Daily Search Forum Recap: October 30, 2026

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web. Ads in Google AI Mode make Google less per search, but Google has more searches. Google's John Mueller said AI spam tactics will be caught...

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/XFSTsdN

Google Gemini Stopped Attaching UTM Parameters To Cited URLs

Google seems to have stopped appending UTM parameters on Gemini links, the cited URLs in Gemini's AI responses. Google started adding UTM parameters to links in Gemini in early September, but then, around September 28th, Google stopped.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/QDc7eGi

Google Search May Be Bringing Back 100 Search Results Parameter

Google Search may be bringing back the ability to see 100 search results per page by bringing back the num=100 parameter. As a reminder, Google dropped this feature in September 2025 as one of many methods to prevent crawlers from scraping its search results. As you know, third-party tracking tools are not working so well these days.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/abOMeKB

Google's John Mueller: Eventually Systems Will Catch The AI Spam & Tricks

Google's John Mueller was interviewed by David Iwanow, where he shared information on AI-generated content, the future of SEO, technical SEO, the crawl stats report, redirect chains, ecommerce product data and much more. John was asked about tactics, such as listicles, being used to rank well in AI Search, and he said that eventually the systems will catch up, so don't use those cheap, easy, and fast tactics.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/vkxF5R4

Bing Ads Revenue Up 12% With Overall Revenue Up 19%

Microsoft reported its first quarter 2027 earnings, showing that its search and advertising revenue was up 12%, indicating its ad growth was 2 points higher than the previous quarter. The previous quarter it was up 10%, before that was up 12%, before that up 10% before that, up 16% and the one before that was 21% and this quarter, it is only up 10%.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/7QZCiOa

You Can Now Build Apps For Google Search: Connected Apps Platform

Google announced today that you and your developers can now build apps for Google Search and Gemini. Google wrote, "today we're launching the preview of our Connected Apps Platform, a unified way for more app developers to bring their capabilities directly into Gemini and Search."

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/deRYGB5

Google Image Search Tests Save Button On Image Overlay

Google is testing a new position for the Save button within Google Image Search. When you hover your mouse cursor over an image, you may see a "Save" button show up that you can click on. The previous method was to show the Save button when you click on an image and the image preview shows up in a window.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/zL6yW1f

Google Business Profiles Asking Businesses For EIN

Google is asking some businesses to provide their EIN, Employer Identification Number and a link to their privacy policy when updating parts of their Google Business Profile.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/selRva9

Googlebot Must Follow Redirects From Homepage To Favicon, Updated Doc Say

Google Search has just updated its favicon documentation to now specify that Googlebot must be able to follow redirects from the homepage to the page where the favicon is specified. The document also explicitly says that these URLs must not be blocked by robots.txt or other means.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/AwJ5yMC

Google Ads Tests Dotted Underlined Links In Sponsored Results

Google is testing placing dotted underlined links in the sponsored results ad descriptions. When you click on them, you go to the ad destination's URL, like you would if you clicked on the title of the ad.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-dotted-underlined-links-42290.html

Google Ads To Update Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE) Policy

Google Ads said it will update its Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE) ads policy this coming January. Google said this is being done as part of a "redesign of the policy, and to improve protections, clarity and transparency."

from Search Engine Roundtable https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-csae-ads-policy-42375.html

Google Warns Tools On User-Generated Spam Guidance & More

Google has updated its Prevent user-generated spam on your site and platform help document to specify "tools that let users publish shared pages, generated content, or web apps." The update explicitly includes platforms and tools that let users create shared pages, generated content, and web apps.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/qJ7yRh9

ChatGPT Ads With Learn More Arrow Link; Some Served Through Amazon DSP

OpenAI seems to be rolling out a new ad format for some ChatGPT Ad units that have a Learn more link, that is dotted and underlined, and also with an arrow going upwards. And in some cases, ChatGPT Ads seem to be served with Amazon DSP.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/9nR4ix8

Google Ads 1-Click AI Max Experiment Recommendation

Google Ads updated its frequently asked questions page for AI Max search campaigns with a section on 1-click AI Max experiments. Google wrote in the document, "If your account is eligible, you may find a 1-click experiment recommendation on your Recommendations page."

