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’s Gary Illyes said avoid using LLMs and AI to diagnose your website. Google Merchant Center had reported issues with disapproved items due to timeout, DNS, 404 and other crawl issues. Google moved the non-last-click rules-based attribution models deprecation deadline off a month or so. Google Ads is asking advertisers to upgrade from Dynamic Search Ads to Performance Max campaigns. Google Ads is also testing automatically created assets setting for Performance Max campaigns. Also, I am giving away my next Bluesky invite to a YouTube subscriber. All you need to do is be subscribed to my YouTube channel and comment on my video tomorrow (through next Thursday) – video will be live tomorrow morning – subscribe, hit the bell to be notified.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google’s Gary Illyes: Don’t Use AI & LLMs To Diagnose SEO Issues
Gary Illyes from the Google Search team said on LinkedIn that you should avoid using LLMs and AI for diagnosing potential SEO issues or other issues with your site. Gary wrote, “don’t use them for diagnosing potential issues with it.”
Google Merchant Center Timeout & Crawl Issues Bug?
I am hearing reports of issues with Google Merchant Center, specifically DNS issues, timeout issues, 404 issues and other crawl issues being reported by Merchant Center when there are no real issues.
Google Pushes Non-Last-Click Rules-Based Attribution Models Deprecation Date To Mid-July
Google has pushed off the date when data-driven attribution (DDA) will be deprecating. It was supposed to be this month, but it was pushed to mid-July, so a month later.
Google Ads: Upgrade From Dynamic Search Ads To Performance Max
Google Ads is asking advertisers to “upgrade” from dynamic search ads (DSAs) to Performance Max (PMax) campaigns. Many PPCers think that DSAs will not last and will ultimately be replaced by PMAx campaigns and this is just one of the first steps to that.
Google Ads Automatically Created Assets For Performance Max Campaigns
Google Ads seems to be testing the Automatically created assets setting for Performance Max campaigns. And Google Ads is replacing the “Final URL expansion” setting for some accounts, as well.
Google Site Kit Booth At WordCamp Europe Conference With Familiar Faces
Here are some Googlers you may recognize at the WordCamp Europe Conference the other week. This is a Site Kit booth, you can even see Google has custom designed t-shirts for the event.

Other Great Search Threads:

I don’t see it on https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/search-gallery – so my guess is Google does nothing with it. There’s a lot of http://schema.org markup which Google doesn’t use explicitly for search, but it’s also not, John Mueller on Twitter
If you’re cherry picking individual items to fixate on for ranking, you’re going to have a bad time., John Mueller on Twitter
Totally unimportant, but if you’re using it like URL parameters, just make your life easier by using real URL parameters. Search engines can deal much better with real URL parameters., John Mueller on Twitter

Search Engine Land Stories:

Google Performance Max adds Store Sales reporting, bidding
Microsoft Ads announces major policy updates that start July 1
3 simple PPC optimizations you may have overlooked
Facebook lead gen ads: Instant forms vs. website conversions
Google adds INP report to Search Console
How to future-proof your digital presence in the era of AI-powered search

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

How to Link Google Ads to Google Analytics 4 | GA4 Guide, Measure Minds Group
Days before UA sunset most sites still not using GA4, MarTech

Industry & Business

3 hurt when Google critic crashes car into building near company’s NYC headquarters, police say, ABC News
The real story of how Facebook almost acquired Waze, but we ended up with Google, Post News
India’s a priority market for Google, excited by tech innovation here: Senior VP Prabhakar Raghavan, The Economic Times
Twitter CEO Intervened to Mend Google Relationship After Cloud Payment Issue, Wall Street Journal

Links & Content Marketing

5 SEO Content and Design Tips, Content Marketing Institute
Do Keywords Still Have an Important Role to Play in Content?, Koozai

Local & Maps

What’s new in CarPlay in iOS 17, AppleInsider
Google and Tripadvisor Could Be Edging Toward a New Partnership After All These Years, Skift

Mobile & Voice

Chamberlain MyQ has removed Google Assistant support, 9to5Google
Fossil Gen 6 Gets Google Assistant Back in Latest Update, Droid Life
HomePod now works with iPhone apps via Siri in iOS 17, 9to5Google

SEO

Best SEO Newsletters List (Top 40) To Learn SEO From, SEOSLY
Google SGE: Everything SEOs Need to Know at This Point, SERanking
How to Outsource SEO: a Step-By-Step Guide, Semrush
Subdomains or subfolders? Which is best for SEO?, Wix SEO Hub
The Top Programmatic SEO Tools, SammySEO
How to Use PageSpeed Insights, Ahrefs
Understanding Keyword Search Volume – A Guide, SEO Hacker

PPC

Google Ads: The Pros & Cons of Using Smart Bidding, Site Visibility
Some Interesting Updates from Google Shopping Engineers, ZATO Marketing
The Impact of ChatGPT on Marketing: 20 Experts Tell Us What to Expect, WordStream

Other Search

This is ‘Chromebook X’: Google’s new standard for ChromeOS, 9to5Google
Satya Nadella’s Intelligence Is Not Artificial, Freakonomics

Feedback:

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