Google Maps Launches AI Conversational Search With Ask Maps
Google Maps launches Ask Maps, a Gemini-powered conversational feature for local discovery in the U.S. and India, plus a navigation overhaul in the U.S.
About
Matt G. Southern, Senior News Writer, has been with Search Engine Journal since 2013. With a bachelor’s degree in communications, Matt specializes in gathering details, checking facts, and making complex subjects easy to understand. In addition to writing articles, Matt oversees strategy development for SEJ’s news department.
Articles
B2B Buyers Trust Peers Over AI Chatbots, Report Finds
A survey of B2B decision-makers found peer recommendations are trusted nearly twice as much as AI chatbots, and white papers rank last for perceived value.
Amazon Wins Preliminary Injunction Against Perplexity’s Comet
A federal judge granted Amazon a preliminary injunction barring Perplexity’s Comet AI agent from accessing Amazon accounts and ordering data destroyed.
3 AI Search Changes Every Marketer Needs A Plan For In Q2
AI search changed how people find you, click on you, and convert. Here’s what the Q1 data says and how to build your Q2 plan.
Marketers Report Highest Rates Of AI ‘Brain Fry,’ Report Finds
A study of U.S. workers finds 14% report “brain fry” from AI overuse. Marketing had the highest rate at 26%.
Google’s Liz Reid Says LLMs Unlock Audio And Video Indexing
Google’s head of Search described how multimodal LLMs help Google understand audio and video, and discussed a direction for subscription-aware search.
Google AI Mode Cites Itself More Often, With More Organic Links
Google’s AI Mode self-citations tripled in nine months. SE Ranking data shows that more links now lead to organic search results, not business profiles.
AIO Citations Diverge From Rankings, Bing Rewrites Rules – SEO Pulse
In SEO Pulse: AI Overview citations drift further from traditional rankings as AI search expands and platforms clarify how content appears in AI answers.
NanoClaw Creator Loses SEO Battle To Impostor Website
NanoClaw’s creator says Google ranks a fake website above his project’s real site despite 18K GitHub stars, press coverage, and structured data setup.
Google Removes JavaScript SEO Warning, Says It’s Outdated
Google removed its JavaScript accessibility guidance from help documents, saying the advice is outdated and noting it has rendered JavaScript for years.
Google AI Overview Citations From Top-Ranking Pages Drop Sharply
New data finds AI Overviews often cite sources beyond page one. Fan-out queries may help explain why, and YouTube appears frequently in citations.
Google Clarifies How It Picks Thumbnails For Search, Discover
Google updated its Image SEO and Discover documentation to explain how schema markup and the og:image meta tag influence thumbnail selection.
YouTube’s AI Slop Problem And How Marketers Can Compete
“AI-generated slop” now accounts for 21% of Shorts shown to new users. Here’s what the data says about monetization, trust, and long-term organic strategy.
Bing Adds GEO To Official Guidelines, Expands AI Abuse Definitions
Bing rewrote its webmaster guidelines to cover Copilot grounding, meta directive controls for AI answers, and a softened stance on AI-generated content.
Google’s Discover Core Update Finishes Rolling Out
Google’s February Discover core update is complete after a roughly 22-day rollout. Early data suggests fewer domains in top slots.
Discover Core Update Data, Sitemap Tips & AI Risks – SEO Pulse
This week’s SEO Pulse highlights evolving AI link formats, cross-language sourcing biases in ChatGPT, and mounting pressure on traditional organic traffic.
Google Explains Why Its Crawler Ignores Your Resource Hints
Google’s Gary Illyes clarifies why resource hints do not influence Googlebot’s crawling behavior, and notes that HTML validity is not a ranking factor.
Google To Test Search Changes In EU After DMA Charges, Per Report
Google is preparing to test search result changes in the EU that would show rival vertical search services alongside its own results
Gen Z Preference For TikTok Over Google Drops 50%, Data Shows
Survey data shows 49% of U.S. consumers have used TikTok for search, but Gen Z’s TikTok-over-Google preference is dropping.
Anthropic’s Claude Bots Make Robots.txt Decisions More Granular
Anthropic updated its crawler documentation to list separate Claude bots for training, search indexing, and user requests, with visibility tradeoffs when blocked.
Google Discover Update: Early Data Shows Fewer Domains In US
Early third-party tracking data offers a first look at how Google’s February Discover core update is changing what users see in their feeds.
SerpApi Challenges Google’s Right To Sue Over SERP Scraping
SerpApi filed a motion to dismiss Google’s DMCA lawsuit, arguing the search giant lacks standing to invoke copyright law over publicly visible search results.
Microsoft: ‘Summarize With AI’ Buttons Used To Poison AI Recommendations
Microsoft found 31 companies hiding prompt injections inside “Summarize with AI” buttons aimed at biasing what AI assistants recommend in future conversations.
Google Ads Surfaces PMax Search Partner Domains In Placement Report
Google Ads PMax placement reporting is now populating with data for more accounts, revealing Search Partner domains and impression counts for brand safety review.
Google AI Mode Link Update, Click Share Data & ChatGPT Fan-Outs – SEO Pulse
The latest SEO Pulse examines how AI interfaces reshape link visibility, redirect clicks, and filter sources before rankings apply.
Google Offers AI Certificate Free For Eligible U.S. Small Businesses
Google launched an AI Professional Certificate with seven self-paced modules and three months of AI Pro access. Eligible U.S. small businesses can enroll free.
ChatGPT Search Often Switches To English In Fan-Out Queries: Report
Peec AI analyzed fan-out queries from 10M+ ChatGPT prompts and found 43% of background searches ran in English, even for non-English prompts.
Why Google Runs AI Mode On Flash, Explained By Google’s Chief Scientist
Google’s Jeff Dean explains why latency and cost make Flash Google’s production tier for AI search, and why models are built to retrieve, not memorize.
Google Says Links Will Be More Visible In AI Overviews
Google is adding hover link pop-ups on desktop in AI Overviews and AI Mode, plus more prominent link icons within responses across desktop and mobile.
Google Text Ad Click Share Rises Sharply In Some Verticals
An analysis of approximately 16,000 U.S. queries shows text ads increasing their click share by 7-13 points year over year.