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/oLAsfVI

Google Search Ranking Volatility Gets Heated October 24th

This past Saturday, October 24th, we saw some significant ranking volatility captured by many of the third-party Google tracking tools. There was also some heavy chatter within the SEO industry about ranking movement and Google traffic changes over the past couple of days. The two together make me believe that there was some Google Search ranking adjustment released Friday and into Saturday.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/LagX0nh

Google Ads Asset Optimization Sourced Videos On/Off Toggle

Google Ads has added a new "Sourced videos" on/off toggle setting to the asset optimization section. This uses Google AI to identify relevant videos from your approved sources and add them to your campaign automatically.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/g6vt8Rb

3 New Studies Suggest AI Visibility & Search Not Worth Investing In

There are three new studies out over the past week that suggest that spending time, money and resources on AI visibility and AI search may not be worth it. In short, the studies all show that AI Search or AI services send a tiny fraction of traffic (and conversions) when compared to Google Search.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/l5Y14s8

Google Ads Sponsored Products Expand To Include Product Attributes

Google Ads is testing showing Sponsored Products results that dynamically expand to show product attributes at the bottom of the ad units in a gray background color.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/HZa9kcg

Google Pauses Ads For Russian Advertisers & Serving Ads To Russians

Back in 2022, Google paused showing ads to users in Russia. That still seems to be active, but Google just posted a new message in the Google Ads and Merchant Center help documentation that it has "also paused ads on Google properties and networks globally for advertisers based in Russia."

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/4rH6ygJ

Google On robots.txt Rules For AI Crawlers, Emojis, International URLs & More

Gary Illyes and Chery Prommawin released their second video in the Non-Canonical Cabinet series; this one is named What can you actually put in a robots.txt? Here they discuss what is, and is not, supported by robots.txt files. And while Google may support features or directives, other search engines or AI crawlers might not.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/i39Zb1C

Google Updated Its URL Structure Best Practices For Hyphens In URLs

Google has made a minor change to its URL structure best practices for Google Search help document. Specifically, the "Use hyphens to separate words" section. The overall meaning of the section really did not change but Google did update it, so I wanted to point out the update.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/WFAy5qE

OpenAI Auto Enabling Creative Enhancements In ChatGPT Ads

OpenAI sent out emails to advertisers, including me, telling me they have automatically enabled creative enhancements for my ChatGPT Ads. The email says this is starting on October 30, 2026 and I can opt out of creative enhancements or change your settings at any time in Ads Manager.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/jYJhRNm

Bing Tests Not Showing Sitelinks

Microsoft seems to be testing not showing sitelinks under the main Bing search result snippets. I am honestly not sure if this is new but I was able to replicate Bing showing sitelinks for the first search result snippet in one browser and for the same query, it not showing the sitelinks.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/TfdE8kn

Google Search Tests Removing Horizontal Rule Line Under Tabs

Google is testing removing the HR, thematic line break or horizontal rule line, that is found under the search tabs under the search box in the search results page.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/M6XipFG

Google Ads Now In AI Mode With Personal Intelligence

Google confirmed it will now show ads in AI Mode results with Personal Intelligence enabled. Back in March, Google said AI Mode with Personal Intelligence turned on would be ad-free, but that is now changing.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/UPSCDAf

Google AI Mode Citations With Preferred Source Preferences

Google is testing letting users view and modify their preferred sources list directly from within the AI Mode citations sidebar. There is a new button named "Source preferences" and when you click on it, it opens up your preferred sources list where you can add or remove preferred sources.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/6O0BRwG

Google Ads To No Longer Show Featured Professionals, Headshots Are Optional

Google Ads posted a message to Local Service Ads advertisers saying that featured professionals will no longer show on your ads, and headshots will be optional and won't impact ad serving.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/3EPc9MV

Google Updated Indexing API Quota Details & More

Google has updated the indexing API documentation; this includes three different pages within the documentation. I think the big takeaway is that Google removed the old approval process and initial testing explanation, the sitemap recommendation, and, most importantly, the default quota details.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/27STPDt

Google Dataset Search Currently Not Returning Search Results

For the past several hours, Google Dataset Search has not been able to return any search results or matches. Google Dataset Search returns a response that says "Your search - [keyword phrase here] - did not match any datasets."

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/C2DFHSb

Bing Tests Related Searches Based On Your Browsing

Bing is testing showing "Related searches based on your browsing" similar to how Google is/was showing this a few months ago. In Bing's test, this is below the Microsoft Ads in the search results.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/YseAU64

OpenAI Drops UTM Parameters From ChatGPT Results (GPT-6)

OpenAI seems to have removed or replaced the UTM parameters it placed on links within the ChatGPT results. This makes it harder to know if a click came from ChatGPT versus some other platform. This seems to have started with the release of GPT''6, which was a week ago.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/BYLcVk9

Google Search On PDFs: Conversion, Links, HTML, Ranking, Limits, Crawling...

