Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...

Discover how to create a unique and secure username for your online accounts, and find out why it’s just as important as having a strong password.

We may be seeing more Google search ranking volatility start to get heated starting this weekend, through January 20th and 21st (and maybe today). Some of the Google tracking tools are having issues tracking these changes but some are not. But I do see a lot of chatter spike in the past couple of days.

Google has updated not just its site reputation abuse policy for clarification purposes, Google also updated the manual actions section for site reputation abuse. Again, these are just clarification changes, and as Google put it, "it include guidance from our blog post's FAQ on site reputation abuse."

For the past month or so, Google has been showing map pins on Service Area Businesses within Google. Previously, Google did not show pins on businesses without a public address but now they are, in some views.

John Mueller of Google said that sometimes doing SEO can cause sites more problems with search and search rankings. Sometimes not doing SEO, might be better, John implies.

Google is testing an expandable brand store knowledge panel. So if you search for a brand like New Balance, Google will show a knowledge panel on the right with products, descriptions and so on but then if you click on the arrow button, it will expand and show you even more.

Google Business Profiles started to allow chat through texting and WhatsApp for businesses in international regions. Now, this feature seems to be rolling out to businesses based in the United States.

Vertex AI RAG Engine, a managed orchestration service, streamlines the process of retrieving and feeding relevant information to Large Language Models. This enables developers to build robust, grounded generative AI apps that ensure responses are factually grounded.

This suite, which is now $39.99, helps you file your taxes online and maximize your tax deductions, with free in-person audits and access to 13,000 insightful articles.

Make scaling your Shopify store effortless. Learn how Avalara’s tax automation tools simplify compliance so you can focus on growing your ecommerce business.

The phishing-as-a-service kit from Sneaky Log creates fake authentication pages to farm account information, including two-factor security codes.

A free Coursera course on quantum error correction, developed by Google Quantum AI, explains the importance of error correction in quantum computing and provides an overview of quantum errors.

Explore Grok AI, Elon Musk's chatbot. Is it living up to the hype? Dive into its features, potential, and what sets it apart from competitors.

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The Google AI Developers Community Spotlight Contest is seeking innovative, diverse projects using Google's AI tools like Gemini and Gemma to create code repositories, videos, documentation, and more.

Explore innovative projects from the Gemini API Competition, like Omni, EcoTrack, ITMZ, Jana AI, Eagle AI, and AlphaFit, demonstrating the potential of the Gemini API to enhance productivity, promote sustainability, and improve well-being.

Apigee API hub is a centralized repository for your entire API ecosystem, providing a single source of truth.

Flutter is transitioning into its “production era,” marked by widespread developer adoption and success stories, including deeper iOS fidelity, seamless platform integration, and enhanced developer tools, making it a top choice for building apps at scale.

Gemini 2.0 Flash has enhanced capabilities like multimodal outputs and native tool use, and introduces new coding agents to improve developer productivity, now available for testing in Google AI Studio.