Five things happened this week that change how you should be running your accounts, and two of them come with deadlines. Google shortened how long you have to wait before switching to Maximize Conversion Value bidding, and Merchant Center is getting a hard product image requirement in January 2027.

Here is everything worth your time, with the full write-up on each one.

Google Cut The Wait Before Switching To Maximize Conversion Value

The old guidance was four weeks or three conversion cycles. The new guidance is one to two conversion cycles. That is a real acceleration if your conversion data is clean, but remember that a conversion cycle is your sales cycle, not a fixed number of days.

​Read the full breakdown​

AI Max Gets Multi-Campaign A/B Testing In September

Cross-campaign A/B testing arrives in September, so you can test budget and ROI target changes across several Search campaigns at once. Two other pieces are live now, including the ability to keep brand and location controls on during an AI Max experiment. That removes the main reason a lot of advertisers never tested AI Max at all.

​Read the full breakdown​

Merchant Center Will Require 500x500 Product Images

The requirement takes effect January 31, 2027, and Google recommends 1500 x 1500 or larger. The warnings are already showing in your Merchant Center Diagnostics, so you can pull your exact fix list today instead of finding out during the January selling season.

​Read the full breakdown​

The August 2026 Spam Update Finished Rolling Out

It ran August 18 to August 21, applied globally to all languages, and Google called it a normal spam update with nothing new. Check Search Console for those exact dates before you assume anything, because most suspected algorithm hits turn out to be something else entirely.

​Read the full breakdown​

Google Is Building Calculators Inside AI Overviews

Generative UI moved out of AI Mode and into AI Overviews, in English globally, finishing over the coming weeks. If a page of yours ranks because it holds a calculator, converter, or comparison tool, Google can now generate a version of that in the result.

​Read the full breakdown​

If you only do one thing off this list, pull your Merchant Center Diagnostics and filter for the image warnings. It is the only item here with a hard deadline attached, and it is the easiest one to fix now while it is still just a warning.

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