Archive of January, 2026

January, 30 2026

Google tests third-party endorsements in search ads Google is testing 3rd party endorsements in Search ads, adding publisher logos and quotes to [...] - Search Engine Land
Google’s SAGE Agentic AI Research: What It Means For SEO via @sejournal, @martinibuster New research paper about creating a dataset for training deep research AI agents (SAGE) also [...] - Search Engine Journal
Google Search Adds Preferred Sources Help Docs Several weeks after Google rolled out support for Preferred Sources globally, Google added official [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
What 2 million LLM sessions reveal about AI discovery From finance to SaaS, different LLMs win different jobs, which is why a single-platform AI strategy [...] - Search Engine Land
One Click Google Ads Performance Max Ad Previews Google Ads has this new way to preview your Performance Max campaign ads, with one click. Now you [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Search Ranking Volatility Super Heated January 29 & 30 January has been an insane month with Google Search ranking volatility, and I guess it is no [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Business Profiles Review Appeals No Longer Delayed Before the December holidays, Google posted a notice that review appeals for Google Business [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
7 custom GPT ideas to automate SEO workflows How custom GPTs can be used in SEO, with example prompts for planning, analysis, reporting, and [...] - Search Engine Land
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 30, 2026 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today... - Search Engine Roundtable

January, 29 2026

Google Ads Advertiser Verification Page Moving Google is moving the Google Ads verification page to a new section within the Google Ads console. [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
How to optimize for AI search: 12 proven LLM visibility tactics A roundtable of SEO’s most trusted voices explains how LLMs really surface brands, why [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Ads API v23 kicks off faster releases for 2026 Google’s v23 Ads API speeds up releases while adding deeper Performance Max insights, [...] - Search Engine Land
How to find great writers (and other content marketing struggles) You get what you pay for in content. Here’s how to find great writers in 2026, from job [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Ads API Version 23 Now Available Google has released version 23 of the Google Ads API, this is a major release with dozens of [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
When search performance improves but pipeline doesn’t Strong rankings and traffic can mask post-click breakdowns. These breakpoints show where intent, [...] - Search Engine Land
Poll: 33% Will Block Google AI Search Experience: AI Mode & AI Overviews I ran a poll yesterday on X asking Would you block Google from using your content for AI Overviews [...] - Search Engine Roundtable

January, 28 2026

The Ads Decoded Podcast - Inside Adwords
Google Exploring Ways To Allow Sites To Opt Out Of AI Overviews & AI Mode Google just announced it is looking into ways to allow websites to specifically opt out of Google [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Gemini 3 Powering Google AI Overviews Globally Google AI Overviews are now being powered by Gemini 3 globally, by default. Robby Stein, VP of [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
We’re launching the Ads Decoded Podcast to connect advertisers with the people building Google Ads. See the trailer for the new Ads Decoded podcast, a bridge between marketers and the product teams [...] - Inside Adwords
AI recommendation lists repeat less than 1% of the time: Study AI recommendations vary wildly even with identical prompts. The data shows intent holds, but [...] - Search Engine Land
Our approach to website controls for Search AI features Today, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opened a consultation on potential [...] - Inside Search
The future of search visibility: What 6 SEO leaders predict for 2026 AI search now handles discovery, decisioning, and transactions. Here’s what that means for [...] - Search Engine Land
AI local visibility is up to 30x harder than ranking in Google: Report Data shows AI assistants recommend only 1% to 11% of locations, revealing a massive gap between [...] - Search Engine Land
Google may give sites a way to opt out of AI search generative features You may soon be able to tell Google to not use your content for AI Overviews, AI Mode and other [...] - Search Engine Land
Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance Report Beta Bing is testing a new report within Bing Webmaster Tools named AI Performance. AI Performance shows [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
How to optimize video for AI-powered search Learn which video signals AI relies on, and how visuals, audio, transcripts, and schema shape [...] - Search Engine Land
Google searches per U.S. user fell nearly 20% YoY: Report Datos data signals a tougher discovery era as AI cuts repeat searches, concentrates traffic, and [...] - Search Engine Land
Bing Ads Revenue Up 10% - Is Growth Slowing? Microsoft reported its second quarter 2026 earnings and it showed that its search and advertising [...] - Search Engine Roundtable

