This was a super busy week, so there is a lot more content in this recap compared to most. We start off with the Google September 2026 spam update completing, it had its third and final phase earlier in the week. Google may be issuing more manual action search penalties. Google says you should factcheck AI content before publishing. Google wrote about main content and how quality raters review it. Google warned against using fake authorship. Google spoke about search spam updates and how it uses AI. Google also shared timelines on crawling, indexing and serving. Google said Nano Banana 2.1 is in AI Mode. Google emailed numbers on preferred source subscribers. Google Search profiles expanded to India and Canada. Google Search Console added multi-select countries and AI control details. Google dropped review snippets for healthcare. Google says use retry-after HTTP for slowing crawling. Google has this new UGC data fresh program. Google local panels test WhatsApp buttons. Google Ads AI Max columns added. Self-service conversion lift management is out. Google Ads automated promotions. Google has a new AI campaign localization tool. Google Merchant Center has a new UCP integration hub. OpenAI tests product labels and new ad formats. And I posted my 50,000 stories on search this week. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.
Sponsor: This video is sponsored by Ahrefs. Did you know that Ahrefs just doubled its API limits (including MCP usage) on all Ahrefs paid plans. You can now build even better marketing tools and workflows using Ahrefs data. More details on Reddit.
Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favorite podcast player to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed. For the original iTunes version, click here.
Search Topics Discussed:
- 0:00 - Introduction
- 0:48 - Google September 2026 Spam Update Has Finished Rolling Out
- 1:56 - Final Phase Of Google September 2026 Spam Update Rollout Oct 4-6?
- 2:18 - More volatility post spam update
- 2:50 - Google Search Issuing More Google Manual Action Penalties?
- 3:46 - Google: Manually Factcheck & Review AI-Generated Content For Accuracy
- 4:48 - Google Helpful Content Doc With New Main Content & EOT/SA Sections
- 6:05 - Google Warns Against Deceptive Authorship Information Within Content
- 6:43 - Google Search Spam Updates Use AI To Find AI Spam & More
- 7:38 - Google Search Data On Crawling, Indexing & Serving Timelines
- 8:29 - Nano Banana 2.1 In Google AI Mode In Search
- 8:44 - Google Email Shares Number Of Preferred Source Subscribers
- 9:12 - Google Search Profiles Expand To India & Canada With Brazil Coming Soon
- 9:24 - Google Search Console Performance Report Multi-Select Country Filters
- 9:41 - Google Search Generative AI Control Page Adds Top-Level Domain Details
- 10:04 - Google Drops Review Snippets For Healthcare Web Pages
- 10:36 - Google Search Crawl Rate Doc Adds Retry-After HTTP & More
- 10:50 - Google Reveals The UGC Fresh Data Program
- 11:29 - Google Local Panel Gains WhatsApp Button
- 11:36 - Google Ads AI Max Columns: Brand Inclusion, Commission, Locations Of Interest & Optimized Targeting
- 11:49 - Google Ads Self-Services Conversion Lift Measurement
- 12:05 - Google Ads To Automated Promotions For Search & PMax Campaigns Soon
- 12:33 - Google Ads AI Campaign Localization Tool (Beta)
- 12:56 - Google Merchant Center New UCP Integration Hub
- 13:13 - OpenAI Tests New Product Labels On ChatGPT Results
- 13:26 - OpenAI To Test Visual ChatGPT Ad Format During AI Image Generation
- 13:46 - This Is My 50,000 Published Story On Search
- 14:09 - Conclusion
Please do subscribe on YouTube or subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don't forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!
