Daily Search Forum Recap: September 29, 2026

Google officially appealed the European Commission's Digital Markets Act mandate requiring it to share search history data with competitors, saying the decision would force it to share people's private search history without sufficient anonymization and weaken Android security protections. Separately, Google Senior Vice President of Knowledge & Information Nick Fox told interviewer Pietro Valetto that the DMA changes behind what Google called the biggest reduction in search quality in its 28-year history made him feel "terrible" and "sad." Google also globally rolled out AI Mode monitoring capabilities in Search to all users, previously limited to Ultra and Pro paid subscribers, and is testing citation cards at the bottom of desktop AI Overview responses.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable https://www.seroundtable.com and other search forums on the web. Google's Nick Fox was interviewed again and said the DMA changes make him sad and are terrible for searchers, plus he said a lot more. Google officially appealed the DMA mandate to share search history with competitors. Google is testing showing citation cards at the bottom of AI Overview responses on desktop, instead of on the right side. Google is now rolling out monitoring capabilities in AI Mode in Google Search globally for everyone. Google is testing showing two rows of action buttons of the local panels within mobile search. A Google Maps bug places some business map pins in the middle of the ocean. Google Business Profiles has a new policy over misuse of support channels. Search Engine Roundtable Stories: - Google's Nick Fox Feels Sad & Terrible For European Searchers After DMA https://www.seroundtable.com/nick-fox-google-dma-42178.html Pietro Valetto interviewed Nick Fox, Senior Vice President of Knowledge & Information at Google. Nick Fox shared a snippet from the full video about the DMA changes that led Google to say it had to make the biggest reduction in search quality in its 28-year history. Fox said doing so made him feel "terrible" and "sad." - Google Appeals Europe's DMA Mandate To Share Search History Data https://www.seroundtable.com/google-appeals-eu-dma-search-history-data-42180.html Google has officially appealed to the European Union to stop the European Commission's Digital Markets Act DMA mandate requiring it to share search history data with competitors. Google said, "We're appealing decisions that will force us to share people's private search history without sufficient anonymization and weaken vital security protections on Android." - Google Globally Rolls Out Monitoring Capabilities In AI Mode https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-mode-monitoring-capabilities-42179.html Google is now rolling out monitoring capabilities in AI Mode in Google Search globally for everyone. When Google first announced this feature, it was only available for Ultra and Pro paid subscribers, but now it is available to all Google users. - Google Local Panel With Two Rows Of Buttons On Mobile https://www.seroundtable.com/google-local-panel-two-rows-of-buttons-42176.html Google is testing showing two rows of action buttons of the local panels within mobile search. Google has been testing showing a more + sign to load more or a scrollable carousel of buttons and now here it is with two rows. - Google AI Overviews Testing Citations Cards At Bottom Not Right Side Again https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overviews-citations-cards-bottom-42177.html Google is testing showing citation cards at the bottom of AI Overview responses on desktop, instead of on the right side. Google tested variations of this at least twice before, once in March of 2026 and before that in September 2025. - Google Maps Bug Places Map Pins In Middle Of Ocean https://www.seroundtable.com/googlemap-pins-ocean-42181.html A new bug with Google Business Profiles and Google Maps is placing some businesses' Google Maps pins in the middle of the ocean. This is reportedly happening for some service area businesses that do not list their address publicly on their Google local listings. - Google Business Profiles Policies Adds Misuse Of Support Channels https://www.seroundtable.com/google-business-profiles-misuse-of-support-channels-42175.html Google has added a new policy to the Google Business Profiles policies document. The new policy is named "Misuse of support channels." - Mariachi Band On Rooftop At Google London https://www.seroundtable.com/photos/mariachi-band-at-google-london-42128.html Here is another photo of a different Mariachi band, this time on the rooftop of the Google offices in London. Other Great Search Threads: - The other variant we see occasionally too often is "domain registered/reserved/for sale" pages. If the pages are indexable, then it can quickly happen that they are all recognized as a group and are mutually canonicalized, because they usually all look the same. