Link Building Strategies

A new data report from Rand Fishkin at Sparktoro says that Google Search has seen 21.64% growth in searches year over year. This comes after his study that showed 1/3rd of Google searchers don't search all that much.View the full article

Google's AI crawler, Google-Extended, the crawler it uses for Gemini and other related AI services, does render itself and can render JavaScript, just like Googlebot, Google's main web search crawler.View the full article

Google is testing a new quick view button/link within the Google Search results for hotel and lodging results. When you click on the quick view button you are taken to the Google Business Profile listing but when you click on the main result you are taken to the website directly (or maybe the other way, I cannot tell for sure).View the full article

Labeling your Google Business Profile as kid-friendly is not new, but I don't believe I have ever seen an icon that represents that within the Google Business Profile listing within Google Search. The icon is a pack of crayons that says "Good for Kids."View the full article

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 is testing adding links to AI Overviews that generate clicks, but these links go to Google Search...View the full article

About 30 minutes ago, Google sent out a batch of invites to its new AI Mode. I was one who got that email but when I click on the "try now" button, it still tells me I am on the waitlist and I can't access it just yet.View the full article

Google has released version 19.1 of the Google Ads API, v19.1 added 11 new features, removed 0 features and changed 23 different features. This goes across assets, campaigns, Demand Gen, conversions, LSAs, and more.View the full article

Google announced it is testing new pre-fetching methods that increase the speed (Largest Contentful Paint - LCP) of the first two results by 67 milliseconds and for the results after those by about by 9.5 milliseconds.View the full article

Microsoft is testing a new design and user experience for the Bing sitelinks and related searches. The sitelinks have this hover over shadow effect, while the related searches go from a rounded pill design to line separator design.View the full article

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 is testing replacing the local pack in the search results with AI Overviews...View the full article

Google may be testing replacing local pack at the top of the Google Search results for "near me" related queries with an AI Overview. So instead of showing a map and the three or so local listings, Google is showing an AI Overview with some local information.View the full article

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 spoke about when (if ever) independent sites will see their content surface better in Google Search and hint...View the full article

Google's John Mueller explained that just because you use hreflang tags on your pages, it doesn't mean those pages will be indexed and/or ranked in Google Search. He said on Bluesky, "hreflang doesn't guarantee indexing."View the full article

Google Ads seems to be rolling out the expected age exclusions feature for Performance Max, PMax, campaigns. In January, Google told us it would be coming and then we saw the Google Ads Editor add the feature in version 2.9. And now, some are seeing it in the Google Ads advertiser console user interface. View the full article

Google has released a new help document named About Ads and AI Overviews, plus, they added a new landing page that contains a link to this single document named Ads in AI-Powered experiences. I assume Google will eventually add a new section named Ads and AI Mode in that document?View the full article

Bing is testing a pill-shaped favicon design, like Google did a lot last year, and showing both the site name and the favicon in the pill design.View the full article

I am seeing a number of complaints that Google Analytics real-time reporting is not working properly. Many are complaining that the data looks off and is underreporting, at best.View the full article

Google Ads is rolling out a new way to view some of your reports in a tree table view. "Instead of flat tables, you now get a hierarchical layout where dimensions are stacked visually," explained Thomas Eccel who posted about this on LinkedIn.View the full article

Last December, we reported how Google was showing a payments option section in the retailer/merchant knowledge panel. Google is now testing a clearer version of it, while adding shipping and return information to the payments section.View the full article

Microsoft launched the Copilot Merchant Program, a way to feed Copilot more details about your products. Microsoft said this is a way to "integrate your shopping experience with Copilot to help your brand gain visibility, acquire more customers and generate sales, all from a convenient centralized location with AI support at every step."View the full article

Google AI Overviews can now show an image carousel that you can swipe through to go to images. I am not able to replicate this myself but it seems like when you click on the images, it takes you into Google Image Search.View the full article

Google's John Mueller was quick to debunk a claim that owning an .esports domain will have no positive SEO effect. He said on Bluesky, "There's no positive SEO effect from a TLD like that."View the full article

Google said it is expanding its AI Overviews and Knowledge Panels to offer more medical and health related answers. Plus, those are being expanded in more counties and languages. Also, Google launched a new "What People Suggest" search feature that shows you what other people are saying on the web about those topics.View the full article

Google is testing a new link feature in the search results, it is in the form of a link box, in the search result snippet, that when you click on it, it anchors you down on the page to a specific portion of that text.View the full article

Google's John Mueller said having "four identical links on a page to another page seems fine & common to me." He said, don't worry if you have that in your navigation, and implied it won't have an impact on your SEO.View the full article