Google Core Update Status, News Publishers Traffic Distribution, Ads In AI Overviews Expand, ChatGPT Ads & Christmas

This week in search, we covered an update on the Google December 2025 core update. Google Search traffic to news publishers continues to vanish, but there is Google Discover. A report shows Google has deleted a ton of local reviews in 2025. Bing posted an excellent blog post on duplicate and similar content and how it impacts SEO and AI Search. Google said make sure to pick a reasonable site name to rank for. Google expanded ads in AI Overviews in more countries. Google Ads MCC accounts now see channel performance reporting. Google Ads dropped the active visitors to 100, from 1,000 for the Search Network. Google Ads has a bug with dynamic remarketing tracking. Google Ads Advisor suggestions are showing in the Google Ads reporting. Google Ads added Maps to the channel options for Demand Gen. Google is testing a learn more link after the Google Ads text. ChatGPT ads are coming and it might be prioritizing sponsored content in the AI responses. Google Discover notifications are sneaky and take you to AI Mode. Google Search bar is teasing AI responses in Chrome. Google pushes the timeline for Gemini to replace the Google Assistant. Google sued SerpApi last Friday for scraping its search results. Google Search forgot to hang the holiday decorations. John Mueller from Google provided support on Christmas day for the 18th year in a row. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.SPONSOR: This week's video recap is sponsored by Duda, the Professional Website Builder You Can Call Your Own.