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

Google's John Mueller and Martin Splitt spoke about the Google Search Console indexing report in its latest Search Off the Record podcast. One item was on how quality issues, including low-quality AI-generated content, can result in those pages not being trusted and not being indexed by Google. That might lead to the page indexing report showing a "crawled - currently not indexed" status, in some cases.

Apple has posted new Apple Maps policies where it now says it is prohibiting home services, such as plumbing, electrical, locksmith, HVAC, pest control, roofing, or general contracting services. It also says bail bonds, cryptocurrency ATMs and some medical services are also banned from Apple Maps Ads.

Google Ads updated its Performance Max product level reporting back on June 15th. This report now uses data from all Performance Max networks, rather than the subset it previously pulled from.

Google sent out an email to those who use the Google Manufacturer Center to remind them that the ability to manually add or update products directly in Manufacturer Center has been removed. Instead, Google said use the Manufacturer Center API or upload a product file.

Gary Illyes from Google said that you are better off not using a lastmod date in your XML Sitemap if those dates are wrong. He said on Bluesky, "probably better off without the lastmods. at least you save a few bytes."

Google announced it will consolidate and merge the Shopping ads and free listings policies into a single Shopping policy sometime in September 2026. Keep in mind, there may be specific ads or free listing policies listed in that consolidated policy document, where some policies only apply to ads and some only to free listings but it will be in a single policy document.

Google just sent out an email to Google Ads advertisers noting that it will turn on local inventory ads by default in your Shopping campaigns. Google added that you can change this setting by August 31st by using the "inventory filter" instead of the "Local products" setting.

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 Image Search turned 25 years old and with that...

Google Image Search turned 25 years old and to celebrate, Google revamped the Google Image Search home page. Instead of a clean image search box, Google added an image gallery and placed a search bar at the top of the page.

Google AI Overviews can now generate AI images based on your questions, directly in the AI Overview response in Google Search. Google wrote, "To help bring those unique ideas to life, we're bringing image generation directly into AI Overviews in Search."

OpenAI added more features to ChatGPT Ads Manager, the ability to exclude your ads from showing based on geo-location and/or audience lists. ChatGPT Ads Manager continues to rapidly add new advertising features to its ad platform.

Google has confirmed that it is testing the hide and show sponsored results within the Google Shopping search results interface. Google launched the hide/show sponsored results in the main search results last October and is now testing this feature within Google Shopping.

Google's John Mueller noted that if your A/B tests are "significantly different" from one and the other, then that "could be visible in search results too." He also said, "Depending on your setup, what might happen is that one or the other version is used for indexing."

Google announced it is no longer allowing the advertisement of prediction markets contracts and related products ads in Michigan and New York. Plus, Google also expanded Google Shopping ads and free listings eligibility to more countries.