Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

The Pulse covers the latest from Google and Open AI and the EU investigation into Google’s site reputation abuse enforcement
The post SEO Pulse: AI Shopping, GPT-5.1 & EU Pressure On Google appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Marketers, agency teams, and contractors rarely struggle with a lack of ideas. What slows them down is the friction between tools, communication gaps, and the constant juggling of chats, tasks, calendars, and files. Deliverables get scattered, follow-ups get delayed, and creative energy gets consumed by operational noise. When the workload grows and the stakes rise…

This week’s PPC Pulse highlights Google’s PMax expansion, Microsoft’s Clarity requirement, and rising scrutiny around AI Max results.
The post PPC Pulse: PMax Expands, Clarity Now Mandatory & AI Max Data Debate appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google Ads is bringing brand controls, like brand inclusion support, to Standard Shopping campaigns. This was supported for PMax and AI Max camapigns but now are showing up for Standard Shopping campaigns.

Google announced a bunch of AI-based search features for Google Shopping, AI Mode and Gemini for the holiday season. Google is rolling out the AI Mode comparison feature (we saw it earlier), calling stores feature, AI price tracking and agentic checkout based on the price trigger.

Supposedly, there is this “hack" to "crack the code" to make your Local Service Ads work in Google Ads that is fake and not recommended. Folks are saying if your LSAs are not working, you should close that Google Ads account and make a new one. But Google and LSA experts are saying otherwise.