Google is testing “Strongest Match” labels on Search ads. Here’s what advertisers know so far and the questions Google hasn’t answered.

The post Google Tests ‘Strongest Match’ Labels On Search Ads appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

As AI agents proliferate into the web, a Senior Staff Research Scientist at Google DeepMind warns that scale makes failure inevitable.

The post Google DeepMind Admits Large-Scale AI Agent Deployment Is Unsafe Today appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

WordPress plugin vulnerability rated 8.8/10 enables attackers to gain full site access.

The post Ultimate Member WordPress Plugin Vulnerability Affects Up To 200k Sites appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Anthropic's Claude Tag lets teams assign work to @Claude inside Slack, embedding AI as a co-worker and assistant.

The post Anthropic’s @Claude Enters Workplace As A Slack Channel Coworker appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google expands its Limited Ad Serving policy, introducing new advertiser qualification signals tied to user reports, identity, and Search ad eligibility.

The post Google’s Limited Ad Serving Update Raises Questions About Advertiser Qualification appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google's conversational agent now troubleshoots delivery and builds reports inside Ad Manager, bringing prompt-driven workflows to publisher ad ops.

The post Google Launches Ask Ad Manager, Its First AI Agent For Publishers appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

A Similarweb report links AI recommendations to more site visits and deeper engagement, with most downstream traffic arriving via branded search.

The post AI-Recommended Brands Saw 2.5x More Site Visits: Similarweb appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google's John Mueller and Martin Splitt cautioned against parallelizing content with markdown for AI SEO.

The post Google Cautions Against Markdown Versions Of Websites For AI SEO appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Two senior Google AI researchers, Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer and AlphaFold's John Jumper, are leaving for OpenAI and Anthropic within the same week.

The post Google Loses Two Top AI Researchers To OpenAI & Anthropic appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google, Shopify, and browser makers are backing new PACT protocol "on Cloudflare's network" for gatekeeping AI agents.

The post Google And Shopify Back Cloudflare’s AI Bot Gatekeeping Initiative appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

About half of U.S. adults use AI chatbots, and 60% read AI Overviews, but more predict AI will hurt society than help it.

The post AI Chatbot Use Hits 49%, But Skepticism Stays High appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google's new messaging to CMOs reiterates that GEO is still SEO and states that third-party tools have no access to its internal metrics.

The post Google Says SEO Tools Lack Access To Its Internal Metrics appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google's John Mueller singled out X-Frame-Options as the only security header tied to SEO.

The post Google Says X-Frame-Options Matters For SEO appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google research suggests AI spam may be easier to detect by identifying originating networks instead of analyzing content one at a time.

The post Google Research Shows How AI Spam Can Be Detected appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

OpenAI says GPT-5.5 Instant, the free default ChatGPT model, now performs comparably to its frontier models on the company's own health evaluations.

The post OpenAI Brings Improved Health Responses To Free ChatGPT appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

A coalition including Google, Microsoft, and GitHub published Agentic Resource Discovery, an open draft spec for how AI agents find and verify tools online.

The post Google, Microsoft Back Draft AI Agent Discovery Spec appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google says a core assumption driving LLMs.txt adoption conflicts with the purpose its creators originally intended.

The post Google Exposes The Fundamental Flaw Of LLMs.txt appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google's updated documentation for domain migrations requires broader compliance demands for site owners.

The post Google Tightens Requirements For Domain Migrations appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

The UK's CMA introduced two new conduct requirements for Google Search, covering fair ranking of organic results including AI Overviews, and search data portability.

The post Google Must Give Notice Before Significant Ranking Changes appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Search Console reported 51,000 URLs as "Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt," and Google says that's not necessarily a problem.

The post Google Explains Why URLs Blocked By Robots.txt Can Still Be Indexed appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google updated its guidance to strike a less discouraging tone about the use of LLMs.txt, special markup, and markdown for AI SEO.

The post Google’s Updated Guidance Now Says It’s “Fine” To Use LLMs.txt For AI SEO appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Microsoft is beginning to roll out Citation Share, Intents, Topics, and Compare in the Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance dashboard preview.

The post Bing Rolls Out AI Citation Share In Webmaster Tools appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

In a fresh-account test, Kapwing found 59% of TikTok For You videos were AI slop, roughly three times the rate on YouTube.

The post TikTok Shows 3x More AI Slop Than YouTube, Report Finds appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google says that markdown solves one problem while potentially creating others for search visibility.

The post Google Says Markdown For AI SEO Strips Away The Parts That Matter appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Ahrefs analyzed 137K domains and found 97% of llms.txt files received zero requests. AI retrieval bots accounted for 1% of total requests.

The post 97% Of LLMS.txt Files Got No Requests, Ahrefs Data Shows appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Microsoft Advertising launches Product Explorer, a new Merchant Center tool that helps advertisers analyze feed health, product status, and performance data.

The post Microsoft Advertising Launches Product Explorer appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Mueller argues LLM systems can't use llms.txt to differentiate between websites for discovery. He sees a narrow role once an agent is on a site.

The post Google’s Mueller Says llms.txt Can’t Help LLMs Differentiate Sites appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google Ads expands Smart Bidding Exploration, launches Promotion mode beta, and updates optimization for budget-limited campaigns beginning August 17.

The post Google Ads Bidding Changes: What PPC Managers Need To Know About The 3 Updates appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google's John Mueller said localized URL folders for a site's primary market offer little practical SEO advantage.

The post Google’s Unexpected Take On Site Folder Structure And SEO appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google Open Knowledge Format turns organizational knowledge into a shared format for AI agents, tools, and teams.

The post Google Cloud Announces The Open Knowledge Format appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

U.S. export control directive forces Anthropic to shut down Fable 5 access. The company disputes the security concerns.

The post Anthropic Forced To Shut Down Fable 5 By U.S. Government Order appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google publishes guidance after new law gives small businesses power to challenge lost visibility and deleted reviews.

The post Google Publishes Tennessee Search “Blacklist” Guidance appeared first on Search Engine Journal.