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7508765878386139136/?dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd comment%3A%287508772334590132225%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7508765878386139136%29 , John Mueller on LinkedIn - Displays sizes can now be uploaded to Pmax Campaigns. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bia-camargo googleads-performancemax-pmax-share-7510179010161610752-5zLk/ , Bia Camrgo on LinkedIn - ChatGPT is falling out of love with YouTube. YouTube has lost 91% of its share of ChatGPT citations compared to August. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/davidkonitzny chatgpt-is-falling-out-of-love-with-youtube-share-7509143038728888321-RKT4/ , David Konitzny on LinkedIn - Claude's sign-up flow drew 21.4M visits from 12.0M unique users in Aug-26, +504% and +419% Y/Y. Read more about Claude's performance ahead of Anthropic's expected IPO in our full report https://x.com/Similarweb/status/2104541649015812171 , Similarweb on X - Coordinated Fake Review Attack - How To Fix Review Bombing https://localsearchforum.com/threads/coordinated-fake-review-attack-how-to-fix-review-bombing.63414/ , Local Search Forum - Two different subfolders one blue, one orange both with highly templated, programmatically scaled content on a major brand website publicly traded and also celebrated as an AI content scaling tool's major client https://x.com/lilyraynyc/status/2104564523713884321 , Lily Ray on X - We’ve got a new look From today, we’re bringing our suite of publisher & buyer tools together under one name: Publisher Connections. Same tools, same team, but with a new name for the full ecosystem we serve. Let’s go https://x.com/PubConnections/status/2104572115458384339 , Publisher Connections on X - Strengthen your conversion signals with Event Quality Score https://x.com/MenachemAni/status/2104681043932414143 , Menachem Ani on X Search Engine Land Stories: Other Great Search Stories: AI & LLMs - Google is officially killing Gemini Gems https://www.androidauthority.com/google-sunset-gemini-gems-november-3716162/ , Android Authority - Google plans first test of AI chips in space under Project Suncatcher https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/google-plans-first-test-ai-chips-space-under-project-suncatcher-2026-09-24/ , Reuters - Introducing Claude Sonnet 5.5 https://www.anthropic.com/claude-sonnet-5-5 , Anthropic - Nvidia launches new tool to keep AI agents from going rogue https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/28/business/nvidia-ai-safety-system , CNN Business - Gemini app replacing Gems with skills in November https://9to5google.com/2026/09/27/gemini-gems-skills/ , 9To5Google - OpenAI Scraps Release of New AI Model Over Safety Concerns https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-chatgpt-model-release-cancel-safety-5a2f9f42?st=u6jQPM , Wall Street Journal - Claude Sonnet 5.5 reaches 2 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index https://artificialanalysis.ai/articles/claude-sonnet-5-5 , Artificial Analysis - The Future Is for Everyone: Muse for Small Business https://about.fb.com/news/2026/09/introducing-muse-small-business/ , Meta - Towards safety cases for frontier AI training https://openai.com/index/towards-safety-cases-for-frontier-ai-training/ , OpenAI Analytics - Suggested version summary https://support.google.com/tagmanager/answer/4620708?hl=en , Google Release notes - Tag Manager Help - The collapse of attribution https://www.growth-memo.com/p/the-collapse-of-attribution , Kevin Indig Industry & Business - Top AI Researchers Call for Urgent Oversight of Self-Improving Systems https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/top-ai-researchers-call-for-urgent-oversight-of-self-improving-systems-49bae9b4?st=W99TtM&reflink=desktopwebshare