Google Search Age Verification: Asking To Confirm You're An Adult

Google Search started to roll out the age verification that it said it would begin doing a couple of weeks ago. Yes, it is not just YouTube, it goes across Google Search ads too, as we reported back a couple of weeks ago.

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Google Looking Into Adding Analytics For Preferred Sources

Google recently launched the preferred sources for top stories within Google Search. But there is no way for publishers to know how many of their readers selected their website as a preferred source. But Google said they are "looking into this" and may provide such data to publishers.

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Google Tests Loyalty Benefits Section In Merchant Knowledge Panels

Google is testing adding a "loyalty benefits" section to the merchant/retailer knowledge panels. This would show on the right side of the page, under the description of the retailer.

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Microsoft Copilot Links Local Reviews To Bing Competitor Google Maps

It looks like Microsoft Copilot, formerly Bing Chat, is using Google Maps reviews for its local AI results. It also links directly to the Google Maps business profile listing when you click on the review stars and ratings from Copilot.

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Google AI Overviews Testing Keyboard Shortcuts

Google is now experimenting with keyboard shortcuts to the overlay menu in the AI Overviews within Google Search. Rajan Patel, VP, Engineering for Google Search, said this is just an experiment.

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Google Allows Dating & Companionship Ads In More Countries

Google has removed some of the restricted countries from the list of countries not allowed to serve Dating and Companionship ads. Specifically, Google removed Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and the UAE from the list.

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Google Ads Touts New AI To Reduce Invalid Traffic In Some Cases By 40%

Google announced it has new AI and large language models to fight invalid ad traffic or as Google calls it "IVT." Google explained they have used AI for a long time, but they had some breakthroughs that resulted in a "40% reduction in IVT stemming from deceptive or disruptive ad serving practices."

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Google Merchant Center Ads Promotions Preview & Chat Checkbox

Google Merchant Center now lets you preview your promotions, your sponsored ads, before adding them. Google also added two check boxes to your customer service section for live versus chatbot support.

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Google Trends Stalled With Four Hour Filter

Google Trends seems to be broken or stalled over the past few hours. If you filter Google Trends for a specific region and then say only show me trends over the past four hours, you may only see a few keywords show up and not pages of keywords, like you'd normally expect.

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Google's Gary Illyes Interviewed On AI Search, Content & SEO

Kenichi Suzuki and Rio Ichikawa from Farber Company in Japan sat down with Gary Illyes of Google to interview him on AI Search, AI content, SEO and other topics. It is a good interview, it is in English, so I wanted to share it here.

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Google Search Testing Deep Dive Button

Google seems to be testing a new "Deep Dive" button in the search results. This button is on some of the knowledge panels, specifically, this one is for a movie panel. When clicked, it gives you some bullet points on the highlights of the movie.

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Microsoft Copilot Now Using OpenAI's GPT-5 (Did Bing Get An Upgrade Too?)

Yesterday, OpenAI announced GPT-5 and it is free for all users within ChatGPT and other platforms. That includes Microsoft Copilot, which now is also using GPT-5's models.

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Bing Webmaster Tools Performance Report Adds List By Device & Country

Microsoft has added two new options to the Bing Webmaster Tools Search Performance report. There is a new list by for "device" and for "country," which was added to the existing "keywords" and "pages" options.

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Ask Anything In AI Mode Within Google Product Search Listings

Google is testing the Ask Anything In AI Mode feature, which we saw in the people also ask, now in the Google Search product listings. So when you click on a product, there is a new section named Ask Anything In AI Mode.

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Google Ads Sitelinks Impact Performance Max Ad Strength

Did you know that your sitelinks in your Performance Max (PMax) campaigns can impact the overall ad strength? Google actually has a help document that lists that and the ad strength widget in Google Ads now lists ad strength.

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Google Search Tests Rainbow Effect To AI Mode & Web Tabs

Google is testing adding a rainbow effect to the AI Mode and Web tabs within the search bar. We've seen this on the AI Mode button on the search box and it seems Google is testing it to highlight some of the tabs.

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Google: Easy To Draw Parallel Between Meta Keywords & LLMS.txt File

Google has been outspoken about not being a fan of the LLMS.txt file. Now, Gary Illyes from Google said it is a lot like the keywords meta tag in the early days and we all know how that went.

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Google Merchant Knowledge Panel Deals Section Update

Google has replaced the promotions section in the merchant local knowledge panel with a deals section. There are still clipable coupons but it is renamed "Deals" instead of it saying "Promotions." There is also a new green percentage icon next to each deal.

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Google Shopping Tests New Sort By Button Filter

Google is testing a sort by button filter at the top right of the Google Shopping interface. This is instead of Google putting the sort by on the left-hand bar, with all the other filters.

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Google To Use Machine Learning To Determine Age For Ads & More

Google emailed advertisers and publishers yesterday that they will begin using machine learning to estimate the age of signed-in users in the United States to "protect young people as they use Google products." This means Google will disable ad personalization and disallow sensitive creative categories from serving for users under 18.

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Google Search Posts On Reddit Section Replacing Discussion and Forums?

Google is testing a new section in the search results titled "Posts on Reddit." This section seems to maybe replacing or be in addition to the Discussions and Forums section, which also shows Reddit threads in a dedicated section.

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Google Ads Tests Grouping Favicons In Expandable Sponsored Results

Google is testing grouping the favicons from the sites from advertisers at the top of the sponsored results, on the right side of the sponsored label. This is part of when Google has the larger sponsored label and groups expandable sponsored ads below.

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Google Hotel Local Pack Tests Website Link On Mobile

A bit over a year ago, we saw Google testing a website link in the hotel local pack on desktop search. Now it seems Google is also testing it on mobile search, unless it was like that then and we didn't see the mobile version.

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Google Local Service Ads Message Leads Now More Expensive?

Google has changed how much it charges for message leads within Google Local Service Ads. Previously, it was 50% of the corresponding phone lead but now, Google said it is "typically priced lower than the corresponding phone lead price, although that's not always the case."

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Google Ads RSAs Adding Click & Conversion Data

Google Ads is adding more detailed data to RSAs, responsive search ads, reporting. Specifically, it now shows click and conversion data per RSA headline. This is instead of it just showing "good" or "bad" labels per headline.

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