Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Google Search Console has a bug with the search appearance filters, it should be fixed soon. Google is testing replacing the X/Twitter header in the search results with “latest posts from.” Google Ads has a new ad format named “for your consideration.” Google Ads has a new Merchant Center integration with AI images. Google said don’t make your m-dot URLs the canonical.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• 
  Google Search Console Performance Report Search Appearance Filter Bug (To Be Fixed)
  
  
  Google Search Console has a bug with the Search Performance report, where if you want to filter by Search Appearance, it won’t show you all the options. Google is aware of the bug and it should be fixed soon.
• 
  Google: Don’t Make Your M-Dot URLs The Canonical
  
  
  Google’s John Mueller repeated advice from a while ago that you should not switch your m-dot URLs to be the canonical URL, even though Google is fully switched over to mobile-first indexing. He said this is just because it is how it is done, how it was done, and switching it on Google’s end would cause many large sites issues.
• 
  Google May Replace X (Twitter) With Latest Posts From
  
  
  Google Search may be replacing the heading for “X (Twitter)” posts with “Latest Posts from.” This would be a step to removing more X branding from the Google Search results page.




• 
  New Google Ads Format “For Your Consideration”
  
  
  Google may be testing a new search ad format named “for your consideration.” These ads, at least in the example below, show hotel websites that you can go to to find hotels in the area. This may work for other categories of queries, outside of hotels, but this is the example I see right now.
• 
  New Google Ads Google Merchant Center Feed Integration In AI Image Editor
  
  
  Google has a new Google Ads feature within Google Merchant Center feeds in AI image editor that enables you to import product images from your Merchant Center feeds into your Google Ads account. The images will then be stored and available for use in the Google Ads Asset Library. “You can leverage product images to generate new campaign images using AI-powered image editing in Google Ads,” Google added.




• 
  Waymo Car On Display At Google
  
  
  Google has a Waymo car on display at its Google headquarters in Mountain View, California – the GooglePlex. Waymo is Google’s self-driving car project and I guess they wanted to put this on display at the office there.

Other Great Search Threads:

Search Engine Land Stories:

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

Industry & Business

Links & Content Marketing

Local & Maps

Mobile & Voice

SEO

PPC

Search Features

Other Search

Feedback:

Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Google says the next core update isn’t extremely far away, and encourages some publishes to hold out. Google’s ongoing search ranking volatility is pretty intense. Google Discover is pushing clicks to AI Overviews in Search. New data shows how often Google mixes ads into the organic search results. Google Business Profiles now lets you upload photos of your menu to convert that into a digital menu. Google Search may be showing fewer posts from X/Twitter in the search results.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• 
  Google: Core Update Isn’t Extremely Far Away As Publishers Grow Concerned
  
  
  Google’s John Mueller responded to complaints about image thumbnails still not showing up for some publishers in the search results. He encouraged a bit more patience, saying “the next one [core update] isn’t extremely far away now, so I’d recommend waiting for that.”




• 
  Ongoing Google Search Ranking Volatility For 2 Weeks
  
  
  Over the past almost two weeks, we have seen consistent and ongoing ranking volatility on a daily basis. The last Google search ranking update I covered was around July 23rd, then before that was July 18th and then July 9th. But every says since around July 17th there has been high volatility with the Google Search rankings.
• 
  Google Discover Promoting AI Overviews In Search
  
  
  Google Discover is now pushing users to see AI Overviews directly in the Google Search results. As you scroll through the Discover feed on Google.com, you may see a promotion of sorts to learn more about a topic through the lens of AI Overviews.
• 
  Report: How Often Google Mixes Ads Into Organic Search Results
  
  
  Google has been mixing search ads into the free organic search results for several months now; Google even changed its definition of what it considers top ads in order to account for this change. New data from Semrush shows just how often Google mixes search ads into the organic results.
• 
  Google Showing X Carousel Less Often For News Topics?
  
  
  Google may be displaying the X (formerly Twitter) carousel in the search results less often for news related topics. A report from Newzdash shows the X carousel is showing up for about 12% of queries, when earlier this year it was showing for closer to 27% of queries in Google Search.
• 
  Google Business Profiles New Generate Menu From Photo
  
  
  Google Business Profiles has a new AI feature to let you upload a photo of your menu and Google will create your menu items for your restaurant based on that photo. This is a generative AI feature and is currently considered “experimental.”
• 
  I Love Bing Hat At Google Office – Googleween
  
  
  Here is a photo from about a decade ago of a Googler wearing an I Love Bing hat, in a mask, holding a Google umbrella at the Google Ann Arbor offices. This was for a Halloween party, or as Google calls it – Googleween.

Other Great Search Threads:

• An “edge” in this context means the identical keyword would be selected over the other keywords in your account – but it doesn’t necessarily mean it will have an edge over other keywords it goes up, AdsLiaison on X
• The first two prioritization rules have been in place because we know advertisers expect specific matching behavior when the keyword is identical to the query. But, we also know building out, AdsLiaison on X
• NSFW Google results pulled directly from Quora: My friend searched “what are things associated with the 70s” for writing ideas. This is what Google shows. See for yourself. EVERY SINGLE insane result is from Quora. @lilyraynyc not, Abby Gleason on X
• Thread of how @MSFTAdvertising is beating @GoogleAds ads interface. 1) Allows advertisers to customize the static list of tools on the left side, Greg on X
• Vehicle listings are available to merchants who’ve been invited to the new experience in the US, CA and AU. For automotive merchants in the UK, DE and FR, access will start becoming available early August. (For those without existing vehicle listings, y, AdsLiaison on X
• News! Microsoft launched impression-based remarketing. The new era of First-Party Cookies. All you need to know., Thomas Eccel on X
• That’s right — we have protections in place for topics like political violence, which typically work well. But we’re working on improvements to make our predictions more up to date. Regardless of what Autocomp, Google Communications on X
• This allows them to generate relevant and coherent responses. But not necessarily factually correct ones. YOU, the user of these LLMs, still need to validate the answers based on what you know about the topic you asked the LLM about or based on additional, Gary Illyes on LinkedIn

Search Engine Land Stories:

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

Industry & Business

Links & Content Marketing

Local & Maps

Mobile & Voice

SEO

PPC

Other Search

Feedback:

Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.

Google pushed out a large update to Gemini (formerly known as Bard) and this update includes more links to both related content and also links to verify the content that Gemini is responding with.

Google said this is to continue its “work to reduce hallucinations and making it easier to explore websites that help you learn more.” Google said this will work for English language prompts in certain countries, but based on my testing, I rarely see it.

You can access this additional information on topics directly within Gemini’s responses by clicking on the chip at the end of a paragraph to see websites where you can dive deeper on a certain topic.

Here is what it looks like:

Google added, “This builds on our work to combat hallucinations. In addition to related content links, Gemini’s double-check feature verifies responses by using Google Search to highlight which statements are corroborated or contradicted on the web. For information that is contradicted, you can easily dive deeper to verify the information yourself.”

Here is a GIF of it in action:

As a reminder, over a year ago, Google Gemini had link citations added to the responses, only to remove most of them a year later.

Also, with this upgrade, Google upgraded to 1.5 Flash to Gemini in more than 40 languages and over 230 countries and territories, and expanded Gemini for Teens and mobile app experiences.

Forum discussion at X.