New: Google Ads Prospects Mode
Google Ads unveiled Prospect Mode, a beta feature that isolates brand‑unaware, "cold" users for advertising. The new Bidding option, “Only bid for new prospects BETA,” automatically excludes past purchasers, site visitors, brand‑searchers, and prior ad engagers. By filtering these audiences, advertisers can focus spend on truly new customers rather than repeat or warm leads. The rollout expands Google’s New Customer Acquisition toolkit, promising higher efficiency for campaigns targeting untapped market segments.
Google: Search Quality Raters Guidelines Not A Guide For Search Rankings
John Mueller clarified on Bluesky that Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines are not a step‑by‑step manual for ranking sites. The once‑leaked documents are now officially published for public view. While the guidelines reveal the type of content Google prefers, they...
Google 1st Order Price Labels On Shopping Ads (Again)
Google is testing a new “1st order price” label on Shopping ads, indicating a special discount for a shopper’s first purchase with a retailer. The label is a variation of the “First order” tag tested over a year ago. The...
Google Strongly Warns Against Manipulating Mentions For AI
Google’s Search Central Live Sydney 2026 highlighted a firm warning against buying or manipulating brand mentions to influence AI‑driven search features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode. Gary Illyes stressed that such tactics are treated like paid links, which...
Google Ads Real-Time Policy Reviews During Ad Creation
Google Ads is introducing Real‑Time Policy Reviews for Responsive Search Ads, delivering instant editorial and policy feedback as advertisers draft headlines and descriptions. The tool flags issues like typos or capitalization before the ad is saved, and if no violations...
Google Tests Growing Expanding Shopping Ads
Google is piloting a new interactive Shopping ad format that expands when users hover over it. The ads grow vertically, making product listings more eye‑catching on search results pages. The test, first spotted by Sachin Patel and confirmed by other...
Google Merchant Center Conversational Attributes For AI-Driven Surfaces
Google Merchant Center has launched a set of conversational attributes designed for AI‑driven surfaces such as AI Mode, Gemini and Business Agent. The optional fields—question_and_answer, document_link, related_product, item_group_title, variant_option and popularity_rank—supplement the standard product feed and let merchants convey nuanced...
Daily Search Forum Recap: May 22, 2026
Google began rolling out its May 2026 core update, a two‑week algorithm refresh aimed at surfacing more relevant content. Simultaneously, the Search Console links report malfunctioned, showing zero or dramatically reduced backlink counts for many sites. OpenAI expanded its ChatGPT Ads...
OpenAI Releases ChatGPT Ads Manager Updates & Ads Tests
OpenAI announced three upgrades to its ChatGPT Ads Manager: daily budget options, granular geo‑targeting by state, DMA or ZIP code, and aggregate list‑view totals for impressions, clicks and spend. The changes apply to new campaigns, with daily budgets limited to...
Google Tests Was & Usually Pricing Labels In Product Results
Google is piloting new pricing labels—“was” and “usually”—on its product and shopping search results. The tags appear next to the listed price, signaling whether the figure reflects the current price or a typical/previous price. The experiment was first spotted by...
Google AdSense Adds Dynamic Anchors Ads
Google AdSense is rolling out a new format called Dynamic anchor ads, extending collapsible anchor functionality from mobile to desktop screens wider than 1,000 px. The feature activates automatically on June 19, 2026 for publishers already opted into collapsible anchors, but can be...
Google Ads Primary Conversion Actions May Be Used For Enhance Predictions
Google has updated its Ads help pages to state that primary conversion actions, even when not used for bidding optimization, may be employed to enhance predictive models. The change, highlighted by LinkedIn posts from Dario Zannoni, could affect how Smart...
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Ranking Volatility Heated, Discover Data Goes Missing, FAQ Rich Results Totally Gone & Google...
Google’s search ecosystem saw heightened volatility on May 13‑14, shaking SERP rankings for many sites. The company also extended its spam policies to cover AI‑generated answers, while stripping FAQ rich results from both search results and Search Console. Meanwhile, Google Discover’s...
Google Ads Create Video With AI Beta
Google Ads has launched a beta feature called “Create video” that leverages Gemini, Google’s generative AI, to automatically produce video creatives for Demand Gen campaigns. The tool, spotted on LinkedIn by Thomas Eccel, appears to use the VEO 3 Video AI Gen...
Google Ads API Version 24.1 Now Available
Google has launched version 24.1 of the Google Ads API, a minor update that introduces dozens of new fields and experiment types. Highlights include a classic_display_images field for DemandGen ads, a passkey_enabled flag for user access, and a mobile_device_platform reporting segment....