January, 27 2026

Google AI Overviews follow up questions jump you directly to AI Mode This will result in less traffic to your site and more traffic to Google's AI Mode. Plus, Gemini 3 [...] - Search Engine Land
Why Search and Shopping ads stop scaling without demand Search and shopping excel at closing, not creating. Learn how awareness, CRM, and upper-funnel [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Ads Experiment Center Help Doc Google has posted a new Google Ads help document named About the Google Ads Experiment Center. This [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Posts Tips To Write Better Review Replies Google has updated its tips to get more reviews help documentation with a new section on tips to [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Just ask anything: a seamless new Search experience Search users around the world now have easier access to frontier AI capabilities. - Inside Search
Yahoo! Scout – Yahoo’s return to search and web discovery Yahoo! Scout is Yahoo's come back to search, using AI, its massive network and data to give you a [...] - Search Engine Land
Is your account ready for Google AI Max? A pre-test checklist AI Max can unlock incremental conversions – or drain budget fast. Validate tracking, bidding, [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Ads Data Exclusions For PMax Campaigns Rolling Out Back in October, we saw signs of the ability to use data exclusions on Google Ads Performance Max [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 27, 2026 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today... - Search Engine Roundtable
EU puts Google’s AI and search data under DMA spotlight Google is facing fresh EU scrutiny that could expand access to its search data and Android AI [...] - Search Engine Land
Microsoft Advertising Launches Ad Preview Hub Microsoft Advertising has fully released the Microsoft Advertising Ad Preview Hub to all users. [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Search Ranking Volatility Remains Super Heated The Google Search rankings continue to be super volatile and heated even through today. This [...] - Search Engine Roundtable

January, 26 2026

Google Ads Product Campaign View Report Is Useful Google Ads lets you see how your product ads are performing across all your campaigns in a single [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Ads debuts centralized Experiment Center Google Ads’ new Experiment Center gives advertisers a single hub to test strategies and [...] - Search Engine Land
Why first-touch analytics matters more than ever for SEO in 2026 AI-driven search is breaking last-touch attribution. First-touch analytics reveals SEO’s role [...] - Search Engine Land
Google’s New User Intent Extraction Method via @sejournal, @martinibuster Google's user intent extraction research shows how AI on mobile devices could be used to [...] - Search Engine Journal
Search Central Live is coming back to South America Search Central Live is coming back to South America! After many successful events in the region, [...] - Google Webmaster Central
Google Ads New Billing Report Google is rolling out a new billing report within Google Ads. The new billing report gives you [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Ads Campaign Mix Experiments In Beta Google Ads has a new help document named Campaign Mix Experiments (Beta). This describes how [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
From searching to delegating: Adapting to AI-first search behavior As AI replaces clicks with answers, user engagement moves deeper into the funnel. Here’s how [...] - Search Engine Land
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 26, 2026 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today... - Search Engine Roundtable
Google research points to a post-query future for search intent Google signals search’s next phase: small multimodal models on devices infer intent from [...] - Search Engine Land
Why Performance Max looks different for B2B in 2026 PMax for B2B depends on conversion signals, market size, and tolerance for automation. Learn when [...] - Search Engine Land

January, 23 2026

Google Search Gains Personal Intelligence In AI Mode As expected, but sooner than I thought, Google has brought Personal Intelligence to Google Search [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Ads PMax Asset Group Editing Bug Google Ads currently has a bug where if you try to edit your asset groups within your Performance [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Falls Back To Featured Snippets When AI Overviews Don't Generate Google will sometimes fall back to showing featured snippets when it is unable to generate AI [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Agentic AI and vibe coding: The next evolution of PPC management Agentic AI and custom-built tools are changing how PPC accounts are run – and what marketers [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Ads bug removes notes option for some advertisers A Google Ads bug is causing the option to add account notes to disappear for some advertisers, [...] - Search Engine Land
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Search Double Heated, Personal Intelligence in AI Mode, ChatGPT Ads & Apple Siri Updates Coming This week, we covered the doubly heated Google Search ranking volatility, but nothing was confirmed [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
A smarter way to approach AI prompting Prompts describe tasks. Rubrics define rules. Here’s how rubric-based prompting reduces [...] - Search Engine Land
Secure Your Google Ads Account Against The Rise In Hijackings For the past year or so, I've seen a growing number of complaints about Google Ads accounts being [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Gemini Local Results Insights Into How Google Interprets Your Business Google's Gemini may be rolling out new local results, it may be new, I am not sure. But the details [...] - Search Engine Roundtable

