Google Sued For AI Overview Misinformation
A lawsuit alleges Google’s AI Overview falsely identified musician Ashley MacIsaac as a sex offender. It seeks $1.5M in damages.
About
Follow on YouTube. Matt G. Southern is the Senior News Writer at Search Engine Journal, where he’s covered Google, SEO, and AI for over 13 years.
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Google Meridian GeoX Preview: 3 Key Updates For Marketing Measurement
Google previews Meridian GeoX, Meridian Studio, Data Manager updates, and visual Google tag setup ahead of Google Marketing Live.
Google Shares Insight On Black Box AI Models In Search
Google’s Nikola Todorovic said AI can act “like a kind of a black box” while explaining why machine learning was hard to deploy in Search.
Google Core Update Data Shows Sharp Drop In Aggregator Rankings
Data shows YouTube, Reddit, and aggregators lost US search visibility after Google’s March core update, while brand and government sites gained.
Ask Jeeves Search Engine Discontinues Operations After 29-Year Run
Ask.com, the search engine formerly known as Ask Jeeves, has shut down. IAC discontinued the search business after nearly 30 years.
Google & Microsoft Earnings Show AI Search Revenue Surge
Alphabet and Microsoft earnings show search ad revenue growing while Google Network revenue fell to $6.97B, continuing a multi-quarter decline.
Google Tells Developers To Build For AI Agents, Not Just Humans
Google’s web.dev guidance advises developers to treat AI agents as a distinct visitor type and recommends practices similar to accessibility practices.
Google Earnings Show AI Search Impact While Clicks Get Tested – SEO Pulse
Google repeats the bounce clicks claim. Alphabet and Microsoft report from the revenue side. More in this week’s SEO Pulse.
AI Search Click Patterns Reveal Local Domain Advantage
Aleyda Solis’s Similarweb analysis of 10 markets shows that AI search clicks frequently redirect to local domains, with the distribution differing by industry.
Bing Shows Signs Of Growth With 1B User Milestone Announcement
Microsoft says Bing reached 1B monthly active users, as search ad revenue grew 12% and Edge gained share for the 20th straight quarter.
Google Search Revenue Hits 19% Growth: What Pichai’s AI Claims Really Mean
Alphabet’s Q1 2026 earnings put Google Search revenue at $60.4 billion, up 19% YoY, as Pichai tied AI experiences to higher Search usage.
OpenAI Crawl Activity Tripled Since GPT-5, Data Shows
OpenAI crawl activity roughly tripled after GPT-5, with OAI-SearchBot now generating more log events than GPTBot.
Google Tests ‘Ask YouTube’ Conversational Search Experiment
Google is testing “Ask YouTube,” a conversational search feature that returns AI summaries with cited videos. Available to US Premium users.
Bing Previews AI Citation Share For Webmaster Tools
Microsoft previewed four new AI reporting features for Bing Webmaster Tools at SEO Week, including Citation Share and grounding query intent labels.
Study Confirms Google AI Overviews Cut Organic Clicks 38%
A randomized field experiment found Google AI Overviews reduced organic clicks on triggered queries by 38%, while user experience ratings stayed unchanged.
AI Overview CTR Fell 61%, But Clicks Didn’t Collapse
Seer Interactive says brand-cited AI Overview CTR fell 61% as impressions grew faster than clicks across cited pages.
Google Pushes “Bounce Clicks” Explanation For AI Overview Traffic Loss
Google’s Liz Reid told Bloomberg AI Overviews cut “bounce clicks,” not deeper visits, but Google still hasn’t shared data backing that claim.
Google’s Updates Push Search Further Into Task Completion
Google’s latest Search updates push further into task completion. The reporting surfaces businesses rely on haven’t kept pace.
Google’s Robots.txt Docs Expand, Deep Links Get Rules, EU Steps In – SEO Pulse
Google documents deep link best practices and signals robots.txt doc expansion. The EU proposes Google share search data with rivals and AI chatbots.
Google May Expand Unsupported Robots.txt Rules List
Google may expand its unsupported robots.txt rules list using HTTP Archive data and could broaden how it handles common misspellings of disallow.
OpenAI’s Crawler Docs Now List OAI-AdsBot For ChatGPT Ads
OpenAI’s public crawler docs now list OAI-AdsBot, a bot that may visit pages submitted as ChatGPT ads to check policy compliance and ad relevance.
Google Adds View-Through Conversion Optimization To Demand Gen
Google adds view-through conversion optimization to Demand Gen and expands Commerce Media Suite support.
Google Ads Posts GEO Partner Manager Role
Google posted a GEO Partner Manager role in its ads sales organization, using “Generative Engine Optimization” terminology in an ads-side job description.
ChatGPT Ads Now Offer CPC Bidding Between $3 And $5: Report
Digiday reports an early ChatGPT ads manager build now shows $3-$5 CPC bids for some pilot advertisers, as OpenAI continues expanding its ad tools.
Google Ads Makes Call Recording Default For AI Lead Calls
Google Ads now enables call recording by default for eligible AI-qualified call leads, changing how call conversions are evaluated in the U.S. and Canada.
Google May Have To Share Search Data With Rivals
The European Commission proposed Google share data with rival search engines and qualifying AI chatbots in the EU/EEA.
Google Lists Best Practices For Read More Deep Links
Google has outlined best practices that can increase the likelihood of “Read more” deep links appearing.
AI Adoption Outpaced The PC & Internet: Dive Into The Stanford Report Data
Stanford’s 2026 AI Index covers 400+ pages of data. Here’s what search professionals should take from the adoption numbers, reliability gaps, and transparency decline.
Google Bans Back Button Hijacking, Agentic Search Grows – SEO Pulse
Google targets back button hijacking as a spam violation, says spam reports may trigger manual actions, and expands agentic restaurant booking to more markets.
Google AI Mode in Chrome Gets Side-by-Side Browsing
Google is updating AI Mode in Chrome with side-by-side page viewing and a plus menu for adding tabs, images, and files as context.