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 SchwartzThu, 03 Sep 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-09-03-2026-42013.htmlThu, 03 Sep 2026 10:00:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/recap-09-03-2026-42013.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. Google has dodged being broken up for a second time on its monopoly ruling...Search Forum Recapbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-news-tab-content-disappearing-42012.htmlThu, 03 Sep 2026 07:51:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-news-tab-content-disappearing-42012.htmlOver the past several days, I have been hearing from some publishers that while their content is being crawled, indexed, and served in Google Search results, some of it is missing from the news tab. It may then later show up in the news tab, much later. I was able to replicate this but it seems completely random. Google Search Engine Optimizationbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-mode-gemini-38-no-links-42011.htmlThu, 03 Sep 2026 07:41:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-mode-gemini-38-no-links-42011.htmlAs you know, Google rolled out Gemini 3.8 Flash for subscribers to AI Mode and some have started to play with it. And the early feedback is that AI Mode running Gemini 3.8 Flash is not link or citation friendly. Meaning, AI Mode with Google's latest AI model is less likely to cite sources and link to sources than previous models.Googlebarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-expands-merchant-center-ai-performance-insights-42005.htmlThu, 03 Sep 2026 07:31:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-expands-merchant-center-ai-performance-insights-42005.htmlIn July, Google began to roll out AI performance reports within Google Merchant Center to United States based merchants. Google said the AI reports are now available to merchants within Australia, Canada, India & New Zealand as well.Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-under-re-review-status-41976.htmlThu, 03 Sep 2026 07:21:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-under-re-review-status-41976.htmlGoogle Ads is showing under the status of your ads a label that says "Under Re-Review." It says the ad is eligible but limited and "this ad is serving to a limited audience." It then breaks down where the ad may not be serving.Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-phone-call-offline-conversions-42000.htmlThu, 03 Sep 2026 07:11:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-phone-call-offline-conversions-42000.htmlGoogle added some new nuggets to its Google Ads help documentation on about conversion measurement, specifically on phone call conversions and offline conversions. Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ai-mode-gemini-38-42009.htmlWed, 02 Sep 2026 11:59:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ai-mode-gemini-38-42009.htmlGoogle's Robby Stein, VP of Product at Google Search, said on X, "Gemini 3.8 Flash has landed in Search." This comes only a couple of weeks after Google brought Gemini 3.7 Flash to AI Mode within Google Search.Googlebarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ad-tech-business-ruling-42008.htmlWed, 02 Sep 2026 11:31:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ad-tech-business-ruling-42008.htmlA federal judge in Virginia ruled against breaking up Google's ad tech business after Google was found to be a monopoly over its ad technology platforms. The judge ordered Google to end its practices that depress ad rates for web publishers, but declined to order divestiture of Google's ad exchange and other technology.Legal Search Issuesbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/recap-09-02-2026-42003.htmlWed, 02 Sep 2026 10:00:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/recap-09-02-2026-42003.htmlHere is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...Search Forum Recapbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-trends-filter-category-42007.htmlWed, 02 Sep 2026 09:38:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-trends-filter-category-42007.htmlGoogle Trends now lets you filter your results by category, either with or without a query. This can give you a more refined view of the trends for a specific query or zoom you out more on category level trends within Google Search.Googlebarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-disavow-tool-effects-42004.htmlWed, 02 Sep 2026 07:51:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-disavow-tool-effects-42004.htmlGoogle's John Mueller said the Google disavow tool "does have effects," adding, "but it has its place & time." This was in response a complaint about a site dropping in the search results after adding links to the disavow link tool.Google Search Engine Optimizationbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-pre-fill-asset-groups-41993.htmlWed, 02 Sep 2026 07:41:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-pre-fill-asset-groups-41993.htmlGoogle Ads added a new section to the how asset groups work help documentation for pre-fill asset groups with generated assets. This section goes over new features like in-construction callout and automatic pre-fill.Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-adsense-begin-to-render-41992.htmlWed, 02 Sep 2026 07:31:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-adsense-begin-to-render-41992.htmlGoogle AdSense will change how it counts impressions for display ads starting on February 17, 2027. Google will use what it calls the Begin-to-Render methodology and will only count the impression once the ad has successfully loaded and has started to render on the user's device.Google AdSensebarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-tell-maps-42001.htmlWed, 02 Sep 2026 07:21:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-tell-maps-42001.htmlAbout a month ago, Google announced Tell Maps, a way for Google Maps contributors to use AI to tell Google Maps more about places. "You can suggest edits conversationally, right from Ask Maps and the Contribute tab," Google said about Tell Maps.Google Mapsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-search-snippets-without-sitenames-41990.htmlWed, 02 Sep 2026 07:11:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-search-snippets-without-sitenames-41990.htmlMicrosoft is testing removing the site names from the Bing search results and instead showing only the site's URL. Google tested this about a year ago, so I guess it makes sense for Bing to test as well. Bing Searchbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)