January, 22 2026

Personal Intelligence in AI Mode in Search: Help that's uniquely yours Personal Intelligence is coming to Search; Google AI Pro & AI Ultra subscribers can opt-in to [...] - Inside Search
Shopify Shares More Details On Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) via @sejournal, @martinibuster Shopify's Harvey Finkelstein said agentic shopping surfaces products because they fit the user, not [...] - Search Engine Journal
A Breakdown Of Microsoft’s Guide To AEO & GEO via @sejournal, @martinibuster Microsoft explains what matters for AEO and GEO and details three strategies that influence AI [...] - Search Engine Journal
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 22, 2026 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google adds cross-campaign testing with new Mix Experiments beta Google’s Campaign Mix Experiments beta lets advertisers test multiple campaign types and [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Search Makes Recipe Results More Publisher Friendly A few weeks ago, we covered how damaging the Google Search results were for recipe publishers and [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
New GoogleBot: Google Messages Google added a new crawler, robot, to its list of user-triggered fetchers in the Google crawlers [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Why Demand Gen works best alongside Performance Max for ecommerce Demand Gen offers more creative and audience control than PMax. Learn when to use it and how to [...] - Search Engine Land
Apple Releasing Two New Siri; iOS 26.4 & iOS 27 (Campos, Rave & Fizz) Apple will reportedly release two new Siri versions, one this year with iOS 26.4 and one next year [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
OpenAI To Charge Based On Ad View Impressions, Not Clicks As you know, OpenAI will soon show ads on ChatGPT, but now we are hearing that those ads will be [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
What 75 SEO thought leaders reveal about volatility in the GEO debate [Research] AI search sentiment is positive, but consistency isn’t. Data shows why volatility – not [...] - Search Engine Land
Five Things To Do That Will Increase Authoritativeness And Earn Links via @sejournal, @martinibuster Five things that any business can do to increase authoritativeness and earn more links - Search Engine Journal
How to explain flat traffic when SEO is actually working AI Overviews are reshaping organic attribution. Learn which metrics matter now and how to clearly [...] - Search Engine Land
Google outlines risks of exposing its search index, rankings, and live results Elizabeth Reid’s affidavit warns that court-ordered data sharing would expose Google's IP, [...] - Search Engine Land
More Sites Blocking LLM Crawling – Could That Backfire On GEO? via @sejournal, @martinibuster New data shows an increase in AI assistant crawling alongside declining AI model training access. - Search Engine Journal

January, 21 2026

How Recommender Systems Like Google Discover May Work via @sejournal, @martinibuster An explainer of how recommender systems like Google Discover may work according to a classic [...] - Search Engine Journal
Google Search Ranking Volatility Heated Again January 21 Last week,I reported on January 15th of a Google Search ranking update with a lot of heated [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Nick LeRoy turns SEO consulting into fundraiser for Minnesota immigrant support Consulting hours become donations as a well-known SEO turns outrage over ICE raids into rapid [...] - Search Engine Land
Same URL in AI Overviews and blue links counts as one Google Search Console impression Google's John Mueller confirms that when a URL appears in an AI Overview and as a blue link on the [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Ads Still Not Coming To Gemini (Post ChatGPT Ads Announcement) Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind CEO, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
A Little Clarity On SEO, GEO, And AEO via @sejournal, @martinibuster The debate over SEO versus AEO/GEO appears to be reaching a consensus. - Search Engine Journal
Google Search Monopoly Appeal Legal Docs Mention Search Signals As you know, Google has appealed its search monopoly ruling and with that, filed a number of new [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
International SEO in 2026: What still works, what no longer does, and why AI-mediated search introduces new risks for international SEO. See how semantic collapse and [...] - Search Engine Land
The local SEO gatekeeper: How Google defines your entity Google won’t rank what it can’t confidently identify. See how business names and [...] - Search Engine Land
75% of ChatGPT users rely on ‘keywords’ for local services: New data New data shows people use ChatGPT to find local healthcare and aesthetics providers through short [...] - Search Engine Land
Google rules out ads in Gemini — for now Google’s repeated stance against ads in Gemini suggests conversational AI monetization will [...] - Search Engine Land

