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CategoriesSEO
October 26, 2026
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New Home, AI Everywhere

Flat navy and orange illustration of a small business storefront with a glowing analytics dashboard, surrounded by a map pin, five stars, a verification shield, an hourglass, an AI sparkle, and a search results panel

Monday, October 26, 2026. Morning landscape for St. Louis local business owners.

Google is building a new home for your Business Profile and testing a much deeper performance report. The local knowledge panel may soon put your name, rating, and buttons above your photos. A government ID upload is showing up as a verification option, while review appeals are stuck in a backlog. AI Overviews now appear on more than 80% of Google searches, and Google Ads documented AI-written review summaries inside Search ads. Here is what changed and what to do this week.

1. Google Business Home is in beta, and a new performance report is in testing.

On October 22, Search Engine Roundtable reported that Google is rolling out Google Business Home, a beta portal that, in Google's words, "brings together your Business Profile, Merchant Center, YouTube, and Ads accounts all in one place." Screens include posts, reviews, performance reports, locations, a brand kit, and a creative lab. Google's help document says it is a closed beta "available only to select business categories in the US and the UK" and describes it as built with Gemini models. The next day, Search Engine Roundtable covered a separate test: a revamped Business Profile performance report with engagement, reviews, search trends, audience, and top recommendations.

So what: Do not wait for an invite to get your house in order. Make sure the Google account that owns your Business Profile is the same one that runs your Ads, Merchant Center, and YouTube, or at least that one person can reach all of them. If Business Home or the new report shows up for you, export the old performance numbers first so you have a clean before-and-after. Treat the built-in recommendations as suggestions, not orders. Judge results the same way you always should: calls, direction requests, form contacts, and booked jobs.

2. The local panel is testing name, rating, and buttons above the photos.

On October 22, Search Engine Roundtable covered a test spotted by Ben Fisher in which the desktop local knowledge panel moves the business name, star rating, description, and action buttons to the top, with photos below. It matches the current mobile layout more closely, and the bottom of the panel is tightened up. Barry Schwartz could not reproduce it after a day of trying, so this is a test, not a rollout.

So what: If this layout sticks, the first thing a searcher reads is your name, your rating, your description, and your Call and Website buttons. Reread your Business Profile description this week and make the first sentence say exactly what you do and where, in plain words. Confirm the phone number behind the Call button rings someone during your posted hours. Photos still matter, but they may stop being the first impression.

3. Government ID verification shows up, and review appeals are delayed.

On October 20, Search Engine Roundtable reported a new Business Profile verification option spotted on the Local Search Forum: upload a photo of your government ID, with Google stating the ID "won't be shown publicly." It is not yet in Google's help document, which still lists phone or text, email, live video call, and mail. The same day, Google's Dan Boguslavsky posted in the Business Profile Help community that "due to high volume of review related appeals, processing times are currently extended," with no timeframe, and asked owners not to file duplicate appeals.

So what: If you are verifying a new St. Louis location or re-verifying after a move, expect the options to vary and pick the one you can complete cleanly, with matching business name, address, and documents ready. If you have a review appeal pending, file it once and leave it alone; duplicates will not speed it up. Meanwhile, keep asking happy customers for reviews so a single bad one carries less weight while you wait.

4. AI Overviews now show on more than 80% of searches.

On October 26, Search Engine Roundtable summarized recent Semrush, SE Ranking, and seoClarity data showing AI Overviews on over 80% of Google searches, up from 50% in June of last year and about 15% the year before. SE Ranking put the figure at 82.5% of US brand searches. seoClarity's earlier numbers ranged from 55% to 84% depending on industry. Separately, on October 23, Search Engine Roundtable covered AI-written summary snippets showing inside AI Overview citation cards, text that, as Brodie Clark noted, does not appear exactly that way on the cited page.

So what: Assume most of your customers see an AI answer before they see your listing or your site, including when they search your business name. Search your own brand name and your top two services this week and read what the AI Overview says about you. If it is wrong or thin, fix the source: your service pages, your FAQs written as real questions with direct answers, and a Business Profile that matches your website word for word on name, hours, and phone. Since Google may rewrite your snippet, make the key facts impossible to misread. If you want help showing up accurately in these AI answers, see our AI Search Optimization (AEO/GEO) service.

5. Google Ads documents AI review summaries inside Search ads.

On October 26, Search Engine Roundtable covered a new Google Ads help document, "About Review summaries," which says review summaries on Search are "AI-powered summaries of online reviews that appear directly as part of your Search ads." Google aggregates reviews from across the web, and the summaries are positive only. They run on Search campaigns in all positions on Google.com, in English in the US, Australia, the UK, and India, for all verticals except sensitive categories such as pharmaceuticals.

So what: If you run Google Search ads, your reviews on Google and other sites can now become ad copy you did not write. Read your recent reviews on Google, Yelp, Facebook, and any industry sites, and note the phrases customers repeat. If those phrases match what you want to be known for, keep asking for reviews that way. If they do not, fix the service issue first. Make sure your ad landing pages back up whatever the summary is likely to say.

Also this week: Search Engine Roundtable reported more unconfirmed ranking volatility on October 24, after earlier swings on October 20 and 21. Google has not confirmed an update. Do not rewrite pages based on one weekend of rank tracker movement.

Quick checklist for this week

  1. Line up Business Profile, Ads, Merchant Center, and YouTube access under owners you control.
  2. Export current Business Profile performance numbers before any new report replaces them.
  3. Rewrite the first sentence of your profile description to say what you do and where.
  4. Test the Call button phone number during posted hours.
  5. File any review appeal once, then stop; no duplicates.
  6. Search your brand name and top services and read the AI Overview about you.
  7. Tighten service pages and FAQs so the key facts are easy to pull and hard to misread.
  8. Read recent reviews across sites before Google turns them into ad copy.
  9. Ignore unconfirmed ranking swings; judge by calls and form contacts.

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