Meta, the social media company that operates Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads, is allegedly crawling the web and in the process of building its own search engine. Pieter Levels posted about this pattern on X and wrote, “Meta is ALLEGEDLY building their own Google search engine…”

Google has updated its guidelines for representing your business on Google in the Google Business Profiles help documentation to add a new rule.

Google’s Gary Illyes said that hreflang alternates, hreflang URLs are not “indexed in the proper sense.” In short, Google just keeps the hreflang URL as alternate URLs. So the URL is not what is getting the page indexed, it is just being stores as an alternative to the main page URL.

A month ago, Google said it would now label ads created or edited with AI with an AI label within the ad or on the ad itself (depending on the region). We soon saw those AI labels roll out on ads in the Google Search sponsored results but now we are also seeing them in the local pack listings and within Google Discover.

Microsoft has released the ability to adjust and appeal disapproved assets in bulk.

The Google home page is testing or rolling out now, new AI features and buttons in place of the Google Search and I’m Feeling Lucky buttons. There is now “Create images,” “Ask about files,” and “Brainstorm” buttons below the big search box. This is in addition to showing the AI Mode button, the plus sign at the left of the search box, Google Lens, and the Voice button.

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AI’s impact outpaced our ability to measure it in H1 2026. Indig’s citation data, agent share shifts, and the intelligence-versus-agency split explain what changes next. The post AI’s Impact Is Outrunning Measurement: The Trust And Attribution Gap Facing Brands appeared first on Search Engine Journal

AI search only feels like a new sport to the people who were never really training.

YouGov data shows Claude and OpenAI doubling Gen Z consideration while U.S. trust in AI assistants sits at 28%, a gap that reshapes GEO plans