• Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Core Update Volatility, Helpful Content Update Gone, Dangerous Google Search Results & Google Ads Confusion

    This week, we covered that the Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out 38 days later, but we saw more volatility this week. Just a reminder that the Google helpful content update no longer exists. Gary Illyes from

  • Google Search With 16 Shopping Ads

    It is good to have choices but too many choices might not be good, said some wise man. Well, here is Google giving you 16 choices of bikes in the shopping ad spot at the top of the Google Search results.This was spotted by Mike Hardaker and he shared this screenshot with me on X - here it is:I tried to replicate it, but I was unable to. I suspect this is some sort of weird bug?I mean, I was able to see the normal carousel ads:I also saw the right side ads:And those new vertical tall ads:This...

  • What Did Israelis Search For On Google During The Iranian Attack?

    What did thousands of Israelis type into Google’s search engine during the tense hours of the Iranian attack overnight Motzei Shabbos? Ynet reviewed the data and found that they were searching for “Tehillim” and “Tikkun HaKlali.” Already on Motzei Shabbos, in the hours ahead of the impending attack, there was an increase in the search […]

  • Meta AI adds Google Search results

    Meta AI will point users to web search results of Google or Microsoft Bing for queries that require the most up-to-date answers.

  • Head of Google Search demands urgency as growth slows

    Google Senior VP Prabhakar Raghavan blames increasing competition, costs and regulation for a 'new operating reality'.

  • How one power-hungry leader destroyed Google search

    Google's search engine was once the crown jewel of the Internet, but one executive's power grab led to its spectacular downfall, reports tech writer Edward Zitron in his newsletter article, titled "The Man Who Killed Google Search." In 2019, Google's ads team raised a "code yellow" alarm due to declining search revenue growth. — Read the rest

  • Google Notes On Search Won't Necessarily Go Away In May

    There have been some people noticing that the Google Notes On Search labs experiment has an end date of May 2024 and thus they are expecting Notes on Search to be turned off by then. Just because it has that end date listed, it does not mean the labs experiment will end on that date.As a reminder, the Google Search Generative Experience SGE labs experiment had listed an end date of December 2023. But then came December and Google decided to remove the date and extended SGE as a labs...

  • Japan presses Google to modify search ad practices

    The Japan Fair Trade Commission is preparing to formally advise Google to change its advertising practices, after an investigation found it imposed anti-competitive restrictions through a partnership with Yahoo Japan, now a subsidiary of Line, Kyodo News reported.

  • Recap of Google's Search Central Live Romania 2024

    Mihai Aperghis (@mihaiaperghis), an SEO we reference here from time to time, is also a Google Product Expert and attended the Google Search Central Unconference the other week. He has written this blog post and I am posting it here as a super rare guest post on this site. Why? (1) Mihai rocks and (2) this site is about community and Product Experts are the essence of the Google community. I (Barry) personally was unable to attend due to a conflict. Note: Mihai did not ask for a link or a...

  • Google Chrome IP masking could radically impact search advertising

    Google's plan for IP protection would give them a monopoly on location data and drive up costs for advertisers.

  • Google Search Tests Thumbs Up/Down Buttons In Product Grid Results

    Google launched the style recommendations with thumbs up and down buttons not long ago after testing it in January. Now Google is showing this thumbs up and down buttons in the product grid search results, so Google can see what you like or dislike and then show you more products that you do like.Brodie Clark spotted this and posted some examples on X, he wrote, "Google is now testing out a more personalized experience for organic product grid results on mobile."Here are some of his...

  • Clarification: Google Search Supports Images Referenced From src Attribute

    Google has clarified in its image search help documentation that images are only extracted from the src attribute of img tags in Google Search. This is not new, but Google decided to update its documentation based on some questions it received about the topic.The new line reads:Google Search supports images referenced in the src attribute of img in the following file formats: BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, and SVG. It's also a good idea to have the extension of your filename match with the file...