Google Merchant Center Adds Sale Events Promotion Type

Google has added a new promotion type to Google Merchant Center named "Sale events." Sale events are a type data that you can submit on Google and are shown on non-product-centric surfaces. This seems to be available in the US for free Merchant Center listings right now.

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New Google Travel Ads Feed Format May Be Rolling Out

A couple of weeks ago, Google announced the new features for travel search ads through integration with travel feeds. These may now be out in the wild, as we are seeing pricing and other rich markup showing up for hotel ads in Google Search.

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Google Search Current Sales Expandable Section

Google Search has been rolling out this new expandable section in the search results titled "current sales." I guess Google is able to figure out what is a sale and what is not, maybe from structured data or Merchant Center and then have a section in the search results for that...

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Google Shopping Ads With Both Seller & Product Ratings

Google is showing both seller ratings and product ratings on a single Google Shopping Ad unit. It is a bit weird to see both ratings, and it can potentially be confusing to see different ratings for the same retailer but one is for the rating of the specific product and one is for the rating of the company selling that product, i.e the seller.

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Google Ads Tests Subheadline Links Under Search Ad Title Links

Google is testing placing a second link directly under the main ad headline link, some call the title link, that pull from your Google Ads assets or extensions. It is unusual to see these links right next to each other, sometimes you'd see them as sitelinks under the ad description but not directly under the main headline link.

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Google Ads Editor Version 2.8 Is Now Out

Google has released version 2.8 of the Google Ads Editor. This new update brings a number of new features including AI-generatged images, export to Google Sheets, brand guidelines, image cropping, strict age and gender targeting, a new help center and more.

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Google Tests Dropping Site Name & Favicon From Search Results

Google is testing removing the favicons and site name from the mobile search results. As you may remember, Google first launched these in the mobile search results back in October 2022 and yes, Google has had its trouble with these favicons and site names over the years.

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Google Map Finder Ads Sponsored Labels Not Always Showing

Google may be testing displaying sponsored labels in different positions within the local map finder view. Some of the ads have sponsored labels on the left side, where it lists the local listings. While others don't show the sponsored label until you hover over the listing.

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HARO / Connectively Platform Closing Down December 9

HARO, Help a Reporter Out, now known as the Connectively Platform is being discontinued, and shut down, on December 9th. For SEOs, it was a way to get attention and potentially links, from journalists and it is a topic we've covered in the past.

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Google Local Service Ads App To Stop Working In Two Months

Google will stop supporting the Google Local Service Ads app starting on January 6, 2024. An email sent to advertisers said, "On January 6, 2025, we will be turning down the Google Local Services Ads mobile app."

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Bing AI-Powered Buying Guide

Microsoft Bing has these AI-powered buying guide that can show up at the top right section for some e-commerce related queries. Microsoft spoke about these buying guides back in June 2023 but they now seem to be rolling out more widely.

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Google AI Overview Displayed Within People Also Ask

Google is testing showing AI Overviews and generative AI results directly in the people also ask section. People also ask generally are featured snippet powered but now Google is testing using AI Overviews instead of featured snippets.

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Google Ads Continues To Test Ads Mixed Within Organic Results - Dynamic Ad Placement

Google has mixed its search ads between and throughout the organic (free) search results starting sometime mid-last year. Google calls it dynamic ad placement, and it is an ongoing tests. In fact, Google had to change its definition of top ads to make way for this historically very unGoogle-like move.

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Google Shopping Ads With Bag Icon In Search

Google can show a bag icon on some of the sponsored search shopping ads. This can show next to the "Shop now" text, where you can either go to the retailers site to buy or click the bag icon to likely check out with Google (I am guessing).

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Google Testing Orange Links For Search Results

Google Search is testing orange links, instead of blue links, in dark mode. This is more like a muted orange color, but it seems orange nevertheless.

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Google AI Overviews Highlight Feature Expands AI Responses

Google is testing a new feature in the AI Overviews within Google Search. There is this "highlight" button that when you click on, it lets you highlight text in the AI Overview, which then in turn gives you more AI Answers.

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Google: Having Different Links On Mobile vs Desktop Pages Can Slow Crawl

Google has made a small update to its crawl budget documentation page to add a best practice is to have the same links on both the mobile and desktop version (if you have different versions) on the page. If you do not do this, it can slow the crawling and discovery of your site, especially if it is a large site.

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Google Ads Adds Segmenting Option To PMax Asset Groups In Reports

Google Ads has added a new segment option to the reporting for Performance Max assets groups. Some advertisers are seeing the "segment" option within the PMax Asset Group Performance section of reporting.

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OpenAI Releases ChatGPT Search: Citations, Robots.txt Controls & More

After beta testing SearchGPT for a few months, OpenAI is now rolling out Search within ChatGPT for ChatGPT Plus and Team users, which will come to free users in the future. The first thing most of us will look at are the citations, links, will Search in ChatGPT drive searchers to our sites.

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Google AI Answers In Google Maps: Things To Do, Review Summaries & About This Place

Google added a number of AI, Gemini-powered, features to Google Maps including new search features, review summaries for place listings and a way to ask about a specific business listing where AI will give you answers.

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Google Tests Discover More Places & Explore Places Nearby

Google is testing more local search features and sections including a section in the local finder named "Discover more places" and a local search box in web search named "Explore places nearby."

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Bing Tests New Local Knowledge Panel Design

Microsoft seems to be testing a new design for its local knowledge panel or local listing for a specific brand. This new design has a more card-like interface, showing company photos and information, reviews from third party sites, a map, and other details.

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Google Menu Highlights Search Carousel

Google can show a restaurant's menu right at the top of the search results for a search on that restaurant's brand name. It comes up in this "menu highlights" carousel and showcases some of the items on that restaurant's menu.

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Microsoft Bing Advertising Revenue Up 18%

Microsoft reported its first quarter 2025 earnings and it showed that its search and advertising revenue was up 18%. The last quarter it was up 19%, but as I noted then, the last time it was up over 19% in a quarter before last quarter was 10 quarterly earning reports ago, in Q3 2022.

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Google Tests Scrollable Search Ads Categories

Google is testing a search ad product carousel format that has these sub-categories that scroll as you swipe through the carousel of products. This format looks familiar but I cannot find any coverage of this new look, so I am covering it now.

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