permalink , Wall Street Journal - EU should use Google fines to cut member state contributions to budget, France says https://www.reuters.com/business/eu-should-use-google-fines-cut-member-state-contributions-budget-france-says-2026-09-29/ , Reuters - Anthropic warns of ‘existential risks to humanity’ in IPO prospectus https://www.ft.com/content/c7685a7e-7745-4cbc-8053-4958d0ea449b?accessToken=zwAAAaDr2OW6kdPHaFp-d0VMvNOAU0lY0OpEmw.MEUCIQDri8jri2FtGIfJjPkxOZ5 1 ZIU 6mV2XSWAkmAyHGCQIgNTptc pqS1KKFIP7hi0m8Qv5D4KIbxvhaHO4CGCedXQ&segmentId=e95a9ae7-622c-6235-5f87-51e412b47e97&shareId=21e300e9-e2ac-440e-a832-3462c6e1ca1b&shareType=enterprise&syn-25a6b1a6=1 , Financial Times Sub - OpenAI to Help Australia on AI Defense After Government Hack https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-29/openai-to-establish-australian-taskforce-on-ai-cyber-risk , Bloomberg Links & Content Marketing - Why Digital PR is crucial for AI citations and visibility https://hallam.agency/blog/why-digital-pr-is-crucial-for-ai-citations-and-visibility/ , Hallam - Creating News Content That Stands Out in AI and Multimodal Search https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/news-content-ai-multimodal-search , Advanced Web Ranking - B2B Creator Platforms and Tools for Influencer Marketing https://www.toprankmarketing.com/blog/b2b-creator-platforms/ , TopRank Marketing Local & Maps - Apple Maps are Becoming a Priority for MULO Brands https://streetfightmag.com/2026/09/28/apple-maps-are-becoming-a-priority-for-mulo-brands/ , Street Fight - You Can Be Rewarded For Contributing To Google Maps - Here's How https://www.bgr.com/2266651/how-to-get-google-maps-contribution-rewards/ , BGR Other Search PPC - Bing Copilot shows ads before users complete the verification https://searchenginewatch.com/bing-copilot-shows-ads-before-users-complete-the-verification/ , Search Engine Watch - Display & Video 360 boosts reach by 24% with vertical video https://blog.google/products/marketingplatform/360/vertical-video-unification/ , Google Blog - Updates to Financial products and services policy October 2026 Chile and Denmark https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/18546412?hl=en , Google Advertising Policies Help - The Three Signals Every Google Ads Account Needs https://hopskipmedia.com/three-google-ads-signals/ , Hop Skip Media - Florida Demands Google, Meta, TikTok Stop Sweepstakes Casino Ads https://www.casino.org/news/florida-demands-google-meta-tiktok-stop-sweepstakes-casino-ads/ , Casino Search Features - How AI Overviews Affect Online Retail Click-Through Rates https://www.assertive-media.co.uk/blog/how-ai-overviews-affect-online-retail-click-through-rates/ , Assertive Media - Google tests new product carousel design with larger boxes https://searchenginewatch.com/google-tests-new-product-carousel-design-with-larger-boxes/ , Search Engine Watch SEO - Almost nobody gets XML sitemaps right https://joost.blog/broken-sitemaps/ , Joost - Google AI Ranking Factors: What 130+ Experts Taught Us https://signal.zyppy.com/p/google-ai-ranking-factors , Zyppy - Google Patent: Task-Based AI Search Results Explained https://patentlyze.com/patent/google-task-based-ai-search-results-explained/ , Patentlyze - 3 Ways to Correct Incorrect and Outdated Answers in AI https://www.adamriemer.me/ai-and-llms/ways-to-correct-incorrect-answers-in-ai/ , Adam Riemer Feedback: Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick https://twitter.com/rustybrick/ or @seroundtable https://twitter.com/seroundtable , on Threads https://www.threads.net/@rustybrick , Mastodon https://c.im/@rustybrick and Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/rustybrick.com and you can follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/seoroundtable and on Google News https://news.google.com/publications/CAAiEGcxG7fAnv8WVJaUn-8kyrcqFAgKIhBnMRu3wJ7 FlSWlJ vJMq3?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen , add as a preferred source on Google https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=seroundtable.com and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/rustybrick?sub confirmation=1 channel, Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id284443003 , Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4tFYPk3RmdTfMKG6u074TS , or just contact us the old fashion way https://www.seroundtable.com/contact.php .