The Google broad core update for March is not done yet, and we see tremors. Google started to roll out Bard, and while it is fast and has a sleek interface, it was a bit underwhelming when compared to Bing Chat. In fact, Bard is unlikely to link to sources and content creators too often. Even Bing’s CEO at Microsoft said Bard is “pretty far behind” Bing Chat. Bing is testing Chat answer boxes in the search results. Bing Chat is also integrating its Bing Image Creator tool, and it started to work a few days after it was announced. Microsoft is relaxing restrictions on balanced mode before other modes. Microsoft Bing said there is no site blacklist for the Bing Chat sidebar in Edge. Google posted its generative AI policies, will they apply to Search? Google updated the Google Search Status dashboard to include ranking updates. Google Search Console’s URL inspection tool added if a video embed URL page uses indexifembedded. Google said URLs are not removed until after Google processes the robots.txt file and then after the specific URL is processed by Google. Bing Webmaster Tools may be missing a week of data. Google is testing highlighting snippets in the Google Explore search feature. Google Business Profiles displays wrong and dangerously incorrect service pricing for some businesses. Google is testing showing only one star in the local pack. Google Local Service Ads industry and service selector was updated. Some Google Ads campaigns may suffer significantly if they don’t upgrade to Google Analytics 4 by July 1. Microsoft Advertising launched target shoppers by browsing categories with keyword boosters. And if you want to help sponsor those vlogs, go to patreon.com/barryschwartz. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

SPONSOR: This week’s video recap is sponsored by Duda, the Professional Website Builder You Can Call Your Own. You can register for the webinar with Bing and AI, where I will be hosting along with others over here.

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Did you know that the Google office in Belo Horizonte, Brazil has a room that looks to me designed to look like planet Mars? I could be wrong but look at the volcanic rock-like carpets and bubble thing hanging from the ceiling.

This was posted by Google’s Daniel Waisberg from the Search Central Live Belo Horizonte on Twitter. The full size image is on Twitter, by the way.

This post is part of our daily Search Photo of the Day column, where we find fun and interesting photos related to the search industry and share them with our readers.

The Microsoft Advertising team announced its PromoteIQ launched a new way to target your ads, by targeting shoppers based on the categories they browse with the ability to also use keywords as a booster for campaign bids.

Nicole Farley explained on Search Engine Land, “this latest development in category-based targeting with keyword leveraging is supposed to maximize revenue and sales for both retailers and advertisers, while also delivering an exceptional experience for shoppers. Interested advertisers should test the new.”

Unlike traditional keyword targeting, “which requires advertisers to research and build an exhaustive list of keywords per campaign,” Microsoft said. With this new targeting shoppers by what they browse, “advertisers only need to test and retain a few high-performing keywords,” Microsoft added.

Microsoft said that in their tests, “campaigns that boost bids by keyword whilst targeting by category exhibit 320% higher click-through-rate (CTR) than the campaigns without boosting bids by keyword.” “Meanwhile, retailers saw benefits from this solution by achieving 8x higher revenue per thousand impressions (RPM),” Microsoft added.

Forum discussion at Twitter.