Search platforms and SEO tools rolled out changes this week that affect local visibility, reporting, AI search, WordPress, and technical SEO. For Local Dominator users, the main themes are Business Profile verification, AI visibility, Maps behavior, and safer SEO practices.
Search Engine Roundtable
- A federal judge rejected the U.S. Justice Department’s request to force Google to sell parts of its ad tech business after an earlier monopoly ruling. The court instead ordered changes to some business practices aimed at helping publishers. Read more
- Google is testing a new Business Profile verification option that lets owners submit a photo of their location. Early requirements include showing the business name on a permanent fixture and the full storefront in one frame. Read more
- Google has rolled out generative AI performance reporting and AI controls in Search Console worldwide. The report shows impressions, pages, countries, devices, and dates for appearances in Google AI features, but no clicks or queries. Read more
Search Engine Land
- New data shows U.S. Google Business Profile calls fell 11.9% and website clicks fell 12.5% year over year in Q2, while direction requests increased 21.1%. Rankings can stay steady even as customers take fewer actions that send them away from Google. Read more
- Many GA4 accounts showed no traffic data for September 1 because of what appeared to be a widespread processing bug. The missing numbers did not mean websites had actually lost all their visitors. Read more
- Semrush data showed ChatGPT.com traffic grew 48.38% year over year to about 1.09 billion monthly U.S. visits, while Bing traffic fell 50.43%. Google remained the largest site and also gained traffic, showing that AI platforms are growing without replacing Google. Read more
Search Engine Journal
- Google’s John Mueller said sites affected by major algorithmic changes may need several months to recover, even after problems are fixed. He also warned against blaming a sudden ranking loss on a small link disavow change when spam updates or serious technical issues may be involved. Read more
- Rank Math temporarily paused its Support Agent after users raised concerns about WordPress Application Password credentials being created without a clear explanation. Rank Math said the agent had read-only access and could not change site content, but agreed the permission process needed improvement. Read more
- Google’s John Mueller said adding constantly changing URL parameters to sitemap URLs to force daily crawling is a bad idea. Google recommends keeping sitemap URLs stable and using the lastmod field to show when pages actually changed. Read more
This week’s news points to Maps, AI visibility, reliable reporting, and trusted business information as key areas to watch. Keep Business Profiles complete, monitor Search Console and GA4 carefully, and avoid technical shortcuts that may create new SEO problems.
