Daily Search Forum Recap: October 23, 2026

Did you know that Google Maps can suggest that you add a stop along the way as an advertisement or sponsored route along the way? It pops up as you are driving and asks you if you want to “Add stop” or “Cancel.”

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 dropped a number of search features and structured data types…

I believe we are seeing the final phase of the Google September 2026 Spam update rolling out between October 4th and October 6th, today. The update should be done any day now, so there may be another spike in volatility, but I suspect this is it – we are pretty much done with this spam update.