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Google Goes to Court to Keep Search Data From AI Rivals: Europe’s Competition Plan Faces a Legal Test
Google has taken its fight over European search competition to court. The company challenged two European Commission decisions under the Digital Markets Act: one concerning access....
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Google’s September Spam Update Hits Multiple Countries and Verticals—but the Target Remains Unknown
Google's September 2026 spam update is still rolling out. Google launched the update on September 24 at 09:15 PDT — 18:15 CEST — and the official Search Status Dashboard continues....
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Google Turns Search From One-Off Queries Into Continuous Monitoring With AI Mode Information Agents
Google Search is moving beyond the idea that every information need begins with a new query. Google is expanding AI Mode Information Agents, background agents designed to continuou...
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Soft Error With HTTP 200: How a Broken JavaScript Template Can Make Pages Vanish and Canonicalize to an Unrelated Domain
A broken JavaScript error template can create a surprisingly severe indexing failure when the server still returns HTTP 200. In a September 29 discussion about pages disappearing f...
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Google Makes Visual SEO Measurable: Search Console Separates Traffic From Lens and Circle to Search
Google has made a major part of visual search measurable in Search Console. Starting September 24, 2026, publishers can use a new multimodal search type filter to isolate performan...
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Controlled Google Test Finds AI Mode Cuts Publisher Clicks Without Improving Search Experience
A preregistered field experiment involving 1,100 Google Search users found that removing AI Overviews and AI Mode increased click-through rates to publishers, while an AI Mode-only...
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Google Can Cluster Parked-Domain Pages Into One Canonical Group: Why Placeholder Templates Create Indexing Confusion
Google can quickly recognize highly similar parked-domain and placeholder pages as a single group and canonicalize them against one another, according to a public clarification fro...
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Google Maps Bug Sends Service-Area Businesses Into the Ocean: Check Pins Before Local Visibility and Leads Are Lost
Google Maps is reportedly putting some service-area businesses in an unlikely place: the middle of the ocean. The issue, reported on September 29, appears to affect Google Business...
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Google Adds ‘Misuse of Support Channels’ Rule to Business Profile Policies
Google has added a new “Misuse of support channels” section to its Business Profile third-party policies, making responsible use of its support paths an explicit requirement.The ne...
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Google Tests Shorter Images in Product Grids: A Small Layout Change Could Alter Product Visibility and Organic Shopping CTR
Google has been spotted showing a noticeably shorter main-image treatment inside product grids, a small visual change that could alter how much attention each product receives and....
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Google’s SAFE Uses Multi-Agent Forensics Against ‘AI Slop’: Spam Detection Can Move From Pages to Coordinated Networks
Google researchers have published a system that reframes the fight against mass-produced synthetic content as a network-forensics problem rather than a page-by-page classification....
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