Daily Search Forum Recap: May 20, 2025

Google had a lot of news out of Google I/O, as you would expect. The big item, which we predicted, was that AI Mode is now available to all US searchers without having to opt into it within Search Labs. Plus, Google is testing a number of new features in AI mode including Deep Search, Live Search, personal context, custom charts, AI shopping and yes - Agentic features.

Surprise, surprise, as I called it, Google is expanding AI Overviews into more regions. I mean, we saw this being leaked a couple of weeks ago, so it is not shocking news. But at I/O, Google said AI Overviews are "now available in more than 200 countries and territories and in more than 40 languages, with support added for Arabic, Chinese, Malay, Urdu and more."

Google Search seems to be super volatile today and yesterday, so I will call this the Google I/O 2025 Google unconfirmed update. I am seeing a spike in chatter within the SEO community along with many of the tools showing super heated volatility within the Google search results.

Google seems to be testing hiding the citations, link icons, for the AI Overviews default view. So when the AI Overview first loads in the Google Search results, the link icon is hidden.

For the past few weeks or so, Google has a bug where the right side knowledge panel goes missing for business owners when you try to bring up your business listing in Google Search. This is not impacting everyone and it can be random but Google is supposedly aware of the issue and is fixing it.

Google seems to be testing showing author names and website citations in the AI Overviews. I am honestly not sure if this is new but Christian Kunz said it was and posted about it on his blog and on X.

PPC is getting pricier and harder to measure. With branded search now key to media effectiveness, this piece outlines how to shift your strategy accordingly. The post Why Brand Advertising Matters For

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Google AI Mode rolls out in US Search with Gemini 2.5 integration, AI overviews expand to more languages. + more announcements from I/O. The post Google Expands AI Features in Search: What You Need to

Google is testing a new link feature in the search results, it is in the form of a link box, in the search result snippet, that when you click on it, it anchors you down on the page to a specific portion of that text.

Google is testing removing the site names from the search result snippets and just showing the site's URL at the top - title link - position of the snippet.

Google is once again testing a light blue color, cyan, for its title links in the search results. Google tested this on and off quite a lot over the years, but Google is testing it again.

Changes to content won’t hold rankings if your site has technical issues or poor structure. This edition of Ask An SEO looks at why. The post Ask An SEO: Why Didn’t My Keywords Come Back After I C

Microsoft Bing announced some interesting updates for IndexNow including how it works now with product schema and that Shopify now supports it and soon Amazon will. This will help Bing and search engines that use IndexNow have more accurate and up-to-date products for their shopping results and shopping ads.

Google Ads has added explanations for your performance changes directly in the charts and graphs in your Google Ads console. You can click the highlighed section of the graph to see explanations for your performance changes, like cost increases or decreases.

Google announced it has deprecated the Account level control for non personalized ads within Google AdSense's settings in privacy and messaging. Instead, Google said "use the IAB TCF framework for collecting and communicating users' consent decisions in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland."

Microsoft's Jordi Ribas announced they are partnering with creators to showcase how they use Copilot Search in Bing. Copilot Search in Bing was launched in early April, as its new AI powered search feature.

IndexNow, paired with structured data, is an ideal way for online stores to get product data into AI-powered search. The post Use IndexNow For AI Search And Shopping SEO appeared first on Search Engin