January, 20 2026

Organic search traffic is down 2.5% YoY, new data shows SEO isn’t dead. New data confirms it: traffic grew at the largest sites, and the sharpest [...] - Search Engine Land
SEO in 2026: What will stay the same Hype cycles come and go. But real SEO gains still depend on trust, crawlable data, and meeting user [...] - Search Engine Land
Perplexity AI Interview Explains How AI Search Works via @sejournal, @martinibuster Interview with Perplexity AI offers insights into what makes AI answer engines different from [...] - Search Engine Journal
Why LLM-only pages aren’t the answer to AI search Creating pages only machines will see won’t improve AI search visibility. Data shows standard [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Shopping API cutoff looms, putting ad delivery at risk Advertisers must migrate to Google’s new Merchant API or risk Shopping and Performance Max [...] - Search Engine Land
Poll: More Advertisers To Add Microsoft Advertising To Marketing Mix? Navah Hopkins, the Microsoft Advertiser Ads Liaison, asked on LinkedIn if you will be adding [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 20, 2026 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today... - Search Engine Roundtable
7 real-world AI failures that show why adoption keeps going wrong From illegal trades to chatbot lawsuits, these examples reveal the operational, legal, and [...] - Search Engine Land
Google AI Mode Fan-Out Prompts To Narrow Your Query Back in May, Google announced updates to shopping in AI Mode. One of those announcements is to help [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Why Agentic AI May Flatten Brand Differentiators via @sejournal, @martinibuster The co-lead of the WordPress AI Team says some sites face a "more complex" future as [...] - Search Engine Journal
OpenAI Search Crawler Passes 55% Coverage In Hostinger Study via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern Hostinger analyzed 66.7B bot requests across 5M+ hosted sites and found AI training crawlers are [...] - Search Engine Journal
Does llms.txt matter? We tracked 10 sites to find out We analyzed llms.txt across 10 websites. Only two saw AI traffic increases — and it wasn't [...] - Search Engine Land

January, 19 2026

10 salary negotiation tips for search marketers Marketing roles lack clear salary standards. These tips help you assess your value, benchmark pay, [...] - Search Engine Land
Inside SearchGuard: How Google detects bots and what the SerpAPI lawsuit reveals We fully decrypted SearchGuard, the anti-bot system protecting Google Search. Here's exactly how [...] - Search Engine Land
Head Of WordPress AI Team Explains SEO For AI Agents via @sejournal, @martinibuster James LePage, co-lead of the WordPress AI team, explains how SEO applies to AI agent content [...] - Search Engine Journal
Google AI Overviews Powered By Gemini 3 Pro For Complex Queries Google announced late on Friday that Gemini 3 Pro is now powered Google AI Overviews for complex [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Some Google AI Overviews now use Gemini 3 Pro Google now uses Gemini 3 Pro to generate some AI Overviews in Google Search. Google said for more [...] - Search Engine Land
Google: Comments Link Spam Has No Effect On SEO/Search Google's John Mueller said that link spam left in the comments section have no effect on Google [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google’s Mueller: Free Subdomain Hosting Makes SEO Harder via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern Google's John Mueller explains why free subdomain hosting services attract spam and make it harder [...] - Search Engine Journal
OpenAI Will Soon Test Ads On ChatGPT OpenAI announced on Friday it will begin testing ads in the ChatGPT responses in the coming weeks. [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 19, 2026 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Is Appealing Its Search Monopoly Ruling & Asks To Pause Remedies Google is appealing the ruling that it is an illegal search monopoly - which surprises no one. [...] - Search Engine Roundtable

January, 17 2026

Google On Phantom Noindex Errors In Search Console via @sejournal, @martinibuster Google's John Mueller acknowledges phantom noindex errors in Search Console reflect hidden indexing [...] - Search Engine Journal

