
Google is testing a completely revamped performance report section within Google Business Profiles that includes metrics on engagement, reviews, search trends, audience and more. It also includes top recommendations and a more broken-out reviews detail view.
Google Universal Cart In Search Is Live, Yep
Last week, we reported that Google was launching its Universal Cart in the United States after demoing it at Google I/O in May. And yes, a few days after Google announced it, it was rolling out. I think most people started to see it show up in Google Search and Gemini starting on Friday and over the weekend.
Google AdSense Videos Placement & Sticky Requirements Removed
Google updated its AdSense Video inventory restrictions policy to remove the placement requirement and the scroll-to-sticky requirements yesterday, October 22nd. Google removed this line from the policy, "For In-stream or Accompanying Content placements that transition to a sticky placement, the video player must start in the main content and only transition as a user scrolls the video player off the page."
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Oct 22, 2026Picture of the Day
