SEO Tools and Resources

Google is updating how Google Ads paces budgets for campaigns using ad schedules, shifting toward full monthly spend targets regardless of how many days ads actually run. What’s changing. Starting June 1, campaigns will pace toward the full monthly budget limit (30.4x the daily budget), even if ads are only eligible to run on certain days. Previously, pacing was typically based on the number of active days in the schedule. What’s not changing. Daily and monthly caps remain the same. Campaigns still won’t exceed 2x the daily budget in a single day or 30.4x over a month, and ads won’t serve on disabled days. Why we care. Advertisers using limited schedules —…

After months of merchant frustration over securing the required API key for website-reported local inventory feeds via Google Tag Manager, Google has now confirmed a straightforward process: Complete setup. Request validation through a form. Once approved, a Google agent provides the API key. Why we care. This clarification makes it easier for merchants to implement local inventory feeds, stay compliant with Google’s policies, and bring in-store availability data into their Shopping presence faster. What’s next. With this streamlined process, merchants can expect smoother onboarding and more reliable integration of local inventory into their campaigns.…

Google updated its JavaScript SEO best practices document, for the second time this week, this time to clarify canonicalization best practices for JavaScript. In short, Google said “setting the canonical URL to the same URL as in the original HTML or if that isn’t possible, to leave the canonical URL out of the original HTML.” What Google added. Google added a new section over here and it reads: “The rel=”canonical” link tag helps Google find the canonical version of a page. You can use JavaScript to set the canonical URL, but keep in mind that you shouldn’t use JavaScript to change the canonical URL to something else than the URL you specified as the canonical U…

Google has updated its Circumventing Systems policy to include a new example explicitly warning advertisers that submitting false information during the Advertiser Verification process violates its rules and will lead to account suspension. The details: The update was added to the Circumventing Systems section of Google’s Ads policies in November 2025. It specifies that providing false or fraudulent information during verification is treated as an intentional attempt to bypass Google’s compliance systems. Violations will result in immediate account suspension. Why we care. This clarification reinforces Google’s zero-tolerance stance on misinformation wi…

Google is testing AI-generated headline rewrites in Search results, describing it as a small, narrow experiment for now. What’s happening. Google confirmed to The Verge (subscription required) that it’s testing AI-generated titles in traditional Search results, not just Discover. The test is “small” and “narrow,” and not approved for broader rollout. It impacts news site but isn’t limited to them. The goal is to better match titles to queries and improve engagement, Google said. One example showed Google replacing original headlines with shorter or reworded versions, sometimes changing tone or intent (e.g., reducing “I used the ‘cheat on everything’ AI …

Google added a new section to the core updates search developer documentation that confirms it releases smaller core updates without announcing those updates. Google has told us this before, but has now added it explicitly to the search documentation. What is new. Google added this new paragraph: However, you don’t necessarily have to wait for a major core update to see the effect of your improvements. We’re continually making updates to our search algorithms, including smaller core updates. These updates are not announced because they aren’t widely noticeable, but they are another way that your content can see a rise in position (if you’ve made improvements). …

Google had this really visible bug over the past week, where the number of reviews shown on a Google Business Profile, was showing fewer reviews than it should have. In short, Google was not adding up the reviews accurately but no reviews were actually removed from the business listing. That being said, Google posted an update that it has resolved the bulk of the issues but there still may be some that are not fully restored yet. The remaining reviews count should be fixed within the coming days, Google said. What Google said. Victoria Kroll from Google posted an updated statement last night in the forums saying: Most affected profiles now display accurate …

Google is reaching out directly to advertisers via email, requiring them to confirm whether their campaigns contain EU political ads — with a hard deadline of March 31st. Why we care. This isn’t optional. EU regulation now requires Google to verify political ad status across all active campaigns, and advertisers who don’t act before the deadline could face compliance issues. What’s happening. Google is asking every advertiser to declare whether their existing campaigns include EU political ads. The requirement applies to all current campaigns and must be completed by March 31, 2026. How to comply: Google has outlined three ways to submit the confirmation: …

