Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

This week’s SEO Pulse highlights the implications of Google handling more of the journey, from discovery to checkout, inside its own ecosystem. The post SEO Pulse: UCP Debate, Trends Gets Gemini, Health AIO Concerns appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

PPC Pulse recaps Google’s latest budget controls, AI-driven offer testing, and expanded eligibility rules for Shopping promotions. The post PPC Pulse: Total Budgets Expand, Direct Offers, & Shopping Promotions appeared first on Search Engine Journal

PPC Pulse recaps Google’s latest budget controls, AI-driven offer testing, and expanded eligibility rules for Shopping promotions. The post PPC Pulse: Total Budgets Expand, Direct Offers, & Shopping Promotions appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

I am seeing new signs of yet more Google Search ranking volatility and a possible tweak to the ranking search algorithm. Something kicked off yesterday, January 15th, that the third-party tools picked up on. With this update, there is limited chatter, unlike the previous unconfirmed Google Search ranking update.

I am seeing new signs of yet more Google Search ranking volatility and a possible tweak to the ranking search algorithm.

It is another week and more Google Search ranking volatility but this was a weird one.

Rajan Patel, the VP of Engineering for Search, said on X that Google is making “changes to ranking” to remove prediction content from showing up in the Google Search top stories and news sections. This comes after some sites are posting “prediction” content, predicting that some sports trades may happen, that have not happened yet, and those “stories” show up in the news section as actually having occurred.

Over the past few weeks, Google has been showing AI Overviews for local packs, leading some businesses to see huge drops in visibility for their Google Business Profile and local listings. Some businesses are seeing 50% declines or more because of the local pack change.

Microsoft Advertising announced a slew of new features including new customer acquisition goals as an open beta, Share of voice (SOV) metrics, Asset group-level URL options and tracking templates, increased Search Theme limit, enhanced asset group import, Content Targeting now generally available, Location targeting improvements and Autogenerated assets in Responsive Search ads.