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 Ads updated its advertiser suspension systems to make it better for most advertisers. Google launched a number of AI tools for shopping before the holiday season. Google said don't close your Google account to try to hack your Google LSAs to work better. Google Ads is testing standard shopping campaign brand inclusions. Google AI Overviews weird link placement makes it hard to track impressions and positions. Google proposed changes for the EU ad tech legal case.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
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Google Shopping With AI Mode Comparisons, Call Store, Track Price & Agentic Checkout
Google announced a bunch of AI-based search features for Google Shopping, AI Mode and Gemini for the holiday season. Google is rolling out the AI Mode comparison feature (we saw it earlier), calling stores feature, AI price tracking and agentic checkout based on the price trigger. -
Google AI Overviews Link Placement Makes Search Console Tracking Tricky
Google has clearly documented how it tracks link clicks, impressions and positions for AI Overviews in this help document. But if you ever saw an AI Overview and interacted with them, you'd know that (1) when you click on a link icon, the citation cards on the right change and (2) running the same query a minute later may return different citation cards. -
Google Ads Advertiser Suspension Improvements: Faster & More Accurate
Google said it has made significant improvements to the Google Ads advertiser suspensions. Google said it reduced incorrect suspensions by 80%, appeals are addressed 70% faster and 99% of appeals are resolved within 24 hours. -
Google Ads Brings Brand Inclusions To Standard Shopping Campaigns
Google Ads is bringing brand controls, like brand inclusion support, to Standard Shopping campaigns. This was supported for PMax and AI Max camapigns but now are showing up for Standard Shopping campaigns. -
Google: Don't Close Your Google Ads Account To Make LSAs Work
Supposedly, there is this "hack" to "crack the code" to make your Local Service Ads work in Google Ads that is fake and not recommended. Folks are saying if your LSAs are not working, you should close that Google Ads account and make a new one. But Google and LSA experts are saying otherwise. -
Google Proposes Changes In EU Ad Tech Case For Ad Manager & More
Google proposed a number of changes in the ''¬2.95B EU antitrust fine over its ad technology. The changes include changes to Google Ad Manager and increasing the interoperability between its tools. Google still plans to appeal the ruling. -
Decapitating Android Jelly Bean
Here is a video from the GooglePlex, the Google offices in Mountain View, California of two people decapitating, removing the head, of the Android Jelly Bean statue. I assume they wanted some jelly beans? -
Video: Movemeber Google Update, Opal AI Spam, Discover Spam Fix, Copilot Search, Google Image Ads & More
This week, we had a pretty big update touch down early on and it really continued throughout the whole week, I named it the Movember update. Google Opal tool encourages you to create optimized AI content at scale. Google said it...
Other Great Search Threads:
- Hi Greg, I just confirmed with the team to be extra sure: The ad group level target will take precedence over the strategy level target in Search and Shopping campaigns., AdsLiaison on X
- Heads-up, with ChatGPT 5.1 (released yesterday), if ChatGPT uses its 'Thinking' model, you will see that in the upper right corner along with sources there. By default, ChatGPT will decide which model to use. You can expand all the, Glenn Gabe on X
- I've spent 24 hours with Google's new agentic "Ads Advisor," here and the pros and cons so far., Jyll Saskin Gales on LinkedIn
- We work tirelessly in an endless battle against spammers to make Search great for users. We do this fairly, consistently, and transparently. Unsurprisingly, companies that benefit from Search manipulation don’t like our anti-spam efforts, Nick Fox on X
- Ahrefs bringing back top 100 - they don't say how, Barry Schwartz on X
- Some more Google Merchant Accounts API updates - it is not the 17th yet btw, Barry Schwartz on X
Search Engine Land Stories:
- 3 Common mistakes to avoid when investing in AI search
- Google’s new “Ads Advisor” AI is put to the test
- Google Ads boosts accuracy in advertiser account suspensions
- AI sends 1% of website traffic – and most of it is from ChatGPT
- Google Ads experiment taps social creatives for PMax campaigns
- Google releases AI shopping updates for the holidays
- Google FastSearch: Everything you need to know
- Generative AI and defamation: What the new reputation threats look like
Other Great Search Stories:
AI & LLMs
- Baidu unveils proprietary ERNIE 5 beating GPT-5 performance on charts, document understanding and more, VentureBeat
- How GPT Sees the Web, DEJAN
- How to Compare Your AI Visibility Against Your Competitors, Ahrefs
- Introducing GPT-5.1 for developers, OpenAI
- Measuring political bias in Claude, Anthropic
- Mozilla announces an AI ‘window’ for Firefox, The Verge
- Omnimedia Strategy for Ecommerce: Turning Your Product Feed into a Content Engine, iPullRank
- Piloting group chats in ChatGPT, OpenAI
- Shopping Analysis: Your New Window Into Conversational Shopping, Profound
Industry & Business
- Defending Search users from “Parasite SEO” spam, Google Blog
- Google’s framework for developing quantum applications, Google Blog
- How high are OpenAI’s compute costs? Possibly a lot higher than we thought, Financial Times (Sub)
- OpenAI slams court order that lets NYT read 20 million complete user chats, Ars Technica
- Big Tech’s Climate Strategists Feel Strain From Escalating AI Power Demands, Bloomberg
- Google Accused in Suit of Using Gemini AI Tool to Snoop on Users, Bloomberg
Links & Content Marketing
- Manage Digital Assets So Your Brand Avoids AI Disasters, Content Marketing Institute
- Why PR Newswire Dominates Search—and Why Brands Should Pay Close Attention, Bill Hartzer
Local & Maps
- LSRF, Local Inventory Calls, Social Double Duty, AI & Yelp, Near Media
- Tesla Is Working to Add Apple CarPlay in Bid to Boost Vehicle Sales, Bloomberg
SEO
- Cloudflare for SEO: A Deep Dive into Bot Management, AI Crawler Control, and Pay-Per-Crawl, Search Engine World
- Here’s Jeffrey Epstein complaining about SEO, The Verge
- How to Justify Your SEO Budget in 2025, BruceClay
- Is Brand Demand Sabotaging Your SEO? Or Hiding Your Week Strategy?, SEO for Lunch
- Stop Obsessing Over AI Overviews | Focus on Product Grids, Audience Key
- The Unified Framework: Connecting Knowledge Graphs, Entity Search, and Search Insights for Topical Authority, Advanced Web Ranking
- OpenAI’s Sparse Circuits Breakthrough and What It Means for AI SEO, DEJAN
PPC
- 3 data insights for holiday campaign success, Microsoft Advertising
- Why Google is pushing demand gen and YouTube to ad partners, Digiday
Search Features
- Doodle for Google 2025-26 contest opens for submissions, Google Blog
- Is Google's AI Telling the Truth? Here's How to Fact-Check It, Stephan Spencer
- Some Google Search users seeing an old UI likely part of test to 'simplify search results page', PiunikaWeb
Other Search
Feedback:
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