A report from AdWeek claimed Google privately told clients it plans to introduce ads in its Gemini AI chatbot in 2026 — but Google’s top ads executive is publicly denying it. Driving the news. AdWeek reported that Google reps, in recent calls with major advertisers, suggested that Gemini would get ad placements in 2026, separate from the company’s existing ads in AI Mode, the AI-powered search experience launched in March. Buyers said no prototypes, formats, or pricing were shown. The conversations were described as exploratory and lacked technical detail. Google says that’s wrong. Dan Taylor, Google’s VP of Global Ads, disputed the report directly on X, w…

Google’s crawl stats report is missing a single day of crawl data, which seems to be impacting all sites within Google Search Console. Google has not yet confirmed the issue but it seems to be impacting everyone. What it looks like. Here is a screenshot from one of my profiles within Search Console, showing the date that is missing for this site is October 14, 2025: Crawl stats report. The Crawl Stats report in Google Search Console shows you statistics about Google’s crawling history on your website. For instance, how many requests were made and when, what your server response was, and any availability issues encountered. You can use this report to detect whe…

Google is crediting its AI advancement, such as Gemini, to help detect and remove fake reviews and listings within Google Maps. “AI has been a pivotal tool in helping us stop scammers in their tracks, and we’re now using it to scale our protections even more,” Google wrote. The metrics. Google shared these metrics for its battle over Google Maps spam: Google blocked or removed more than 240 million policy-violating removed more than 240 million policy-violating reviews from 2024. Google added that “the vast majority of which were removed before they were seen.” Google blocked or removed more than 70 million policy-violating edits to places on Google Maps. …

Google’s Daily Hub is more complex than it first appears. It’s part of the broader acceleration toward hyperpersonalization we’ve been seeing in recent months – Preferred Sources, Profile Pages with followable elements in Discover, Brand Profiles in Merchant Center – all converging toward a single goal: anticipating your needs before you even formulate a query. Daily Hub is the concrete expression of the “News Digest and Daily Brief” agent identified during our investigations this summer into Google’s 90 AI projects via the AI Mode debug menu. The internal architecture of the system, which Damien Andell managed to decrypt and share with me in advance, reveal…

Google today released the December 2025 core update. Google said this core update “Today we released the December 2025 core update.” This is the third core update of 2025, and the fourth overall update in all of 2025. Google previously had the August 2025 spam update, before that was the June 2025 core update and before that was the March 2025 core update. Google also wrote: “Released the December 2025 core update. The rollout may take up to 3 weeks to complete.” Google added on LinkedIn, “this is a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites.” Core updates happen multiple times per year. C…

The third and likely final core update of 2025, the December 2025 core update, is now rolling out and complete. It started on December 11, 2025 and was completed about 18 days and 2 hours later on December 29, 2025. Google called this update “a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites.” This December 2025 core update came after waiting five months since the previous core update, the June 2025 core update. That June update came a few months after Google’s first core update on the 2025 year, the March 2025 core update. In the coming days we will gather data on the impact of this update and share …

Google DeepMind launched Nano Banana Pro, the next-gen version of its earlier Nano Banana image model and the image system powering Gemini 3 Pro. The upgrade brings sharper text rendering, richer world knowledge, higher consistency across edits, and more precise creative controls — all aimed at producing studio-quality visuals from even the roughest ideas. Why we care. Nano Banana Pro is built to help anyone — casual creators, designers, advertisers, developers, filmmakers — go from concept to polished visual with far more accuracy, reasoning, and control than previous models allowed. It can: Generate context-rich educational visuals, grounded in real-world d…

Google DeepMind researchers have developed BlockRank, a new method for ranking and retrieving information more efficiently in large language models (LLMs). BlockRank is detailed in a new research paper, Scalable In-Context Ranking with Generative Models. BlockRank is designed to solve a challenge called In-context Ranking (ICR), or the process of having a model read a query and multiple documents at once to decide which ones matter most. As far as we know, BlockRank is not being used by Google (e.g., Search, Gemini, AI Mode, AI Overviews) right now – but it could be used at some point in the future. What BlockRank changes. ICR is expensive and slow. Models …

Google now lets you automatically add screenshots of landing pages in Demand Gen campaigns. This new feature is designed to boost engagement. The feature appears as a checkbox option labeled “Show a screenshot of your landing page in your ads” and is reportedly enabled by default for some advertisers. Who benefits: Companies with visually appealing websites. Advertisers looking to A/B test visual preview creatives against standard formats. Campaigns focused on demand generation video ads, where visual elements are crucial. The catch. The landing page screenshot becomes part of the ad creative itself, making the visual quality of destination pag…