January, 16 2026

Microsoft Advertising Adds Share Of Voice Metrics, Asset Group-Level URL Options, Customer Acquisition Goals... Microsoft Advertising announced a slew of new features including new customer acquisition goals as [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Search Ranking Volatility Hits January 15-16 I am seeing new signs of yet more Google Search ranking volatility and a possible tweak to the [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google AI Overview Local Pack Leading To Huge Drops In Visibility Over the past few weeks, Google has been showing AI Overviews for local packs, leading some [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 16, 2026 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today... - Search Engine Roundtable
Google AI Overviews cite YouTube most often for health topics: Study Google’s AI health summaries rely on sources that lack rigorous medical review or evidence, a [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Ads tests A/B experiments for Shopping ad product data Google Ads is testing A/B experiments for Shopping Ads, letting advertisers compare product [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Ads Campaign Total Budgets Live As An Open Beta Google Ads has made the Campaign total budgets officially live as an open beta for any advertiser [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Personal Intelligence, Universal Commerce Protocol, Apple Picks Gemini & Ongoing Search Volatility It is another week and more Google Search ranking volatility but this was a weird one. Google [...] - Search Engine Roundtable

January, 15 2026

Google: Favicons In Search Not Impacted By Google Core Updates While a number of Google Search features are impacted by Google's core update, favicons showing up [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Survey: Publishers Expect Search Traffic To Fall Over 40% via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern A Reuters Institute survey finds publishers expect search traffic to drop over 40% in three years [...] - Search Engine Journal
Are your pop-ups tanking your rankings? A guide to interstitials and dialogs Learn what interstitials and dialogs are, how they affect SEO, and which types trigger [...] - Search Engine Land
Campaign total budgets are now available in Search, Performance Max and Shopping campaigns. Managing budgets for specific campaign flights — like product launches, sales events or [...] - Inside Adwords
The social-to-search halo effect: Why social content drives branded search Social content creates curiosity that shows up as branded search. Here’s how to measure and [...] - Search Engine Land
AdSense publishers report sudden revenue plunge — again Google AdSense publishers are reporting sudden eCPM and RPM drops of up to 70%, sparking fears of [...] - Search Engine Land
Google's John Mueller Says Universal Commerce Protocol Won't Kill SEO Earlier this week, Google announced Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and it has a lot of the [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
New Google AI Mode Ads: Explore Guides and Articles We have seen ads in AI Mode before but there may be a new Google Ads format coming to AI Mode [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google introduces total campaign budgets for Search Set a total campaign budget over days or weeks, letting Google optimize spend automatically and [...] - Search Engine Land
YouTube gives creators smarter ad targeting YouTube upgraded its Promotions tool to let creators target viewers by interests—shifting [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Ads rolls out account-level placement exclusions Google Ads has introduced account-level placement exclusions, allowing advertisers to block [...] - Search Engine Land

January, 14 2026

An easier way to explore Search trends with Gemini Google Trends is redesigning its Explore page, using Gemini to find and understand trending [...] - Inside Search
Google Trends adds Gemini to Explorer page Google Trends now uses "Gemini capabilities to automatically identify and compare relevant [...] - Search Engine Land
Google adds new data transmission controls to Ads consent stack Google’s new data transmission controls let advertisers fine-tune how ad and analytics data [...] - Search Engine Land
Google AdSense Earnings Dropping Again eCPM/RPM - Complaints I am seeing a spike in complaints from Google AdSense publishers of earnings dropping again over [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 14, 2026 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today... - Search Engine Roundtable
How to optimize content for AI search engines: A step-by-step guide Learn how AI content optimization helps your website get cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google [...] - Search Engine Land
Personal Intelligence with Gemini connect your searches, email, photos, and YouTube history This is also coming to Google Search in AI Mode soon, Google added. - Search Engine Land
Why 2026 is the year the SEO silo breaks and cross-channel execution starts AI search relies on consensus across owned, earned, and community sources. This framework shows how [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Ads Faster Account Set Up With Campaigns For the past few weeks, Google Ads has been rolling out a new and faster way to set up an account [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google: Linking Brand Websites Together At Reasonable Scale Is Fine Google's John Mueller was asked if it was acceptable to link your brand websites together on a [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google: We Prohibit Showing Different Prices In Search/AI Mode vs Website The other day, I saw the Google News channel on X respond to claims that Google is going to allow [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google tests faster account setup using pre-built campaigns Google Ads' new campaign set-up flow aims to reduce onboarding friction by letting advertisers get [...] - Search Engine Land

