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

This week, Google released the June 2026 spam update, Google said it was a normal spam update but it does feel like this one started a bit earlier and was a big one. Yes, we covered on Sunday what we thought...

Google Ads seems to be rolling out Maximize Conversion Value bidding within Standard Shopping campaigns. You might see under the Budget and bidding optimization setting for your Standard Shopping campaigns, the bid option for "Maximize conversion value."

Google announced new security controls for Merchant Center for Agencies, specifically around user access controls for admins and standard roles. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, said that these changes are "to help streamline workflows and improve security."

The Google Ads API will stop allowing advertisers to create Smart Campaigns on August 3, 2026. Google has been transitioning from Smart Campaigns to Performance Max campaigns for years now.

Google has added the messages button back to the Google Business Profile dashboard within Google Search. Google use to have a feature like this but I believe removed it but now it is possibly coming back.

Earlier this month, we covered Google's announcement of the Google-hosted lead form. Well, now it is going live for some advertisers in their Google Ads advertiser accounts.

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 released the Google June 2026 spam update yesterday afternoon...

Earlier this month, Google announced new ways to control how Google's general search AI features (like AI Mode and AI Overviews) can use your content and link to your content. Well, Google has released a super detailed help document explaining how it all works, including how to access it, the controls, what it does, the time it takes, the property inheritance, and how to submit feedback.

Google is testing a button in the AI Overview within Google Search that takes you to the web only tab. As a reminder, the web only tab does not have any AI search features or other search verticles, it only has the web search results.

Google has released version 24.2 of the Google Ads API, this is a minor release with dozens of updates. This update includes "critical security updates, new AI transparency features, reporting enhancements, and powerful planning insights," Google announced.

Google's John Mueller explained when Google will count an impression for a web page within the generative AI features in Google Search. In short, there needs to be a link to your site being shown in AI Overviews / AI Mode for it to show as an impression in the new Google Search Console AI performance reports.

Google is testing autocomplete within the Ask Anything follow-up box within Google Search's AI Mode. So when you start to type a follow-up question, Google will suggest autocomplete suggestions.

The page indexing report within Google Search Console is now two weeks delayed. It is stuck at June 11, 2026, for me, and has not been updated in 14 days. Google has been reporting issues with Search Console often enough, so this is not unusual, but this delay is significant enough to cover, since we are now at the two-week mark.

Google has just announced the release of the June 2026 spam update and said it should only take a few days to roll out. Truth is, we kind of saw this coming, although Google would say no, we did not.