Link Building Strategies

Google AI Mode has this feature where you can ask about a specific product, it is called "Ask about." Now when you hover over a product, the "Ask about" will overlay so you can more easily trigger the feature.View the full article

When you go to the Google AI Mode home screen, the quick way to do that is to go to google.com/ai. You may see a small disclaimer under the search box that says "Based on your Google activity."View the full article

In a rare Sunday launch, Google announced new AI Mode ads named Direct Offers. Google also announced branded AI agents and a new open standard for agentic commerce it calls Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP).View the full article

Google AI Mode is now available in over 200 countries and territories. Google said they are expanding AI Mode to "more than 35 new languages and over 40 new countries and territories."View the full article

Back in May, Google announced updates to shopping in AI Mode. One of those announcements is to help you narrow down your AI Mode results for shopping queries using query fan-out. Well, here is an example of that where Google AI Mode is prompting you to narrow down the options.View the full article

Google has updated AI Mode for fantasy sports including adding in integration with FantasyPros. And OpenAI has improved the GPT-5 Instant model for signed-out users.View the full article

We saw Google test follow up questions below the AI Mode responses back in July. Now Google is testing follow up search suggestions, not necessarily in question format, at the bottom of some AI Mode results.View the full article

Google's Robby Stein announced three new agentic capabilities within AI Mode - (1) booking event tickets (2) booking beauty appointments and (3) wellness appointments.View the full article

Google announced that AI Mode now lets you search by uploading a photo or image from your device. Before the new AI Mode only allowed you to search with text, but now, like you can with other Google Search features, you can use multimodal capabilities in Lens with AI Mode.View the full article

Google is rolling out UCP, Universal Commerce Protocol, powered checkout in AI Mode. This launched as part of the Google Ads news from yesterday, and you can now see it in AI Mode for products from Etsy and Wayfair.View the full article

Google is testing using the italic font type for the links in AI Mode. So the links have a bit of a slant to them, compared to the other text in the AI Mode response.View the full article

Google announced it has updated the links in AI Mode to encourage searchers to click more. Google also introduced contextual introductions to embedded links in AI Mode responses.View the full article

Google had a lot of news out of Google I/O, as you would expect. The big item, which we predicted, was that AI Mode is now available to all US searchers without having to opt into it within Search Labs. Plus, Google is testing a number of new features in AI mode including Deep Search, Live Search, personal context, custom charts, AI shopping and yes - Agentic features.View the full article

While you can access Google AI Mode directly at google.com/aimode, there is currently no way to go direclty to something like google.com/aimode?q=QUERYGOESHERE. But that might come, said Robby Stein, VP, Product at Google Search.View the full article

Google released Gemini 3, its latest AI model, and it is already powering AI Mode in Google Search today. Sundar Pichai wrote Google is shipping Gemini 3 and that includes "Gemini 3 in AI Mode in Search with more complex reasoning and new dynamic experiences." "This is the first time we are shipping Gemini in Search on day one," he added.View the full article

Google is testing a new AI Mode widget within the main search results that drives searchers away from the core search results and recipe listings/cards and into AI Mode, which then shows those horrible AI-generated Frankenstein recipes.View the full article

Google has confirmed that AI Mode reporting will be coming to Google Search Console. It is currently not yet in Search Console, but it will be coming as part of the AI Mode rollout. View the full article

Google is showing a "See more" button in some of the AI Mode results. This has been happening for almost the past month on desktop and probably mobile. It seems to come up more often for shopping related results, to load more products from the Google Shopping Graph.View the full article

Google announced at Google Marketing Live that it is also bringing Shopping ads, Business Agent for Leads and expanding the Direct Offers pilot for AI Mode in the coming months.View the full article

Google AI Mode is showing really light colored fonts for product pricing and inventory when you click on a product. This differs from the normal font type in the main Google Search results interface.View the full article

Google AI Mode doesn't always pass referrer data from the links on the sidebar. This is supposedly being looked at by the Google Search team and hopefully will be fixed soon, if not, already.View the full article

Google is testing various link formats in AI Mode. Initially Google launched AI Mode with those tiny paperclip links, but Google, like they've done in AI Overviews, is testing in AI Mode, anchor text links and URL links within the text of the AI response.View the full article

Google is testing changing out some of the links within AI Mode to show as overlay cards, instead of take you directly to the website it is mentioning. This obviously will result in fewer direct clicks to those websites.View the full article

Google appears to be testing showing the citation favicon site icons at the bottom of the answer in AI Mode. This is in addition to where it normally shows those icons, at the top right of the card stack, on the side of the answer response.View the full article

Google is testing using different colored map pins in the map embed within Google AI Mode. The map pins can be in red, blue, yellow and maybe orange? View the full article