January, 13 2026

Google Downplays GEO – But Let’s Talk About Garbage AI SERPs via @sejournal, @martinibuster Google offers advice about chunking content for SEO but is that really the conversation we should [...] - Search Engine Journal
What 107,000 pages reveal about Core Web Vitals and AI search Core Web Vitals don’t boost AI rankings — except when performance fails badly enough to [...] - Search Engine Land
Possible Google Search Ranking Volatility Around January 12 I am seeing signs of a possible Google search ranking update or volatility around January 12, 2026. [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
How to choose a link building agency in the AI SEO era by uSERP Traditional link building is changing. Here’s how to vet a link building agency for AI [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Hotel Knowledge Panels Posting Currently Turned Off Bug Google seems to have a bug that prevents searchers from leaving hotel reviews directly in the [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Shopping Promotions Support Subscription Fees & Abbreviations Google Shopping is updating its promotions policy to now allow for promotions on subscription fees [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Microsoft Advertising Now Allows Up To 50 Search Themes In PMax Campaigns Microsoft Advertising has expanded the number of search themes it allows to 50 search themes for [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
How brands can respond to misleading Google AI Overviews AI-driven search can turn forum opinions into 'facts.' Here's your emerging ORM playbook for [...] - Search Engine Land
Official: Apple Intelligence & Siri To Be Powered By Google Gemini It is now official, Google confirmed it has entered "into a multi-year collaboration" [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 13, 2026 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today... - Search Engine Roundtable

January, 12 2026

Why copywriting is the new superpower in 2026 AI didn’t kill copywriting. It killed low-grade informational SEO. Persuasion, positioning, [...] - Search Engine Land
News publishers expect search traffic to drop 43% by 2029: Report AI answers are taking clicks from publishers. Media companies warn that Google Overviews and chat [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Ads Performance Max A/B Testing Assets Google Ads has a new experiment feature for Performance Max campaigns that lets you A/B-test [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 12, 2026 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today... - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Search is celebrating 250 years of America. 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of America’s independence. To help kick things off, [...] - Inside Search
Google Merchant Center Business Agent - Branded AI Agents Google announced new Business Agents, branded AI Agents, a "new way for shoppers to chat with [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google expands Shopping promotion rules ahead of 2026 Google’s 2026 Shopping policy updates give advertisers more flexibility to promote [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Integrates Core Search Signals Into AI Experiences Google's Robby Stein reiterated that Google's AI experience, such as AI Mode and AI Overviews, [...] - Search Engine Roundtable

January, 11 2026

New tech and tools for retailers to succeed in an agentic shopping era An overview of Google’s new open standard for agentic commerce and AI tools to help retailers [...] - Inside Adwords
The AI platform shift and the opportunity ahead for retail Sundar Pichai gave a keynote address at the 2026 National Retail Federation. Read an edited [...] - Inside Adwords
Google launches Universal Commerce Protocol for agent-led shopping Google’s new open commerce standard aims to reduce cart abandonment and enable agent-led [...] - Search Engine Land

January, 9 2026

Google AI Overviews are tested and removed based on engagement Google tracks how users behave and only shows AI Overviews in Search when they actually add value, [...] - Search Engine Land
Google: Don't Turn Your Content Into Bite-Sized Chunks Google's Danny Sullivan said on the Search Off the Record podcast that was published yesterday that [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Talks On Hiring A GEO/AEO/SEO & Buying AI-Optimization Tools Google's Danny Sullivan and John Mueller spoke on the Search Off the Record podcast about whether [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Anthony Higman shares a PPC redemption story Anthony Higman’s journey from a law firm mailroom to PPC CEO shows how learning from [...] - Search Engine Land
Top 10 Google Ads mistakes to avoid in 2026 Optimize your PPC campaigns by tackling issues like inconsistent tracking, old negative keywords, [...] - Search Engine Land
Why ecommerce SEO audits fail – and what actually works in 30 days Big SEO audits look thorough but stall execution. Here’s why the audit-plus-retainer model [...] - Search Engine Land
Bing Tests Retro Local Pack In Search Results In September, we posted about a number of local pack design tests from Microsoft Bing. But now, [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
YouTube is no longer optional for SEO in the age of AI Overviews As search shifts to AI-driven answers, YouTube is becoming key source material. Brands that [...] - Search Engine Land
Why Demand Gen is the most underrated campaign type in Google Ads Looking for growth beyond Google Search? Demand Gen pushes your ads to the right audiences across [...] - Search Engine Land
Microsoft Advertising Reminds Advertisers To Configure Email Settings Navah Hopkins, the Microsoft Ads Liaison, posted a reminder on LinkedIn, encouraging advertisers to [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Microsoft expands search themes in Performance Max to 50 Microsoft is giving Performance Max advertisers more control by expanding search themes to better [...] - Search Engine Land
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Volatility, Personalized Google AI Answers, Microsoft Copilot Checkout & More SEO & PPC News This week, yep, we had another story on Google Search ranking volatility. I posted the Google [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google launches A/B testing for Performance Max assets (Beta) Google’s new Beta lets Performance Max advertisers A/B test asset sets, expanding last [...] - Search Engine Land

