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, 30 Oct 2026 12:50:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/assets/images/feed-icon.pngen-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/google-ai-training-control-42430.htmlFri, 30 Oct 2026 12:50:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-training-control-42430.htmlGoogle is adopting new AI training controls, under consideration by the IETF, that should simplify and streamline AI training controls for publishers and site owners.Google Search Engine Optimizationbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/microsoft-bing-ai-controls-42429.htmlFri, 30 Oct 2026 12:15:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/microsoft-bing-ai-controls-42429.htmlMicrosoft just announced new Bing AI content controls "offering newer, simpler, and clearer preferences that allow you to make choices about training, grounding, or both while remaining eligible for Bing search results," Krishna Madhavan, Principal Product Manager, Microsoft Bing, wrote.Bing SEObarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/chatgpt-ads-update-42427.htmlFri, 30 Oct 2026 11:17:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/chatgpt-ads-update-42427.htmlOpenAI just sent its weekly email update to advertisers announcing the ChatGPT Ads are live in 26 more countries, a new wider standard ad unit format, Multi-image ads are now available in open beta to all advertisers, Shopify integration is now available internationally and Shopify integration is now available internationally.ChatGPT Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/recap-10-30-2026-42424.htmlFri, 30 Oct 2026 10:00:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/recap-10-30-2026-42424.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. Ads in Google AI Mode make Google less per search, but Google has more searches. Google's John Mueller said AI spam tactics will be caught...Search Forum Recapbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/video-10-30-2026-42418.htmlFri, 30 Oct 2026 08:01:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/video-10-30-2026-42418.htmlThis week, we reported on Google Search volatility not once but twice this week. Google warned tools on user-generated spam guidelines. Google downplayed the importance of fresh indexing reporting. Google explained...Search Video Recapsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overviews-mode-ctr-42421.htmlFri, 30 Oct 2026 07:51:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overviews-mode-ctr-42421.htmlEveryone has been asking, what is the click-through rate you get from Google Search AI features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode. Well, a new small study says the click-through rate is about 0.9%. The study also showed that when you opt out of showing in Google's Search generative AI, it also leads to a drop in clicks in the main web results.Google Search Engine Optimizationbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-ads-copilot-ai-overviews-42416.htmlFri, 30 Oct 2026 07:41:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-ads-copilot-ai-overviews-42416.htmlMicrosoft is now showing ads within the Bing AI Overviews powered by Copilot. I don't think I've seen ads within the AI responses in Bing Search and I personally still cannot trigger them, but Khushal Bherwani shared a screenshot of an ad within an AI Overview in Bing Search.Bing Adsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-bing-halloween-search-easter-eggs-42415.htmlFri, 30 Oct 2026 07:31:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-bing-halloween-search-easter-eggs-42415.htmlHalloween is tonight/tomorrow and to celebrate both Google and Bing has special easter eggs (or should I call them pumpkins) for its search results. Google asks you to find a costume using AI Mode, which is boring. But Bing has a floating ghost that explodes into candy when you tap it.Googlebarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-made-bot-impersonation-worse-42422.htmlFri, 30 Oct 2026 07:21:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-made-bot-impersonation-worse-42422.htmlGary Illyes from Google was recently interviewed by Aneta Samkoff, host of the Odys Podcast. The topic was all about bots and crawlers and they covered a lot of ground. Gary said bot impersonation is more of a problem now because of AI. Bot impersonation is when rogue bots pretend to be someone they are not, like pretending to be Googlebot.Google Search Engine Optimizationbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/gemini-utm-parameters-42399.htmlFri, 30 Oct 2026 07:11:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/gemini-utm-parameters-42399.htmlGoogle seems to have stopped appending UTM parameters on Gemini links, the cited URLs in Gemini's AI responses. Google started adding UTM parameters to links in Gemini in early September, but then, around September 28th, Google stopped. Misc Googlebarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-100-search-results-parameter-back-42423.htmlFri, 30 Oct 2026 05:40:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-100-search-results-parameter-back-42423.htmlGoogle Search may be bringing back the ability to see 100 search results per page by bringing back the num=100 parameter. As a reminder, Google dropped this feature in September 2025 as one of many methods to prevent crawlers from scraping its search results. As you know, third-party tracking tools are not working so well these days.Googlebarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/john-mueller-google-systems-ai-spam-42420.htmlThu, 29 Oct 2026 13:25:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/john-mueller-google-systems-ai-spam-42420.htmlGoogle's John Mueller was interviewed by David Iwanow, where he shared information on AI-generated content, the future of SEO, technical SEO, the crawl stats report, redirect chains, ecommerce product data and much more. John was asked about tactics, such as listicles, being used to rank well in AI Search, and he said that eventually the systems will catch up, so don't use those cheap, easy, and fast tactics.Google Search Engine Optimizationbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-business-profiles-ai-powered-messaging-42419.htmlThu, 29 Oct 2026 12:55:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-business-profiles-ai-powered-messaging-42419.htmlGoogle seems to be rolling out access to the Google Business Profile AI-powered messaging feature to more businesses. I believe we covered this in June of this year, but since then, Google made some updates to the feature.Google Mapsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-mode-ads-earn-less-42417.htmlThu, 29 Oct 2026 10:15:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-mode-ads-earn-less-42417.htmlGoogle announced earnings yesterday, and during the earnings call, Philipp Schindler, Google's senior vice president and chief business officer, said that ads in AI Mode have a "lower monetization" than ads in traditional search. Google Newsbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)https://www.seroundtable.com/recap-10-29-2026-42414.htmlThu, 29 Oct 2026 10:00:00 -0400https://www.seroundtable.com/recap-10-29-2026-42414.htmlHere is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...Search Forum Recapbarry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)