Meta faces potential $1.4 trillion in penalties

In a child safety case, four U.S. states are seeking combined damages that the company estimates would be close to its market cap, per Reuters.

Source:
Social Media Today – Latest News

Daily Search Forum Recap: July 7, 2026

Here 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.

Google Search Console has this new platform properties that let you verify your social and video channels across Instagram, TikTok, X…

Source:
Search Engine Roundtable

Hydration and SEO: How it works and why it matters

From server-rendered HTML to interactive pages, understand where hydration fits and when it can affect search visibility.

Source:
Search Engine Land

Google Search Console Platform Properties Show You Instagram, TikTok, X & YouTube Content Performance

Google Search Console can now show how your social and video content perform within Google Search. This includes channels such as Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube. Google kind of did this before, but now this data is going into the Performance reports, Insights reports, and the achievements section in Search Console.

Source:
Search Engine Roundtable

Google Search Console gains reporting on social and video platforms

There is a new way to verify and filter your performance reports, insights reports and achievements by platform property.

Source:
Search Engine Land

Meta improves AI image generation tools for advertisers

The company said its new Muse Image model, developed by its Superintelligence Labs, “understands complex creative briefs the way a designer would.”

Source:
Social Media Today – Latest News

SpaceX rebrands as SpaceXAI

The combined company now encompasses SpaceX, xAI and social media platform X.

Source:
Social Media Today – Latest News

Used or cited: The two ways brands appear in AI search

Learn how AI engines use and cite brand information, how to measure both, and why traditional SEO still matters.

Source:
Search Engine Land

TikTok launches Discover America tour

The six-city roadshow is designed to highlight regional creators and promote the app as a valuable marketing tool.

Source:
Social Media Today – Latest News

Building a brand worth finding: Signals that fuel discovery

AI search favors brands with strong reputations, consistent messaging, and trusted third-party validation. Learn how to strengthen all three.

Source:
Search Engine Land

How tech workers are feeling in 2026: a workforce splitting in two

Results from our second annual tech worker sentiment survey

Source:
Lenny’s Newsletter

Google merchant listings support sale duration and product category

These changes aim to align more with the Google Merchant Center feed and capabilities.

Source:
Search Engine Land

Google Supports Product Category & Sale Duration To Merchant Listing Structured Data

Google has added to its Merchant listing structured data documentation help page that it now supports the Product.category property and a new Sale duration mechanism within the schema.

Source:
Search Engine Roundtable

YouTube launches desktop version of Ask YouTube

The conversational search chatbot is designed to help users “explore complex questions” with natural language prompts, the company said.

Source:
Social Media Today – Latest News

Meta adds updated disclosure tags for AI-generated ads

The updated tags will provide more info on which promotions include AI-generated elements, whether from Meta or via external AI tools.

Source:
Social Media Today – Latest News

ChatGPT Ads rolling out audience lists

Several advertisers have begun to notice a new option to upload Audience lists into OpenAI’s new ad platform.

Source:
Search Engine Land

How to get the most from Microsoft Advertising campaigns

Improve Microsoft Advertising performance with stronger AI signals, measurement, creative, and campaign structure.

Source:
Search Engine Land

OpenAI Adds Audiences To ChatGPT Ads

OpenAI is rolling out Audiences as a targeting option within ChatGPT Ads. I don’t see a help document on what this does but I assume it lets you set up better targeting for your ads by uploading audience lists, like their email and/or phone numbers to the ChatGPT Ads platform.

Source:
Search Engine Roundtable

Google AdSense Expert Personalized Advice Setting

Google AdSense may have added a new setting that lets you specify if you want Google AdSense "experts" to call you offering "personalized advice." You can specify if you want or do not want messages, and how – i.e. via phone calls, SMS messages and/or WhatsApp messages.

Source:
Search Engine Roundtable

Google Testing Visit Site Button On Sponsored Results

Google is testing a large "Visit site" button on the sponsored results, the Google Ads, within the Google Search results. Google has done this before for organic sitelinks and map results, and even Bing did it for some branded-style search results.

Source:
Search Engine Roundtable

Google Ads: Apply Theme To Asset Group

Google Ads has a newish option when you create an asset group named "Apply theme to asset group." An asset group is made of images, logos, headlines, descriptions, videos, sitelinks, assets, and audience signals that you upload or that are automatically created by Google AI during your Performance Max campaign setup.

Source:
Search Engine Roundtable