January, 8 2026

Tailwind CSS Lets Go 75% Of Engineers After 40% Traffic Drop From Google Adam Wathan the creator of Tailwind CSS posted that he had to let go of 75% of his engineering team [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Microsoft launches Copilot Checkout and Brand Agents These new agentic experiences were showcased at the NRF 2026 conference. - Search Engine Land
Google Ads for niche markets: What actually works in 2026 Niche markets don’t generate enough data for standard Google Ads playbooks. Learn how to use [...] - Search Engine Land
7 hard truths about measuring AI visibility and GEO performance From probabilistic answers to off-site signals, AI visibility works differently than SEO. These [...] - Search Engine Land
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 8, 2026 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today... - Search Engine Roundtable
PSA: Don't Create Separate Google Business Profile For Department Listings Greg Gifford, a veteran automotive and local SEO, published a hard warning to vendors suggesting [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Vehicle Ads Gains Call Assets Google seems to be testing showing call assets on Vehicle Ads within Google Search. So on the [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google's John Mueller Answers If You Should Invest In GEO John Mueller, a Google Search Analyst, responded to a question on Reddit named Is SEO still enough, [...] - Search Engine Roundtable

January, 7 2026

SMX Advanced 2026 seeks expert speakers on SEO, PPC, and AI SMX Advanced returns June 3-5. Learn what we’re looking for in session pitches, and how to [...] - Search Engine Land
Vehicle Ads get a call upgrade Google added click-to-call to Vehicle Ads, giving high-intent car shoppers a faster path from [...] - Search Engine Land
37% of consumers start searches with AI instead of Google: Study Traditional search frustrations are pushing users toward AI first, forcing brands to stay visible [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Ads Using New AI Model To Catch Fraudulent Advertisers via @sejournal, @martinibuster Google Ads quietly implements a powerful multimodal AI that improves Google's ability to catch [...] - Search Engine Journal
Google Search Ranking Volatility January 6th With AdSense Earnings Drops There are a number of SEOs and site owners complaining that they saw a large drop in Google Search [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google’s Mueller Explains ‘Page Indexed Without Content’ Error via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern Google's John Mueller says "Page Indexed without content" errors typically indicate [...] - Search Engine Journal
Google Merchant Center Updates Multi-Channel Products Rules Google will update how it handles multi-channel products, products sold both online and locally in [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
AI displacing traffic? Time to leverage your most undervalued channel. AI is reshaping search visibility. Learn how to reclaim reach by activating owned audiences and [...] - Search Engine Land
Google rolls out Tag Gateway integration via Google Cloud Google’s new Google Cloud Tag Gateway integration makes first-party tagging easier and more [...] - Search Engine Land
Why OpenAI paused ChatGPT ads to fight Google’s Gemini OpenAI bets its future on a distraction-free experience, sacrificing ad revenue to stop [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Personalizing Some AI Overviews & AI Mode Answers Google's Robby Stein confirmed (again) that Google is personalizing some of the AI experiences, [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Microsoft Tests Larger Ask Copilot Button On Bing Home Page Microsoft is testing a much larger "Ask Copilot" button on the Bing home page. Normally, [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
How Google Ads paces, caps, and recalculates spend when budgets change Mid-flight budget changes trigger step changes, new limits, and revised forecasts. Here’s how [...] - Search Engine Land
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 7, 2026 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today... - Search Engine Roundtable
3 pillars of AI-era SEO for regulated industries From E-E-A-T to structured data and accessibility, here’s how regulated industries must adapt [...] - Search Engine Land