Demand Gen campaigns may be the newest addition to the Google Ads toolbox, but they haven’t received the same attention or hype as Performance Max. At the core is their divergence from Google’s long-standing focus on capturing existing demand – a model that makes attribution and ROI measurement straightforward. Two years after the public launch, we’ve transitioned from the campaign being in beta to testing additional controls, including inventory selection. Here’s what I’ve learned from being part of the initial release and using Demand Gen regularly over the past couple of years. How Google Ads Demand Gen campaigns work Like Performance Max, Demand Ge…

Google is rolling out new conversion tracking columns for Demand Gen campaigns, giving advertisers a more nuanced view of social-style performance tracking. Details. 100% attribution to last Demand Gen touchpoint. Available at campaign and ad group levels. Specifically designed for platform-to-platform comparisons. Why we care. Advertisers can now directly compare Demand Gen campaign performance with paid social platforms, using view-through conversion data that provides a more comprehensive attribution model. The big picture. The new Platform Comparable conversion columns offer a specialized tracking method that: Isolates only Demand Gen inte…

Earlier this month, we reported that Google will be bringing Discover to the desktop version of Google’s home page. We don’t know exactly when that will roll out but Google has been testing it. Google Search Console has Discover performance reports that let you track how well your site is performing within Google Discover. And over the past day or so, there was a hack to see the Discover performance report broken out by desktop and mobile. But that hack was quietly disabled this morning. How it worked. Brodie Clark first spotted the hack and posted about it on LinkedIn, and then John Shehata shared some early data of mobile vs desktop Discover performance with t…

Google is working to fix the Google Discover feed by removing the fake AI spam that has been creeping in over the past several weeks. “We’re actively working on a fix,” Google told the Press Gazette after the magazine documented many cases of the Google Discover feed being polluted with this AI spam. Google’s statement. Here is the full statement Google provided: “We keep the vast majority of spam out of Discover through robust spam-fighting systems and clear policies against new and emerging forms of low quality, manipulative content. We’re actively working on a fix that will better address the specific type of spam that’s being referenced here, maintaining our …

Google introduced two AI-powered features: AI summaries in Discover and a Sports feed in Search. Google Discover. Users will now see AI-generated previews of trending topics they follow. The summaries cite multiple publishers and can be expanded to view more details and linked articles. The feature is available in the U.S., South Korea, and India, after earlier testing in the U.S. this summer. A Google spokesperson seemed to confirm the Discover AI summaries “officially” launched in the U.S. in July. At that time, the Discover AI summaries appeared on iOS and Android for trending lifestyle topics (e.g., sports, entertainment). TechCrunch reported this, but the…

Google Discover is less aligned to Google Search ranking, Andy Almeida from the Google Trust and Safety team, said yesterday at the Google Search Central Live event in Zurich yesterday. A slide he posted on how existing systems help the Google Discover team solve problems, the slide says: “Minimal alignment to search ranking gives us the tools we need to combat emerging abuse.” What this means. It seems that this is an admission that Google Discover is not using Google’s search systems as tightly as it may have in the past for when it comes to combating abuse on that platform. I asked Andy Almeida at the event what this means, and he said it means …

Google Discover started rolling out on desktop to the Google homepage in New Zealand and Australia. And we’re getting our first look at it. We learned Google Discover is coming to desktop last month. Perhaps this will be among Google’s announcements at I/O, which takes place May 20-21? What it looks like. Here’s a screenshot of Google Discover from New Zealand that I am able to see: Why we care. This is potentially good news for publishers – especially those that have lost traffic due to AI Overviews and generative AI in the last year. Publishers that get their content into Discover can get massive amounts of traffic. The links. These were shared by Da…

Google is pushing AI Mode within Google Discover, with options to summarize, follow-up and dive deeper after you start reading a story from within the Google Discover feed. This is just one more avenue where Google is pushing its users into AI Mode. To clarify, I am told this is not just Google Discover, but the Google App on Android, for any webpage you are looking at. How it works. After you click into an article from the Google Discover feed, when you click on the three dots at the top right, there are options for: Summarize with Al Mode Ask a follow up with Al Mode Dive deeper with Al Mode Damien (adell) on X posted a video, here is a screenshot…