Google Search, SEO & AI
News, research, updates and analysis about Google Search, AI Overviews, AI Mode, ranking systems, indexing and the evolution of search.
97% of Google’s People Also Ask Answers May Now Be AI Overviews
Google's People Also Ask feature may be undergoing a much deeper transformation than a normal SERP redesign. According to new third-party tracking, the expandable questions that ha...
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Google Merchant Center Now Recommends Product Terms and Attributes Specifically for AI Search Visibility
Google is giving ecommerce teams something they have rarely had for generative search: direct, product-level clues about what shoppers are asking AI systems and which information m...
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Google’s New EU Search Layout Puts Comparison Engines Above Local Businesses—and Removes Real-Time Prices
Google is changing the visual hierarchy of European search results in one of the clearest examples yet of regulation directly reshaping the search interface. Under a new Digital Ma...
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Google Search, AI Overviews and Gemini Often Choose Almost Completely Different Sources for the Same Query
Google Search, AI Overviews and Gemini may all belong to the same company, but they frequently construct their answers from strikingly different parts of the web. A large comparati...
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Nearly 30% of Google AI Overview Sources Didn’t Rank on Page One—and 11% of Claims Lacked Citation Support
Google AI Overviews do not simply summarize the websites visible at the top of the same search results page. A large-scale measurement study found that 29.8% of domains cited by AI...
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Google AI Mode Cut External Click-Through by 18.8 Points—and Pushed More Users Toward Rival Search Engines
A preregistered field experiment with 1,100 Google users has produced unusually strong causal evidence for a concern publishers have mostly had to measure through observational tra...
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Google Is Testing Bigger Citation Cards—but Moving Them to the Bottom of AI Mode
Google appears to be testing a larger, more descriptive source panel in AI Mode while simultaneously moving those citations farther away from the generated answer. The experimental...
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Google Will Preview Its Next Local AI Search Updates on September 24
Google representatives are scheduled to preview upcoming AI Search changes affecting local discovery during a September 24 webinar, giving local marketers a date to watch for new i...
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Google Brings Post-Level View Counts Back to Business Profiles—But Leaves Them Out of the API
Google is restoring a piece of local-search reporting that Business Profile managers lost more than three years ago: view counts for individual posts. The company says post-level r...
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Google’s AI Overview Can Answer a Query With No Search Intent at All
Google Search has an odd new edge case: an AI Overview can appear even when the user has not supplied anything resembling a normal search query. Triggered through a manipulated Sea...
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Google Ads Can Now Connect Maps and Waze Intent Directly With Offline Store Sales
Google Ads is tightening one of the most difficult loops in local advertising: identifying consumers who appear ready to visit a physical business, spending campaign budget to reac...
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