Google seems to be testing adding tracking parameters to the link URLs within AI Overviews. If this rolls out fully, this will help you decipher when you get a click from an AI Overview in Google Search or just a click from the main Google Search web results.

Google Local Service Ads seems to hide the phone number until you hover your mouse over the ad. I am not sure if this is new or not, but there is a big button that says “Get phone number” which is not needed because the phone number does show up as soon as you move your mouse near the ad.

Microsoft Bing is testing a new’ish section labeled “Recommended by” followed by the company making the recommendations.

Google Ads may have a bug or maybe it is testing, not showing images on sponsored product results. You can see from the screenshot below, the images that are generally shown above the ad titles and descriptions are missing from the Sponsored products carousel in Google Search.

Google Ads show up a lot within AI Mode these days and with that, Google is testing various ad formats to see which formats get the highest click-through rate (unlike links in AI Mode).

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.

Google has updated the creating helpful, reliable, people-first content help document to primarily add two new sections.

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.”

Google’s guidance on AI-generated content now says to fact-check it by hand before publishing, and the review extends to titles, alt text, and other metadata. The post Google Tells Sites To Fact-Check AI Content Before Publishing appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

YouTube is updating recommendations to favor original Shorts and reduce reach for channels that mainly re-upload others’ clips without significant changes. The post YouTube To Cut Reach Of Channels Reposting Barely Changed Clips appeared first on Search Engine Journal .