January, 6 2026

Google’s Recommender System Breakthrough Detects Semantic Intent via @sejournal, @martinibuster Google quietly published a research paper that shows how to improve recommender systems like Google [...] - Search Engine Journal
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 6, 2026 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today... - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Hiring AI Answers & Search Quality Software Engineer Google posted a new job listing looking to hire a new Senior Software Engineer, Search, AI Answers [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google to require separate product IDs for multi-channel items Google will require separate product IDs for online and in-store items from March forcing retailers [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Added LLMs.txt To It's Web Sites For Other Reasons Than Discovery A month ago, Google added LLMs.txt files to many of its developer and documentation sites including [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Ads To Allow Ads For Prediction Markets Google Ads will update its advertising policies to allow ads for Prediction Markets starting on [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Practice Problems Structured Data Help Documentation Removed Last November, Google announced it was dropping support for a number of structured data types and [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google to allow Prediction Markets ads under strict rules Google will allow ads for federally regulated prediction markets in the U.S. starting January 21st, [...] - Search Engine Land
Help us shape SMX Advanced 2026. You could win an All Access pass! Tell us what you want to learn about and who you want to hear from at SMX Advanced taking place [...] - Search Engine Land
Microsoft Bing Tests New Home Page Design Promoting Copilot Microsoft Bing is testing a new home page design where it promotes its AI-powered search and answer [...] - Search Engine Roundtable

January, 5 2026

How to earn brand mentions that drive LLM and SEO visibility LLMs look beyond backlinks to context and co-occurrence. Here’s how brand mentions shape AI [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Ads upgrades Creator Partnerships with search and management tools Google Ads upgraded Creator Partnerships with new creator search and management tools, making it [...] - Search Engine Land
A 90-day SEO playbook for AI-driven search visibility Answer-first content, structured data, and authority signals shape AI-driven search. This 90-day [...] - Search Engine Land
Google Ads adds shortcut button to Change history Google Ads added a Change history shortcut that lets advertisers jump directly to affected [...] - Search Engine Land
December Core Update: More Brands Win “Best Of” Queries via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern Early analysis of Google's December core update points to gains for specialized sites over [...] - Search Engine Journal
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 5, 2026 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Ads Change History Adds Go To Button Google added a new button to the Google Ads Change history report that lets advertisers quickly [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Discover Show X Posts Too Often? Google has been showing social media posts in Google Discover, including posts from X for a while [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google To Fix Squished Knowledge Panel Images Google is working on fixing an issue where some searchers are seeing squished images within the [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Search Console Links Report Missing Data? Google Search Console's link report seems to be either missing data or is now showing fewer links. [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
January 2026 Google Webmaster Report It is January 2026, and it is now time for the monthly Google Webmaster report, where I recap the [...] - Search Engine Roundtable

January, 2 2026

Google tests blue Send button that replaces AI Mode in the search box As you type your query, the AI Mode may disappear and show you a blue Send button in the Google [...] - Search Engine Land
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 2, 2026 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today... - Search Engine Roundtable
(John) Mueller Report Of SEO Memes (2025 Edition) For the past several years now, John Mueller of Google would come out with what he calls the [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google: Why 404s Don't Matter For SEO Google has been saying that 404 error codes are a normal part of the web, that 404s are not a low [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Some News Publishers Saw Big Declines With The Google Core Update Now that the December 2025 core update is officially done, some are looking at the damage it [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
John Mueller (Personally) On If Schema Helps With LLMs & Google John Mueller, who works on the Google Search team, responded to a question that asks, "Does [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Search Tests Blue Send Button In Query Box Google is testing a blue "Send" button in the search query box on its home page. When you [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google December Core Update Done, News Publishers Hit Hard, Frankenstein AI Recipe Horror & Happy New Year Google completed the December 2025 core update this week and it hit some news publishers incredibly [...] - Search Engine Roundtable

January, 1 2026

Google's John Mueller Working On New Year's Day (2026 Edition) Just like with Christmas day every year, so to with New Year's Day - Google's John Mueller and [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
Google Displays New Year's Eve Doodle On New Year's Day This is weird. It is 2026, and Google.com, the Google Search home page, is still showing [...] - Search Engine Roundtable