September has been blowing hot and cold for Google so far, with multiple major industry developments centred on the company’s legal disputes.

Outside the legal sphere, changes to Google Ads’ restricted content policies are opening doors in paid media for private healthcare providers, and AI Max for Search campaigns is available globally.

Read about these key updates and more in our mid-September search industry roundup.

Updates are colour coded by importance:

🔴 Major developments likely to impact strategy

🟡 Worth watching or understanding

🟢 Informative - but lower impact for most

Google Search

🟢 Google gets off lightly with mild monopoly remedies

Since Google was ruled a monopolistic entity by the Supreme Court, potential penalties have been a big talking point in digital marketing communities. 

The remedies brief filed by the plaintiffs proposed a swathe of options for reducing Google’s illegal market dominance, from the forced divestiture of Google Chrome to a ban on search partnerships with companies like Apple and Samsung.

In the end, however, US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that all Google will be required to do is share certain proprietary search index and user interaction data with “qualified competitors” - cue a sizeable sigh of relief from the Google camp.

Mehta declared in the September 2 ruling that Google will not be forced to divest key assets (such as Chrome or Ads) and can continue bargaining with distribution partners to position Google Search as the primary search engine in products. 

Although, on this front, the Judge added one caveat: Google may not broker exclusive search contracts with third party companies. This means that any search dealings Google has with prospective distribution partners cannot preclude competition.

Simply put, Google can no longer say to, for instance, Apple, we’ll pay you X amount annually to make Google Search the default search engine on the new iPhone, but only if you do not consider any deals with our competitors.

So, in practice, under the new ruling, Google can’t prevent Apple from, say, also cutting a deal with Microsoft to make Bing an easy-to-select alternative in the Safari settings. Or potentially even developing a skippable but prominent “preferred search engine” popup during the phone setup process.

Responses to the lukewarm ruling have been varied, with some commentators praising Judge Mehta’s careful and considered approach, and others warning that measures are insufficient and do little in a practical sense to disrupt Google’s monopoly.

For marketers…

If some of the more severe penalty proposals had been actioned, it would have sent ripples throughout the digital ecosystem. But, seeing as the ruled remedies are behavioural rather than structural fixes, nothing is changing for marketers and site owners.

While the slap-on-the-wrist ruling provides a legal precedent and opens the door for potential future action, it does not fundamentally change the competitive dynamics of the search market.

🟢 Google AI Mode updated to support multiple languages

Even as AI Mode expands globally, until September 8, it was only available in English. Now, Google has introduced five more languages to AI Mode:

• Hindi
• Indonesian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Brazilian Portuguese

For sites with global traffic…

As we’ve seen, traffic from Google is generally in decline due to AI Overviews and AI Mode, and with these language expansions, AI Mode use rate is only going to rise.

If your site has a global appeal and regularly gets visitors from India (or other Hindi-speaking locations, like Nepal, Fiji, etc.), Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, or Brazil, you may see this diverse traffic begin to dwindle.

SEO

🟡 Google updates “business links policies & guidelines” for Business Profiles

Google has updated its “Business links policies & guidelines” with a focus on improving the user experience and ensuring data accuracy. The new policies are stricter and introduce a system for automated link verification. 

In short, Google is now regularly checking the links in your Business Profile to make sure they are functional, relevant, and trustworthy for users. The most significant changes concern the types of links allowed and the technical accessibility of your website.

For businesses…

You should ensure your links comply with the new rules to avoid having them automatically removed. Here’s what you need to do:

• Audit your links: Go through your Google Business Profile and review every link you have listed.
• Use dedicated pages: If you have multiple locations, ensure each "action link" directs users to a specific, unique page for that single location rather than a general homepage or a page for a different store.
• Check for direct action: Any link you use must immediately allow the user to complete the designated action. For example, a "book now" link must go straight to a booking form, not a page that requires them to click through several menus first.
• Remove prohibited links: You must remove any local business links that lead to social media sites, messaging links, app store links, or that use link shorteners.
• Ensure crawlability: This is the most technical but critical point. Google's new bots are now crawling your links daily. Your website must be configured to allow unrestricted access to these bots. This means:
  • No blocking the GoogleOther user agent.
  • No rate limiting or throttling of bot requests.
  • No CAPTCHA challenges or login requirements for your linked pages.
  • No IP address blocking or serving different content to bots than to human users.
  • No geoblocking that prevents access from certain countries.
• Fix errors: Your links must not lead to broken pages or return server error codes (like 404, 403, or 500). They must return a working "200 OK" status code.

At TDMP, technical proficiency is the foundation of our SEO services. If you need support implementing any of the above or require general Business Profile optimisation, we can help - let’s talk.

Paid media

🔴 Google to allow ads for “mature cosmetic procedures”

On September 22, Google will remove “mature cosmetic procedures” from the Google Ads sexual content blacklist.

Elements and offerings currently prohibited by this Google policy include: 

• Nudity
• Partial nudity
• Sexual merchandise
• Sexually entertainment
• Sexually suggestive elements and themes
• Mature cosmetic procedures

As for what constitutes mature cosmetic procedures, Google offers the following examples:

• Female breast augmentation
• Penis enlargement surgery
• Vaginal laser rejuvenation
• Buttock implants

For advertisers…

If your brand operates in the private healthcare, cosmetic surgery, or wellness space, and offers mature cosmetic procedures, this policy shift opens the door to more precise targeting and increased visibility. 

