In this week’s digital news, Google has officially confirmed the site visits asset for Search and Performance Max ads, showing domain click counts in three tiers starting at 10,000 clicks. Elon Musk’s X is still trying to woo back advertisers to X, this time with a rebuilt, AI-powered ads platform that started to roll out on Thursday.
Google deprecated FAQ rich results, completing a removal that started years ago. FAQ rich results were already restricted for most sites. Google added more link surfaces to AI Search, but not new reporting for publishers. Studies continue to show lower clicks when AI responses appear.
Google has formally documented its site visits asset in Google Ads, an automated badge displaying domain visit counts (10K+, 100K+, or 1M+) directly within text ads. It draws on combined organic and paid traffic, is non-clickable, and carries no additional cost. To qualify, domains must receive at least 10,000 clicks in the last 30 days, have no policy violations, and operate on a single-tenant domain. Compatible with Search and Performance Max campaigns, it requires no advertiser setup. Those wishing to opt out must contact their Google representative, as there is no self-service toggle available.
X (formerly Twitter) has launched a phased rollout of a rebuilt, AI-powered advertising platform, aiming to accelerate its ad revenue recovery. Following its merger with Elon Musk’s xAI, the new platform promises improved targeting, more relevant ad placements, and greater advertiser control. X’s ad revenue is forecast to reach $2.46 billion in 2026, though still well below Twitter’s 2021 peak. The move mirrors a broader industry trend, with Google and Meta also benefiting from AI-driven advertising growth, which is increasingly automating campaign creation, targeting, and measurement, whilst lowering barriers for smaller businesses.
Google has officially retired FAQ rich results, ending the era of expandable question blocks that previously allowed websites to dominate vertical real estate in search results. While the underlying FAQ structured data remains technically valid and continues to serve as a critical signal for AI-driven answers and citations, the visual “dropdown” feature is now gone for all websites, including government and health sources that were previously exempt. For search visibility, this represents a significant reduction in the physical footprint of organic listings, likely decreasing click-through rates for informational content that once used these visual enhancements to capture user attention and “push down” competitors.
Simultaneously, Google has introduced several new link formats within its AI Overviews and AI Mode. Including inline citations, desktop hover previews, and subscription labels, to make its AI-generated answers feel more like a starting point for deeper research. However, the company has notably omitted new reporting metrics from Search Console. Leaving site owners unable to differentiate traffic originating from AI summaries versus traditional search links. This lack of transparency means that while a site’s overall “visibility” may seem high, publishers are essentially left in the dark regarding whether the AI is driving high-quality traffic or simply cannibalising organic clicks by providing users with the answers they need directly on the page.
The near-zero cost of AI-generated video is creating a supply explosion at the worst possible time. As fatigue data shows audiences are actively pulling back from platforms. Recent consumer research found that 1 in 4 people have deleted a social media app to take a break. And 62% of adults report digital burnout. Meanwhile, viewers are not losing attention capacity but exercising more selective choice. With average Facebook sessions falling from 2.7 minutes in 2013 to 54 seconds by 2025. The real constraint on video marketing was never production cost but human attention. And brands relying on volume over authenticity will struggle as audiences become more selective.
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Google is rolling out a fundamentally new approach to search personalisation that uses AI to build a continuous profile of each user from their search history. Gmail, calendar, Maps, and browsing behaviour. Unlike previous personalisation attempts that amounted to appending location signals to keyword lookups. This system sets interest flags with every search and uses them as background context for all future queries. The feature is live in Gemini and AI Mode, and is expected to eventually become the default search experience. Meaning two people searching the same phrase could receive entirely different results.
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