Between Google’s core and spam updates, the rise of real-time AI search, and shifts in advertising and shopping experiences, there’s a lot your web team should be across. The biggest eComm trend to digest? Google is doubling down on quality and user trust.

On the AI front

“No product has been transformed more by AI than Search.” – Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google. 

 

Google launched Gemini 2.0, its enhanced AI model, and will soon integrate these advanced capabilities into Google Search and AI Overviews. With this upgrade, Google’s AI is expected to handle complex topics with greater depth and accuracy. The Gemini 2.0 update included a short demo video by Google to explain the product features, showing off impressive multilingual capabilities. With the AI assistant, anyone can now take a photo of an object, and the AI will analyse the image using information from the web. It leverages online resources to help users understand what’s in front of them in real-time, providing explanations, context, and actionable insights at every step.

An announcement by OpenAI: ChatGPT search is now accessible to all free users worldwide. Previously available only to paid subscribers, this feature allows ChatGPT users to search the web directly within the platform, significantly broadening its reach. With ChatGPT search adoption likely to accelerate, businesses and marketers should prepare for potential growth in referral traffic. OpenAI also unveiled an improved, faster mobile search experience and plans to introduce an advanced voice mode soon, further enhancing usability.

Google ads announced key changes this month. Changes that could affect advertisers, Google’s brand guidelines for PMax campaigns centralise asset management, enhancing brand control and requiring advertisers to adjust their workflows accordingly. Starting January 30, advertisers should prepare by organising campaign-level branding assets, reviewing their integration workflows, and monitoring upcoming API developments to maintain performance and brand integrity.

Google has released new guidance on shopping annotations; designed to boost product visibility and enhance ad performance. These annotations dynamically appear based on relevance, user context, and device, aiming to improve consumer confidence and encourage clicks. 

Google Shopping Annotations: Key Highlights

Google dynamically selects annotations based on relevance and user context, enhancing ad performance. 

Key annotations include:

• Estimated Delivery and Return Policy: Boost consumer confidence by providing transparency.
• Local Availability and Pickup: Align offers with user location, improving convenience and trust.
• Price Drop: Emphasises discounts clearly.
• Free & Fast Shipping: Highlights attractive delivery options.
• Promotion: Showcases special deals or incentives.
• Top Quality Store Badge & Business Attributes: Reinforces store credibility and trustworthiness.

Image Source: Search Engine Land

Google Housekeeping

A Google core update that was surprising given the timing. Google has released its fourth core update for the 2024 year, and about one week after the November 2024 core update finished rolling out. As with any core update, significant volatility in Google search rankings is common. Ideally, this update will boost the performance of your websites or your clients’ sites, though some may experience fluctuations or even declines in rankings and organic traffic. 

And lastly, in the lead up to the end of year shopping season, Google dropped an early holiday surprise (though perhaps not the one marketers were hoping for) with the launch of its December 2024 spam update, arriving just a day after wrapping up its latest core update. This global rollout targets sites violating Google’s spam policies, so you might want to double-check your spam compliance.

Catch you in the next digest—we’ll keep an eye on what’s next in search and shopping so you don’t have to.