Instead of targeting broad interest categories or adjacent keywords, you can reach audiences actively searching for specific “mature” treatments.

To make the most of it:

• Review Google’s updated policy to ensure your ads remain compliant; creative and landing pages must still avoid explicit or overly sexualized content.
• Leverage audience targeting to reach users actively searching for cosmetic or healthcare services.
• Monitor performance closely as this category is new to Google Ads inventory and may have evolving benchmarks.

Brands that approach this new advertising potential thoughtfully and ethically will be best positioned to capture demand.

Looking to make the most of this new opportunity? TDMP is a Google Premier Partner PPC agency specialising in digital marketing for private healthcare brands; get in touch with our team to discuss how we can help you build compliant, high-performing campaigns. 

Read our case study to see the results we’ve delivered for one of our clients in the private healthcare space.

🟡 Google makes AI Max for Search campaigns available globally

During Google’s Think Retail event on September 10, the company announced that AI Max is now available globally for Search campaigns.

AI Max is Google’s latest automated optimisation feature, designed to help advertisers maximise conversions by letting Google’s machine learning set bids, choose placements, and even adapt creative in real time. It builds on the same automation principles behind Performance Max but is tailored specifically for Search campaigns.

For advertisers…

AI Max grants efficiency gains for Search campaigns by automating bids and reacting to user intent in real time, which can simplify management and potentially improve conversion rates.

However, this comes with reduced visibility and control, so results will depend heavily on the quality of your conversion tracking and ad assets.

If you’d like to give it a shot, test AI Max in a controlled campaign first, benchmark performance against your existing setup, and focus on supplying clean data and strong creative to give the algorithm the best chance of success.

🟡 The EU fines Google €2.95 million for anti-competitive practices

Just one week after Google’s light scolding in the US for breaking monopoly laws, the EU announced much more severe remedies for the company’s anticompetitive practices in online advertising technology.

This is the fourth antitrust penalty issued to Google from the European Union. Here is the basis for the case as stated by the European Commission:

“Google abused such dominant positions in breach of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU') by:

- Favouring its own ad exchange AdX in the ad selection process run by its dominant publisher ad server DFP by, for example, informing AdX in advance of the value of the best bid from competitors which it had to beat to win the auction.

- Favouring its ad exchange AdX in the way its ad buying tools Google Ads and DV360 place bids on ad exchanges. For example, Google Ads was avoiding competing ad exchanges and mainly placing bids on AdX, thus making it the most attractive ad exchange.

The Commission has concluded that those conducts aimed at intentionally giving AdX a competitive advantage and may have foreclosed ad exchanges competing with AdX. This has reinforced AdX's central role in the adtech supply chain as well as Google's ability to charge a high fee for its service.”

Not only is Google being ordered to pay a fine of €2.95 billion, the EU is demanding the clear conflict of interest in the adtech supply chain be resolved. The Commission has stated that, in their current view, the only way to do so would be for Google to divest parts of its adtech stack, but is willing to hear Google out before enforcing such measures.

There’s also the Trump factor for the EU to consider. After remedies were announced, President Trump took to Truth Social to threaten a Section 301 investigation that could result in retaliatory tariffs against the European Union.

However, the President was seemingly unaware that Google is facing yet undecided penalties for the exact same offence in the US, and that the company’s self-preferential adtech practices are therefore impacting American advertisers and publishers too.

For UK advertisers & publishers…

Although no longer a member state of the European Union, the UK is not entirely disconnected from the EU’s ruling.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has its own independent investigation into Google's adtech practices, and it has already issued a "Statement of Objections," which is a provisional finding that Google has broken UK competition law. 

The EU's proposed remedies and its findings provide the CMA with a robust legal framework and a wealth of evidence to strengthen its own case and potentially justify similar penalties.

If the CMA were to follow the EU's lead and push for a structural breakup, it would encourage a fairer adtech market, with potential impacts for UK advertisers and publishers spanning:

• Lower ad costs: A more competitive market could lead to a reduction in the "monopoly tax" that Google's self-serving practices have allowed it to extract, potentially translating into better ad prices for advertisers.
• Higher publisher revenue: With more competition for ad space, publishers could see an increase in the value of their inventory and be able to diversify their revenue streams.
• No more "black box": The ruling, if a similar one is adopted in the UK, would create more transparency in ad auctions, giving both advertisers and publishers a clearer view of the ad supply chain.

While these fines and potential structural remedies sound dramatic, it’s important to remember that Google Ads is the most powerful way to reach customers at scale. These cases highlight opportunities for greater transparency in the adtech ecosystem, but as far as performance is concerned, with the right agency partner, Google Ads can drive significant business growth.

At TDMP, we have a proven track record of delivering innovative Google Ads campaigns that deliver exceptional results for our clients. Contact the team today to learn more about our services.

Stay current with TDMP

Search is moving faster than ever. It can be hard to keep up, but the brands that stay on top of industry developments are best positioned to find and capitalise on opportunities.

Contact TDMP to ensure your digital strategy keeps pace with the evolving search ecosystem.