Daily Search Forum Recap: May 20, 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.

I covered all the Google Search related news from Google I/O including the new intelligent search box, Gemini 3.5 Flash powered Google Search’s AI Mode, new agentic features like information agent and so much more. Google is testing preferred sources labels in AI Mode. Google added adult consideration property to merchant listings and property vairiant markup. And Microsoft Advertising made updated to import center…

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Search Engine Roundtable

How Google Discover publisher profiles work and why they matter

A deeper look at the profile features, eligibility patterns, and optimization opportunities shaping visibility in Discover.

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Search Engine Land

Google Testing Preferred Sources Label In AI Mode Citations

Google is now testing adding the Preferred Sources label in the AI Mode links and citations. It is unclear if Google is showing this link in this AI Mode response because it is a preferred source or if it is just labeling it, and it would show the source anyway – does that make sense?

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Search Engine Roundtable

Google Releases New Search Bar, The Intelligent Search Box

Google has released the first major update to the search bar, the search box, ever – Google is calling it the intelligent Search box. We saw variations of this being tested over the past year, and now it is officially rolling out – as per Liz Reid, Google’s Head of Search, via Google I/O.

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Search Engine Roundtable

What launched at Google I/O 2026 (30-minute day 1 recap)

Watch now | 🎙️ Every major Google I/O 2026 launch—what’s fast, what’s broken, and what builders should actually care about

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Lenny’s Newsletter

Google adds llms.txt check to Chrome Lighthouse

Google says llms.txt is not needed for AI search visibility, but Lighthouse now flags whether sites have one.

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Search Engine Land

Google Adds Adult Consideration Property To Merchant Listing and Product Variant Markup

Google added the hasAdultConsideration property to the Merchant listing and Product variant documentation, and it is now officially supported and listed as a recommended property for both Merchant listing and Product variant structured data with Google Search.

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Search Engine Roundtable

Google upgrades Asset Studio with Gemini-powered creative generation and video tools

Google is adding multimodal Gemini-powered asset generation, video creation and creative testing tools to Asset Studio.

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Search Engine Land

Google launches AI Performance Insights and Conversational Attributes in Merchant Center

The new Merchant Center tools are set to help retailers optimize product discovery and measure visibility across AI-powered shopping surfaces.

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Search Engine Land

Turn data into decisions with unified measurement.

We’re bringing Meridian, our open-source MMM to Google Analytics and introducing Future Long-Term Conversions.

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Google Analytics products

Google launches Ask Advisor across Ads, Analytics and Merchant Center

Google’s new Ask Advisor aims to unify campaign management, analytics and optimization workflows through a Gemini-powered AI collaborator.

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Search Engine Land

Google Ask Maps: How to optimize for visibility

Ask Maps changes local visibility from ranking in a long list to being confidently recommended. Here’s what that shift means for local SEO.

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Search Engine Land

YouTube adds new AI remix feature to Shorts

The updated tool allows users to generate alternate versions of videos using the company’s Omni artificial intelligence image generation tools.

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Social Media Today – Latest News

Google expands Direct Offers with AI-generated bundles, native checkout and travel deals

Google is upgrading Direct Offers with AI-generated promotions, native checkout and travel integrations.

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Search Engine Land

Google Search Powered By Gemini 3.5 Flash With New Agentic Features

Google Search is now using Gemini 3.5 Flash to power AI Mode globally and also there are several new agentic features in and coming to Google Search. These agentic features include information agents, agentic coding, personal intelligence is expanding and Universal Cart, UCP and AP2.

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Search Engine Roundtable

Why some teams launch faster

New global research data reveals the tech gap quietly costing teams speed, revenue, and competitive ground.

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Search Engine Land

TikTok highlights value of app for SMBs

TikTok Shop has become a powerful brand discovery platform for small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S.

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Social Media Today – Latest News

Google expands Universal Commerce Protocol and launches new agentic shopping tools

Google is expanding its UCP with AI-powered checkout, shopping and payments features designed to support the next phase of conversational commerce.

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Search Engine Land

Reddit introduces updated options for advertisers

As the platform continues to grow, it is expanding access to its artificial intelligence-guided campaigns and testing new first-party attribution reporting.

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Social Media Today – Latest News

Snapchat offers unified optimization approach to app marketers

The platform is integrating a wider range of response signals into a single view, which is designed to show more insights across multiple measures.

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Social Media Today – Latest News

Google unveils AI-powered ad updates at I/O 2026

On the second day of its conference, the company shared specifics about brand mentions in artificial intelligence responses and offered additional tools and data insights.

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Social Media Today – Latest News

X tells App Store users it’s “better than Threads”

A screenshot showed the cheeky tagline in a listing that was promoted to people specifically searching for the Meta-owned discussion platform.

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Social Media Today – Latest News

Google Marketing Live 2026: Everything you need to know

GML 2026 showcased how Gemini is transforming Search, advertising, commerce and measurement into a more conversational, AI-driven ecosystem.

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Search Engine Land

Google tests new conversational ad formats in AI Mode and Search

Google is rolling out Gemini-powered conversational ad formats across AI Mode and Search as it looks to make ads more contextual,

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Search Engine Land

Google expands Demand Gen with YouTube creator tools

Google is introducing new creator partnerships, Maps inventory and AI-powered campaign tools for Demand Gen.

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Search Engine Land

Google brings Meridian marketing mix modeling into Analytics 360

Google is integrating Meridian into Analytics 360 and launching predictive conversion metric to help advertisers with media mix decisions.

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Search Engine Land

Microsoft Advertising Import Center, Cross-Account Portfolio Bidding & Bidding Strategy Report Updates

Microsoft Advertising announced its monthly releases, and they include updates to the import center, cross-account portfolio bidding, bidding strategy reports, and custom column conversion metrics (that one we covered earlier).

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Search Engine Roundtable