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 explained why it is doing more spam updates and spoke about the new quality pillars. Gary Illyes from Google reportedly presented new data from Google Search on how long Google for crawling, indexing and serving on average. Google Search Console will soon roll out dark mode capabilities. Google Ads has a new AI campaign localization tool for Search campaigns (beta). Google Ads sent an email notifying some advertisers that it will automatically identify and extract high-quality promotions from your website and apply them directly to your campaigns starting on October 12, 2026. Google may be testing the three dots for about this site, twice, it seems like a bug.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
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Google Search Spam Updates Use AI To Find AI Spam & More
Google spoke at the three-day Google Search Central Live Deep Dive event in Europe about why it has rolled out so many spam updates in 2026, according to John Campbell's recap at We Are Roast. He said that Google has been doing more spam updates because there is so much more new content than before. He also said Google is using AI to catch more spam. -
Google Search Data On Crawling, Indexing & Serving Timelines
Gary Illyes from Google reportedly presented new data from Google Search on how long Google for crawling, indexing and serving on average. This is broken down by process, withing crawling, indexing and serving and shows the typical timeframe versus the slowest timeframe. -
Dark Mode Coming To Google Search Console
Google will soon support dark mode in Google Search Console. Ariel Kroszynski, a Senior Software Engineer at Google, announced this at the Google Search Central Live Deep Dive Europe 2026 in Barcelona last week. -
Google Ads To Automated Promotions For Search & PMax Campaigns Soon
Google Ads sent an email notifying some advertisers that it will automatically identify and extract high-quality promotions from your website and apply them directly to your campaigns starting on October 12, 2026. This is called automated promotions and only applies to Search and Performance Max campaigns with linked location assets. -
Google Ads With Doubled About This Ad Button
Google seems to have a bug of sorts where sometimes it can show the three dots about this ad or search result button twice, instead of just once. I can replicate this for some queries but not all. -
OpenAI To Test Visual ChatGPT Ad Format During AI Image Generation
OpenAI announced "new visual ad format in ChatGPT" that it will be testing "later this month in the US with an initial group of advertisers." The new visual ad format is an "ad format during image generation in ChatGPT." So if you ask ChatGPT to make an image for you, it will show a special ad for that process. -
Google Ads AI Campaign Localization Tool (Beta)
Google Ads has a new AI campaign localization tool for Search campaigns (beta), at least according to a new help document I found late last week. "You can use the AI campaign localization tool to quickly localize entire Search campaigns for new languages and regions using generative AI," Google wrote in the help document. -
Googler Kids Hula Hooping
At this Google event, they had a hula hoop area where children of Google employees were able to hula hoop. There is a video on Instagram of them hula hooping.
Other Great Search Threads:
- Google has launched “Notebooks in AI Mode” in the European Union as well. • Available mobile and desktop (web). • Available for free and paying users., Radu Oncescu on X
- ChatGPT ads in the first 4 turns of the conversation have 48% higher CTR. See our full report with Graphite on the State of ChatGPT Ads, Similarweb on X
- Bing showing detailed sources for From Sources across section in serp. Before it only shows the using ai source . Now with details like Data from and image from. Previously @rustybrick covered my finding here, Khushal Bherwani on X
- Just hypnotised by this cute web crawler , Nadya Voynich on Bluesky
Search Engine Land Stories:
- The latest jobs in search marketing
- Google Ads loosens business name rules for some advertisers
- Google Ads brings A/B testing to Performance Max asset groups
- Google Ads will automatically pull promotions from advertisers’ websites
- Google Ads adds AI-powered campaign localization for international expansion
- ChatGPT adds virtual try-on for clothes and accessories
- How to decide which ecommerce categories deserve more internal links
- What effective SEO client onboarding looks like: The first 90 days
- Google says main content is critical and describes how search quality raters evaluate it
- Your AI search visibility keeps changing: Here’s what to do about it
Other Great Search Stories:
AI & LLMs
- Finances expands to Free and Go users, OpenAI
- Toward provably private learning from federated data, Google Research
- OpenAI's latest features take direct aim at the app store model, TechCrunch
- Gemini limiting what models free & AI Plus users can access, more, 9To5Google
- What’s the Future for Pure Math Research in the Age of AI?, Stephen Wolfram Writings
- Interview with Richard Ho, OpenAI, Dr. Ian Cutress
- Sam Altman to Decoded: ‘The world should accept some bad things happening’ for the benefits of AI, POLITICO
Analytics
- GTM AI Version Summaries: A Practical Guide, KRM Digital Marketing
Industry & Business
- Google Accused of Illegally Killing a Massive Forest for Its New Data Center Project, Futurism
- AI Industry Cannot Regulate Itself Alone, Google’s James Manyika Says, Bloomberg
- How China’s Token Resellers Create an Anthropic Gray Market, The Information
- How employees forced OpenAI’s president to back down, Semafor
- Apple and Google push states to shield app stores from some lawsuits, POLITICO
- Anthropic’s Big Charity Bill for Shareholders, The Information
Links & Content Marketing
- AI Search Is Changing Keyword Research, news.designrush.com
Local & Maps
- Google confirms updates and fixes for Android Auto media apps, 9To5Google
- Google Business Profile: Should Real Estate Agents Say They're Open 24 Hours/Day?, SEO Savvy Agent
- Google Announces Long-Overdue Android Auto Cellular Signal Bar Fix, Autoevolution
- Google Maps has a big problem with route suggestions; nothing I've tried fixes it, Android Police
Other Search
- Apple’s reportedly developing a smart home camera that doesn’t record video, The Verge
- YouTube Shorts recommendations won't surface unoriginal content, 9To5Google
PPC
- AI PPC Agents and the Over-Optimization Trap: Are "Claudgents" Hurting Your Accounts?, ZATO Marketing
- Landing Page Best Practices: When to Trust Them and When to Question Them, PPC Hero
- Updated Pricing Policies for US Automotive Ads, PPC News Feed
- How Seasonality Should Change Your PPC Strategy, Koozai
- MCC Accounts Can Create Google Ads Accounts Without a Campaign, PPC News Feed
- Google Removes the 50-Conversion Learning Period Guidance, PPC News Feed
Search Features
- Gemini app gains new ‘Map’ tool, replacing '/' with '@', 9To5Google
- Yahoo sponsored results now showing more blue hyperlinks, Search Engine Watch
- AI Overviews Currently Appear for 83% of Branded Searches, Ahrefs
SEO
- Re-imagining AI Visibility KPIs in a Query Fan Out world, Seer Interactive
- Winning AI citations isn't the same as winning in search | With Cyrus Shepard, SearchPilot
- The Freshness Signal: QDF (Query Deserves Freshness) - Inside Google’s Battle Against Time, Staleness, and Click Bias, Hobo
- Google Discover Publishers ranking in September 2026, DiscoverSnoop
- Google Now Has the Math to Rank Without an Index, and the Results Page Does Not Survive It, Duane Forrester Decodes
- Google Search Central Live Deep Dive, Barcelona - Day 3 Recap, We Are ROAST
- Prediction: the next massive Google update is around the corner, Lily Ray
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