A well-rounded view on search engines and search engine marketing from five segments of the Web population represented by senior members of the major SEO/SEM forums on the Internet.https://www.seroundtable.comen-usBarry SchwartzFri, 17 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0400en-usnoSearch Engine Roundtablesearch,search,engines,google,yahoo,ask,com,microsoft,live,com,adcenter,adwords,adsense,ypn,barry,schwartz,search,engine,roundtableThe Pulse with Barry Schwartz and co-hosts Ben Pfeiffer and Chris Boggs covers search topics that receive the most buzz from within the search community. Each Tuesday, The Pulse will recap those important search topics in a roundtable style format, allowing the hosts to debate and argue some of the latest trends and stories in the search industry.Search Pulse from the Search Engine RoundtableBarry Schwartzbarry@rustybrick.comBarry Schwartzhttps://www.seroundtable.com/recap-07-17-2026-41705.htmlFri, 17 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/recap-07-17-2026-41705.htmlHere 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...Search Forum Recapbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/video-07-17-2026-41703.htmlFri, 17 Jul 2026 08:01:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/video-07-17-2026-41703.htmlThis week, we saw some Google Search ranking volatility around July 11th, so I called it the 7-Eleven update. Bing said it does not do one-off search penalties because it is not scalable. Google Images celebrated its 25th anniversary...Search Video Recapsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-broader-smart-bidding-updates-41702.htmlFri, 17 Jul 2026 07:51:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-broader-smart-bidding-updates-41702.htmlThe PPC community has been going wild over the change that is coming to Google Ads around bidding for campaigns limited by budget on August 18th. There is some belief that this is going to be a broader smart bidding update than what Google communicated. Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-maps-opentable-reservations-gone-41700.htmlFri, 17 Jul 2026 07:41:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-maps-opentable-reservations-gone-41700.htmlGoogle has removed its help document named "Make OpenTable reservations in Google Maps" yesterday. It looks like that implies that Google Maps removed the integration it has with restaurant listings and making reservations with OpenTable.Google Mapsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-renames-notebooklm-gemininotebook-41704.htmlFri, 17 Jul 2026 07:31:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-renames-notebooklm-gemininotebook-41704.htmlAs many of you know, Google has user-triggered fetchers including Google-NotebookLM. But with NotebookLM being renamed to Gemini Notebook, Google had to update the user agent name of Google-NotebookLM to Google-GeminiNotebook.Google Search Engine Optimizationbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-storebot-accessibility-41650.htmlFri, 17 Jul 2026 07:21:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-storebot-accessibility-41650.htmlGoogle has updated the help document named How to fix: Google StoreBot crawler can't access your in-store product page. The document has a number of big updates with a lot of clarifications including the user-agents, checking robots.txt, blocking IP addresses, page speed issues, reprocessing and how long it takes for your landing pages to be reprocessed.Google Search Engine Optimizationbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-black-magnifying-glass-41552.htmlFri, 17 Jul 2026 07:11:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-black-magnifying-glass-41552.htmlMicrosoft Bing is testing using a black colored magnifying glass in the search bar and box. This is instead of a gray or black outlined icon, the test is a fully colored in icon.Bing Searchbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/recap-07-16-2026-41698.htmlThu, 16 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/recap-07-16-2026-41698.htmlHere is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...Search Forum Recapbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-crawled-not-indexed-quality-ai-content-41701.htmlThu, 16 Jul 2026 07:55:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-crawled-not-indexed-quality-ai-content-41701.htmlGoogle's John Mueller and Martin Splitt spoke about the Google Search Console indexing report in its latest Search Off the Record podcast. One item was on how quality issues, including low-quality AI-generated content, can result in those pages not being trusted and not being indexed by Google. That might lead to the page indexing report showing a "crawled - currently not indexed" status, in some cases.Google Search Engine Optimizationbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/apple-maps-ads-bans-home-services-41696.htmlThu, 16 Jul 2026 07:51:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/apple-maps-ads-bans-home-services-41696.htmlApple has posted new Apple Maps policies where it now says it is prohibiting home services, such as plumbing, electrical, locksmith, HVAC, pest control, roofing, or general contracting services. It also says bail bonds, cryptocurrency ATMs and some medical services are also banned from Apple Maps Ads.Apple Intelligencebarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-pmax-product-reporting-all-networks-41694.htmlThu, 16 Jul 2026 07:41:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-pmax-product-reporting-all-networks-41694.htmlGoogle Ads updated its Performance Max product level reporting back on June 15th. This report now uses data from all Performance Max networks, rather than the subset it previously pulled from.Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-manufacturer-center-manual-updates-41683.htmlThu, 16 Jul 2026 07:31:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-manufacturer-center-manual-updates-41683.htmlGoogle sent out an email to those who use the Google Manufacturer Center to remind them that the ability to manually add or update products directly in Manufacturer Center has been removed. Instead, Google said use the Manufacturer Center API or upload a product file.Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-lastmod-dates-incorrect-41697.htmlThu, 16 Jul 2026 07:21:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-lastmod-dates-incorrect-41697.htmlGary Illyes from Google said that you are better off not using a lastmod date in your XML Sitemap if those dates are wrong. He said on Bluesky, "probably better off without the lastmods. at least you save a few bytes."Google Updatesbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-shopping-ads-free-listing-policies-merge-41695.htmlThu, 16 Jul 2026 07:11:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-shopping-ads-free-listing-policies-merge-41695.htmlGoogle announced it will consolidate and merge the Shopping ads and free listings policies into a single Shopping policy sometime in September 2026. Keep in mind, there may be specific ads or free listing policies listed in that consolidated policy document, where some policies only apply to ads and some only to free listings but it will be in a single policy document.Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-local-inventory-ads-setting-shopping-campaigns-41699.htmlThu, 16 Jul 2026 07:05:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-local-inventory-ads-setting-shopping-campaigns-41699.htmlGoogle just sent out an email to Google Ads advertisers noting that it will turn on local inventory ads by default in your Shopping campaigns. Google added that you can change this setting by August 31st by using the "inventory filter" instead of the "Local products" setting.Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)