Google's Martin Splitt and John Mueller just posted a Search Off the Record podcast on the topic of PDFs, it is named PDFs in Search: Indexing, AI & Pitfalls. It goes over how PDFs are converted for crawling and indexing, how Google processes links, images, what are the file limits and do they rank in search and AI search.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/etqfTKN

Gemini 4 Argon In Google Search Via AI Mode

Google announced Gemini 4 Argon a couple of weeks ago and today announced that it is now an option in Google Search via AI Mode for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers globally.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/8F6AUJH

Google Ads Data Strength Best Practices Updated

Google has revamped its Data Strength Best Practices help document with much greater emphasis on sending more first-party data and identifiers, using Data Manager correctly, adopting AI-powered campaigns, and supporting its recommendations with performance statistics. It is a big update to the document.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/NQjurDd

The Industry Mourns The Loss Of Nick Wilsdon - Loved By Industry

I am sad to report that Nick Wilsdon has passed away yesterday, October 11, 2026. Nick Wilsdon has been in the SEO industry for over two decades and was a close friend to many in the search marketing industry.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/uBGOLo2

Google: Poor Image Quality Won't Stop Products From Showing In Search Or Ads

Google has updated its Google Merchant Center low image quality help document to now say that poor image quality will not stop those products from showing in Google Search or Google Ads.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/b7SwxvK

Google Search Console Performance Report Extremely Delayed

The search performance reports in Google Search Console is now over 64 hours delayed, which is incredibly unusual for this report. Generally, we see this report updated within a few hours but over the past few days, post-spam update, the report has been lagging.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/jkY6d59

Bing Tests Removing Favicons From Search Result Snippets

Microsoft Bing is testing dropping favicons from Bing search result snippets. This makes the search results page look much less graphical.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/FImqyGA

Google Ads Self-Services Conversion Lift Measurement

Google Ads now lets advertisers set up Conversion Lift measurement themselves. Google updated its help documentation to say that you no longer need a Google Ads representative to set up Conversion Lift measurement; you just need at least 1,000 observed conversions and a $5,000 budget.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/4Vd2SIj

Google September 2026 Spam Update Has Finished Rolling Out

The Google September 2026 spam update is now done rolling out. It started on Thursday, September 28, 2026 at around 12:00 pm ET and completed on October 8, 2026 at 4:37 am ET. This was different from the previous few spam updates in that this one took two weeks to roll out whereas the others took only two days to roll out.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/ILu8Hox

Google Search Crawl Rate Doc Adds Retry-After HTTP & More

Google has just pushed some updates to the reduce the Google crawl rate documentation. Most of the changes are just organizational to the content on the page but under the "Urgently reduce crawler traffic (for emergencies)" section, Google added new information on how to use Retry-After HTTP header.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/aLHFb8Q

Google Email Shares Number Of Preferred Source Subscribers

Google Search Console is sending out emails informing site owners how many people are subscribing or following them as a preferred source on Google. It says "people are choosing domain as a preferred source" and then lists the number of "Preferred source selections."

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/skW2IUQ

OpenAI Tests New Product Labels On ChatGPT Results

OpenAI is testing new labels appended to the ChatGPT product results. These labels can add information about the product it is displaying, such as "best all-rounder," "best for beginners," "best cushioning," and so on.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/hwTLE6m

OpenAI To Test Visual ChatGPT Ad Format During AI Image Generation

OpenAI announced "new visual ad format in ChatGPT" that it will be testing "later this month in the US with an initial group of advertisers." The new visual ad format is an "ad format during image generation in ChatGPT." So if you ask ChatGPT to make an image for you, it will show a special ad for that process.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/PWIQEj9

Google Ads To Allow Some Advertisers To Use Different Business Names

Google Ads will update its business name policy to allow some advertisers to use a business name that differs from the ad's destination domain. This is limited to certain cases, specifically three cases and it also excludes advertisers who are not the direct verified brand.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/LSYmlBG

Google Helpful Content Doc With New Main Content & EOT/SA Sections

Google has updated the creating helpful, reliable, people-first content help document to primarily add two new sections. First, it added that the main content is super critical, added what is main content and then explained how Search Quality raters review content quality of the main content.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/l82Q4RU

Google: Manually Factcheck & Review AI-Generated Content For Accuracy

Google has updated Google Search's "guidance on using generative AI content on your website" document to tell those who use AI-generated content to "manually factcheck and review all AI-generated content for accuracy and trustworthiness before publishing."

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/a3AXcxG

ChatGPT Adds Virtually Try On Clothing & Accessories

OpenAI announced that it is rolling out virtual try-on for clothing and accessories for ChatGPT on the mobile and web interfaces. This also includes saving these to your ChatGPT Library.

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/fsAkLOr

Google Ads: Have At Least One Asset Group To Avoid Invalid Final URL Error

Google Ads updated its destination not working policy document to "provide additional examples for destination issues for advertisers," the company said. But Google also added a new line that says "Make sure your campaign has at least one asset group configured. If an asset group is missing, you may receive an "invalid final URL" error during setup even if your destination URL is working correctly."

from Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/qyJHgX5