New Google AdSense Fill Empty In-Page Ads

Google AdSense announced a new feature to "Fill empty in-page ads" by showing "contextually-relevant suggestions related to your page and site inside unfilled ad spaces." In short, if an ad is not filled by Google on your page, then Google will look for other ways to monetize that ad spot.

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Microsoft Laying Off 9,000 Employees - 4% Of Workforce

Microsoft will be laying off about 4% of its workforce, which is about 9,000 employees. It is unclear if any of those jobs are across the Bing, Copilot or Microsoft Advertising businesses, or any search-related business.

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Confirmed: Google Ads Errors & High Latency Issues

Google has confirmed an issue with Google Ads, where there are unexpected errors, high latency and other unexpected issues with the Google Ads advertiser console. Google said access is fine but it is likely serving some errors and other issues.

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Google Ads Bans Tablet Presses Ads

Google will soon ban ads for tablet or pill presses; they will be added to the list of dangerous products or services. Ads for pill presses, tableting machines, dies, molds, stamps, punches used for creation or imprinting of pills and tablets will not be allowed after September 1, 2025.

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Cloudflare To Block AI Crawlers By Default & Pay Per Crawl Model

Cloudflare, a company that powers about 20% of all web pages on the web, has announced it is now blocking AI crawlers by default. Plus, it is offering a new model to allow AI services to pay content creators to crawl their content, named Pay Per Crawl.

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Who Ate The Bing Search Results

Here is a weird bug with Bing Search - if you search for the term [ate], there are no search results. All you get are AI Answers at the top and maybe an interesting reads box, then there are related searches.

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Google AdSense New Privacy Law & Opt-Out Mechanism

Google AdSense has added new universal opt-out mechanisms and privacy controls due to new laws they must adhere to. These go across several US states.

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Google Promotes AI Mode With Animated Google Doodle

Google is promoting AI Mode with an animated Google Doodle on its home page, in some countries. The Google home page logo, animated and clickable, takes you into a search for AI Mode. It also has a Google-colored gradient to the top of the search results bar today, and Google also has promotional text on its home page for AI Mode.

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New Google Ads Broad Match Experiments Testing

Google is reportedly rolling out a new way to conduct broad match keywords experiments and A/B testing. Google wrote this "new approach is aimed at delivering faster results and reducing some of the common experimentation errors, by diverting traffic and budget within the existing campaign (instead of creating a campaign copy for the experiment treatment arm)."

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Heated Google Search Ranking Volatility On Saturday June 28th

On Saturday, June 28th, it appears that another significant Google Search ranking update occurred, although Google has not confirmed it. There has been significant search ranking volatility and chatter within the SEO industry over the past 24 hours or so.

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Google & Bing Testing Bolding Snippets On Hover

Both Google and Microsoft Bing are testing hover effects that will bold elements of the search results. Google is testing bolding the description of the snippet and Bing is testing bolding the title of the snippet.

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Bing Tests Italicized URLs In Search Results

Microsoft is testing italicizing the URLs in the Bing Search results. It is a bit weird to look at and I am not sure why Bing is testing this but they are.

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Google Local Service Ads Reviews Often Mention Label

I am not sure if this is new, to be honest, we saw something super similar in the normal local review summaries about fives years ago with "X people mention [keyword]." Now in the Local Service Ads, they have it where it has this people icon with "Reviews often mention [keyword]."

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Google To End Self-Service Hotel Rates July 30

Google will be ending the ability for hotels to manage their hotel rates by themselves, instead they will need to partner with a central reservation system, Internet booking engine or other partner to manage those rates on Google Search.

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Bing Search Tests Floating Copilot Search Box

Microsoft is testing placing a floating Copilot search box within the Bing Search results page. The aim is to encourage searchers to ask follow-up questions, not in Bing Search, but in Microsoft Copilot.

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New Google Search Directions User Interface

Google updated the directions interface within Google Search. Now the drive (car icon), trains (train icon) and buses (bus icon) are in expandable menus, as opposed to tabs at the top of the "Get there" search results section.

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Google Undisclosed Blue Search Answer?

I am not sure what this is but Google is testing (or maybe it is a bug) an answer box of sorts, in a blue highlight background (grayish on dark mode) with an answer. But there is no label on the result, is it an AI Overview, featured snippet or some other box?

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Google Tests Slim Light Blue Vertical Bar By Search Result Snippets

Google is testing placing a light blue bar on the left side of the search results snippets title link. I am not sure why Google is doing this but it does add some flavor and color to the search results.

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Bing Search Tests Updated Image Carousel With More Images

Microsoft is testing a new image carousel within the Bing Search results. This image carousel shows two rows of images, instead of one, has related searches with an arrow at the top of the carousel and a new larger squared off arrow format.

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The Industry Mourns The Loss Of Jill Whalen - Content SEO Hero & Legend

It is with a heavy heart that I am reporting that one of the founding pillars of the SEO industry, one of the first female SEOs in our industry, and one of the individuals who made the industry what it is today, has passed away. Jill Whalen retired from SEO over a decade ago after her fight to ensure SEOs take content seriously, over other factors, was victorious.

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Google Video Search Tests Speaker Icon With Language Label

Google is testing placing a speaker icon next to the video snippets. The speaker icon includes a language label indicating what language the video is in.

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Google Local Service Ads Tests Background Checked Labels

Google is testing adding the text "background checked" to the local service ads listings in the Google local search results. This seems to be instead of the Google Screened or verified labels.

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Google URL Structure Help Doc Updated

Google has updated its URL structure best practices help documentation - it was pretty much a rewrite but the overall guidance is not new. Google said they added "clearer flow and is easier to navigate, with added examples based on real-world URLs we've encountered."

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Google Tests Swapping Site Name & URL In Search Snippet

Google is testing swapping the site name with the URL in the search result snippets. So instead of the site name being shown at the top of the search result snippet, Google is showing the URL above that, followed by the site name.

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Google Ads New Promotion Preview

Google seems to be testing a new way to preview ads within Google Search, specifically promotions. There is a new "Promotion Preview" tool that shows what your promotion will look like on Google Search before it goes live to customers.

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