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 SchwartzTue, 14 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-07-14-2026-41682.htmlTue, 14 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/recap-07-14-2026-41682.htmlHere is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...Search Forum Recapbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-expands-alcohol-gambling-games-policy-41678.htmlTue, 14 Jul 2026 07:51:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-expands-alcohol-gambling-games-policy-41678.htmlGoogle Ads has posted that it has (1) expanded its alcohol policy to expand the approved geographic locations and (2) updated the gambling and games policy to expand the certification requirements to all categories under this policy.Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-justification-removal-41667.htmlTue, 14 Jul 2026 07:41:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-justification-removal-41667.htmlGoogle Ads is now asking you to note a justification for when you request the removal of access for a user in your Google Ads account. Then that request is sent to another administrator for approval, with the justification you entered.Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/openai-crawlers-user-agent-string-41649.htmlTue, 14 Jul 2026 07:31:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/openai-crawlers-user-agent-string-41649.htmlOpenAI made a number of clarification changes to its crawler help documentation to say that version number of the user-agent string may be updated and it may use a user-agent string with an additional robots.txt marker.ChatGPTbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-merchant-center-ai-performance-insights-41675.htmlTue, 14 Jul 2026 07:12:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-merchant-center-ai-performance-insights-41675.htmlGoogle Merchant Center is rolling out a beta AI Performance report that shares how well your products are performing within AI Mode and AI Overviews. Google wrote this report "specifically revealing your performance on AI Mode and AI Overviews."Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/chatgpt-ads-attributed-sales-value-and-sales-roas-41674.htmlTue, 14 Jul 2026 07:11:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/chatgpt-ads-attributed-sales-value-and-sales-roas-41674.htmlOpenAI has added new metrics to the ChatGPT Ads manager advertiser control center. The new metrics include Attributed Sales Value and Sales ROAS.ChatGPT Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-inspectiontool-user-agent-string-fixed-41681.htmlTue, 14 Jul 2026 07:05:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-inspectiontool-user-agent-string-fixed-41681.htmlGoogle has updated its Google crawlers help documentation to fix a typo under the Google-InspectionTool user agent string. In short, Google had a semicolon as part of the Google-InspectionTool user agent string and it should not have been there, so Google removed the semicolon.Google Search Engine Optimizationbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/recap-07-13-2026-41673.htmlMon, 13 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/recap-07-13-2026-41673.htmlHere is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...Search Forum Recapbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-email-support-broke-41677.htmlMon, 13 Jul 2026 09:45:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-email-support-broke-41677.htmlGoogle Ads email support option seems broken right now, when you try to use it, you get a notice that reads in red, "Something went wrong. Please try again." Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-volatility-july-11th-41676.htmlMon, 13 Jul 2026 09:25:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-volatility-july-11th-41676.htmlWe may have had another unconfirmed Google Search ranking update around July 11th, which I will call the 7-Eleven update. It has been an unusual time since the completion of the June 2026 spam update, where I was on the verge of covering a few unconfrimed updates but it seems the chatter in the SEO community is at an all time low.Google Updatesbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-self-referential-canonical-41669.htmlMon, 13 Jul 2026 07:51:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-self-referential-canonical-41669.htmlGoogle has updated its canonical help document to say "Do include a rel="canonical" link on the canonical page itself (also known as a self-referential canonical)." The advice is not new to Google's communication but it was just added to the help document.Google Search Engine Optimizationbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-previews-updates-41666.htmlMon, 13 Jul 2026 07:41:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-previews-updates-41666.htmlGoogle Ads now lets you see ad previews by filtering by assets, plus you can preview examples of text customizations and final URL expansion directly within the Google Ads advertiser console.Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-indexing-penalties-41670.htmlMon, 13 Jul 2026 07:31:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-indexing-penalties-41670.htmlKrishna Madhavan, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft Bing, said that Bing does not do one-off search penalties because it is not scalable. Instead, Bing will build a spam algorithm to detect the type of spam it is and unleash it on its index to pick up on not just one site doing that, but as many sites as the algorithm can find. And then it takes action on all those sites, not just one, at scale. Bing SEObarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-sticky-sponsored-results-again-41671.htmlMon, 13 Jul 2026 07:21:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-sticky-sponsored-results-again-41671.htmlGoogle is testing a slight update to the sticky sponsored results interface that it tested back in September 2024. Note: A version of this was launched in October 2025, but this interface has a thinner and smaller sponsored label and uses curved borders.Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-conversion-tracking-status-updates-41668.htmlMon, 13 Jul 2026 07:11:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-conversion-tracking-status-updates-41668.htmlGoogle Ads has updated the conversion actions overview statuses it shows in the Google Ads user interface. Now there is misconfigured, awaiting conversions and even removed as new statuses, that replaced inactive, no recent conversions and other.Google Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)