Daily Search Forum Recap: April 17, 2026
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Google targets back button hijacking as a spam violation, says spam reports may trigger manual actions, and expands agentic restaurant booking to more markets.
This week we covered a new Google Search spam penalty for back button hijacking. Google also updated its spam report, it may now be used for manual actions.
Google also released the annual Google Maps safety report saying blocked or removed over 292 million policy-violating reviews and removed over 13 million fake Business Profiles. Google also said it blocked 79 million inaccurate or unverified edits and placed posting restrictions on more than 783,000 policy-violating accounts.
Google has released its annual Google Ads safety report and the big number that stands out to me is that Google removed 8.3 billion ads, which is up almost 63% from last year’s number of 5.1 billion. Google did say that 99% of those were removed before serving the ad, thanks to Gemini.
Microsoft is testing animating the Bing “people also search for” boxes. Bing will run this animated outline around the boxes when it loads, to give it more attention to the searcher.
Google’s product data push goes beyond Shopping ads. Learn why feed optimization now matters for AI search, free listings, YouTube, and retail visibility
Google rolled an important change with how AI Mode works yesterday and it can have a big impact on the experience for desktop users.
Google has updated its reviews policy to add two items; (1) do not have your staff solicit a certain number of reviews and (2) the content of the review should not mention the staff member’s name and information.
Google has updated its reviews policy to add two items; (1) do not have your staff solicit a certain number of reviews and (2) the content of the review should not mention the staff member’s name and information.