It's time for the big Google Webmaster report, where I recap all the big organic Google Search related news I covered here over the past month. We had Google I/O and with that, AI Mode went live in the US, with a bunch of new AI features. AI Overviews expanded, and it leads to Google Search query growth. And Sundar Pichai, Google's CEO, feels this won't kill publishers - believe it or not.
We had a lot of Google Search ranking volatility, we covered it five times in the past month. Google did not confirm any of them but Google did say Google Search stops 20 times more spammy pages with its AI.
Google did say AI Mode data will come to Search Console, you just won't be able to break it up. When it does, maybe make an annotation with the new annotations feature in Search Console. Google also released some documentation on AI topics for you all. This is all while Google held another creator summit, meanwhile Brazilian publishers are not happy.
Reddit might get killed off by Google's Discussions beta feature, we will see. Google is testing an AI Shuffle button, and of course, plenty of AI Mode buttons in Google Search. And Google Discover desktop may roll out soon, surprised it hasn't yet.
Below are the top headlines I manually selected and you can read the May 2025 Google webmaster report if you missed it:
Google Ranking Updates & Volatility:
- Google Search Ranking Volatility Heats Up May 29th
- Google I/O 2025 Search Ranking Volatility Heats Up
- Google Search Ranking Update Volatility May 16th
- Google Search Ranking Volatility Spiked - May 12 & 13
- Google Search Ranking Volatility Spiked Thursday - May 8th
- Google AI Mode Live In US: Tests Deep Search, Live Search, Personalization, Custom Charts, Shopping & Agentic
- Google AI Overviews Expand Again & Lead To 10% Query Growth
- Google Rethinking Search Stack From Ground Up With LLMs
- Poll: Most SEOs Are Scared About Google AI Mode
- Google AI Mode Tracking Referrer Issue A Bug
- Google Site Commands Display AI Overviews
- Google Tests Replacing Map Local Pack With AI Overviews
- Google Search Stops 20X More Scammy Pages With Better AI
- Google AI Mode Reporting Coming To Search Console
- Google Search Console Tests Add Annotation In Performance Reports
- Google Sitemap Error For Some International 5 Character Subdomains
- Google Merchant Center New Search For Products Feature
- Google Moving Notifications To Merchant Center Next June 25
- New Google Docs On Using AI Generative Content & AI Search Features
- Google Held Another Google Creator Summit - This Time In D.C.
- Brazilian Publishers Not Happy With Google & Discover
- Google Doc: Link Position & Click Bias Ranking Bias Adjustment
- Google Merchant Center Now Recommends Product's Brand Name In Title
- SEO Complaints About Google's Live Broadcasting & Indexing API
- Google: Page Needs To Be Indexed To Be Shown In AI Mode
- Google's AI Crawler For Gemini, Google-Extended, Does Render JavaScript
- Google Navboost Is Not A Machine Learning System & More DOJ Leaks
- Google: Hreflang Doesn't Guarantee Indexing
- Google Maps 2024: 999 Million Reviews & 752 Million Photos / Videos Published
- Google Updates When Local Questions & Answers Display
- Google Business Profiles Chat Clicks Performance Analytics
- Spike In Google Business Profiles Name Changes?
- Google Tests Read Reviews Button & Appointment Tags On Local Listings
- Google Business Profiles Information Edit Rejection Notice
- Google Search Discussions Beta May One Day Replace Reddit Results
- Google Search AI Shuffle Button
- Google Tests AI Mode Button On Google Search Box
- Google AI Overviews Tests Query Expansion Tabs
- Google Tests Recipes With Interactive AI Overviews
- Google AI Overviews With Author Names & Citations
- Google Search Tests Link Icon Box With Anchor Feature
- Google Updated Its Super G Logo In The iOS App
- Google May Extend The Google Search Box To See More Of The Query
- Google Tests Alignment Changes To Search Result Snippets
- Google Search Results Light Background Shadow Color On Hover
- Google Tests Search Results Links In Light Blue Cyan Again
- Google Search Testing New Sub/Second Menu
- Google Tests New Pagination Bar On Mobile
- Google Search Tests Moving About Results Count Within Tools Menu
- Google Shopping Tests New Menu Under Search Bar With Super G Logo
- Google's Sundar Pichai Doesn't Think Web Publishing Is Dead
- Google Begins Rolling Out Discover On Desktop
- Google Search Begins Migrating Off Country Specific ccTLDs
- 18 Year Google Search Engineer Rants On DOJ's Anti-Trust Case
- Jerry Dischler, Former Google Ads Boss, Leaving Google After Almost 20 Years
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
I am currently offline for the Shavout holiday, this post was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today.
