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 Business Profiles is testing using AI Overviews for local panel business descriptions. Google added carousel beta guidance on how to makeup multiple pages on category pages. Google spoke on when you should fix 404s and when you should not. Google Ads to bring Automatically Created Assets to the ad level. Google Perspectives is showing Instagram posts.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
Google Using AI Overviews On Business Profiles Local Listings
Google is now using AI Overviews to write descriptions for the local panels shown in Google Search on Google Business Profiles. This is weird because Google Business Profiles lets you use AI to write business descriptions if you want to (at least they tested this).
Google: When You Should Fix Pages 404 Status Codes
Google has always said that having pages that serve a 404 status code is normal; most sites have them, and when a page does not exist on your site, and someone tries to access it, a 404 is the proper response. But Gary Illyes from Google is now sharing some cases when you should fix pages returning a 404 status code.
Google Ads To Bring Automatically Created Assets To Ad Level?
There are reports that a change is coming to Google Ads ACA, Automatically Created Assets, that will bring this feature to the ad level. Anthony Higman said on X, “they are now adding them in at the ad level, to “fill the gaps in RSA’s” and they will be using generative AI to do it.”
Google Perspectives Can Show Instagram Posts
Google is now showing Instagram posts within its Perspectives feature in the Google Search results. This started a week ago or so, and I received a number of posts about this since.
Google Structured Data Carousel Guidance On How To Markup Multiple Items On Category Pages
Google has added a new bullet point in the structured data carousels (beta) help documentation around how to mark up categories with many items with that structured data. This is based on examples pages such as paginated content or infinite scroll.
