Daily Search Forum Recap: May 14, 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 Search Console is finally testing annotations in the performance reports. Google Business Profiles added a new "What's Happening" section that syncs with your social accounts. Microsoft is retiring the Bing Search APIs in August. A Google internal email about Google Marketing Live in 2024 was revealed. Google is testing a new pagination bar on mobile search.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Google Search Console Tests Add Annotation In Performance Reports
  Google is testing adding the ability for you to add your own annotations to the Google Search Console performance reports. This is one of the requests SEOs have been asking for from Google for a long time and now Google is testing this in Search Console.
• Google Business Profiles What's Happening Feature
  Google is rolling out a new feature for Google Business Profiles named What's Happening. This feature is for bars or restaurants to better promote events, deals, and specials prominently at the top of their Google Business Profile.
• Bing Search APIs To Retire August 11, 2025
  Microsoft is going to do away with the Bing Search and Bing Custom Search APIs as of August 11, 2025. Microsoft posted a notice on its API documentation pages with this news.
• Google Internal Emails On Google Marketing Live 2024 (Last Year)
  Remember the Power Pair from Google Marketing Live 2024? Well, that and several other items of discussion were found in internal emails at Google about the GML 2024 event. It discussed how advertisers were not excited about PMax, there is frustration amongst advertisers, being pushed into fully automated ads and they are just willing to go along with it.
• Google Tests New Pagination Bar On Mobile
  Google is also testing a new pagination bar with page numbers and previous and next icons, instead of the "more search results" button. Bing was recently just testing this too and now I see Google testing it.
• Dooglers By Google Bike
  Here is a Doogler, fluffy one, near a Google bike. Yes, Google dogs are named Dooglers. I know how many of you like photos of dogs and animals. I don't know why but you do, so here.

Other Great Search Threads:

• I can't see any auction insights data beyond April 6 in any account. Usually there is a two-day lag. In my opinion this length of time is sufficient to call it an outage, Mike Ryan on X
• Highlights of a must-read The Economist interview with Elizabeth Reid from Google, discussing the integration of AI in search and AIO's: * AI Overviews address questions that are difficult to answer with traditional search, Aleyda Solis on X
• Humans are also great at recognizing patterns. And also, "Humans are pattern-seeking story-telling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns, whether they exist or not." (Michael Shermer), John Mueller on Bluesky
• I'm not sure how widespread it was, but it's been resolved and the Shopping ad data backfill appears to be complete now., AdsLiaison on X
• If you're using any 3rd party tools that connect with GA4, pay attention to this. Google has changed how their GA4 cookies are formatted and it's breaking attribution for many tools that use the measurement protocol to push data into GA4,, Dana DiTomaso on Bluesky
• The 202504 Chrome User Experience (CrUX) release is now live on BigQuery! Check out the announcement post for the full info: groups.google.com/a/chromium.o... Highlights below, Barry Pollard on Bluesky
• To clarify, this update only affects the bottom auction, Ginny Marvin on LinkedIn
• We have it documented at support.google.com/webmasters/a... (on the bottom). Basically an AIO counts as a block, so it's all one position. It can be first position, if the block is shown first, but I don't know if AIO is always shown first., John Mueller on Bluesky
• Crikey... OpenAI have two bugs in their bot documentation, Ryan Siddle on LinkedIn
• Our new Global AI Tracker is out. Key points: ChatGPT's traffic dropped during the holidays (late December–early January) but has risen steadily since early 2025. DeepSeek's rapid rise and stabilization., Similarweb on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

• Google Ads Performance Max image optimization now rolling out
• The ABCs of Google ranking signals: What top search engineers revealed
• Google Business Profiles launches ‘What’s Happening’
• Google faces $13 billion in EU civil claims after Shopping antitrust fine
• Relevance is the new ranking signal: How AI search redefines optimization
• Value-based bidding: Why it’s key to boosting your Google Ads
• Rethinking Meta Ads AI: Best practices for better results

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

• Are Log Files the New Impressions? How We’re Tracking AI Visibility, Seer Interactive
• What is Clickstream Data and How do We Use it at Semrush Traffic & Market?, Semrush

Industry & Business

• Google Facing at Least €12 Billion in Civil Claims Across Europe, Bloomberg
• Google’s new model for clean energy approved in Nevada, Google Blog
• Microsoft is cutting 3% of its workforce, CNBC
• Y Combinator says Google is a ‘monopolist’ that has ‘stunted’ the startup ecosystem, TechCrunch

Links & Content Marketing

• Stress Testing Ideas for Thought Leadership Content, Content Marketing Institute
• Ecommerce Content Audit Guide: 6 Steps + Considerations, Shopify

Local & Maps

• Driving just got more productive — and fun— with Gemini and more, Google Blog
• How to Use Apple Maps on the Web, Wired

Mobile & Voice

• Android announces new design, Gemini updates and more, Google Blog
• Apple Wants People to Control Devices With Their Thoughts, Wall Street Journal
• Consumer-refresh boosts worldwide tablet market by 9% in Q1 2025, Canalys
• Gemini is coming to watches, cars, TV and XR devices, Google Blog
• Google launches Material 3 Expressive redesign for Android, Wear OS devices, Google Blog
• Google Teases Glasses Announcement For I/O Next Week, UploadVR

SEO

• Analyze Large Log Files Locally for SEO Using Python, Decode Digital Market
• Considerations & Consequences of Changing Established URLs, Sitebulb
• Helpful tips from the experts at SEO Week NYC, SearchLab Digital
• How Google Handles Canonicalization of Same-Language Duplicate/Near-Duplicate Pages, International Web Mastery
• SEO Test for Merchant Listings in Google SERPs, SEO Testing
• New Study: After 190 Days Since Last Crawl Googlebot Forgets, Indexing Insight
• Preparing Your Brand in the AI Era: How Businesses Can Prepare Stakeholders, Blue Array SEO

PPC

• Common Google Ads Mistakes and How to Fix Them, PPC Live
• Google Launches AI-Based 3D Asset Generation for Shopping Listings, Social Media Today
• Google AI Max for Search: A Game-Changer or a Gamble?, Koozai
• New Vehicle Top Ads Format in Google Ads, PPC News Feed

Search Features

• AI Overviews Have Doubled (25M AIOs Analyzed), Ahrefs
• Google AI Overviews leads to dramatic reduction in clickthroughs for Mail Online, Press Gazette

Other Search

• Alibaba’s “ZeroSearch” Teaches AI to “Google Itself”, Search Engine World
• AI power rankings upended: OpenAI, Google rise as Anthropic falls, Poe report finds, VentureBeat

Feedback:

Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.