Link Building Strategies

There are reports that Google is showing more free product listings from Google Merchant Center in the Google AI Overview responses. I am told there are two variations of this AI Overview response: one where the favicon and price appear as an overlay, and another where the free listings look more like a map pack.View the full article

Google is testing adding a disclaimer or piece of text on the AI Overviews within the desktop and mobile search results that says "Check important info." I guess this is Google being a bit more cautious about some AI Overviews?View the full article

Over the past week or so, Google has been testing a new format for link cards in the AI Overviews within Google Search. When you place your mouse cursor over a link clip icon, a new overlay will show you the page/site cards that line of text is being sourced from.View the full article

Google seems to be testing hiding the citations, link icons, for the AI Overviews default view. So when the AI Overview first loads in the Google Search results, the link icon is hidden.View the full article

Google needs even more queries, the 10% growth isn't enough, so Google AI Overviews is testing query expansion tabs at the top of the AI Overviews. We've seen variations of this within the AI Overviews, but now they are testing them at the top of the AI Overviews.View the full article

Google is testing an option to read aloud the AI Overviews by clicking on a speaker icon at the top of the AI Overview within Google Search. And the crazy thing, this is being tested in the US. View the full article

Google is testing a new feature in the AI Overviews (although, they look familiar to me for some reason). When you click or hover over on a word in the AI Overview, Google will bring up a menu to get an AI explanation, show related images or copy to clipboard.View the full article

Google seems to be testing showing author names and website citations in the AI Overviews. I am honestly not sure if this is new but Christian Kunz said it was and posted about it on his blog and on X.View the full article

Google is showing the full author name and the source, like LinkedIn - and name or Medium - and name, for the citations. It makes sense for these social platforms to show the name, because anyone can write anything on these platforms, so knowing the name makes it more useful.View the full article

Google AI Overviews are now able to show super detailed comparison within Google Search. If you search for two very specific models, Google may give you a ton of details directly in the AI Overview.View the full article

We know Google loves to link to its own search results from the AI Overviews, and we have seen those links sometimes go in a loop of sorts. But did you know Google can show the same link to a website in the AI Overviews more than once?View the full article

Here is a weird one - one person named Kunjal Chawhan spotted a Google AI Overview that had an HTML font strikethrough in the text. So it looks like Google is offering an answer, but it's struck through as a false answer...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 is testing having the citations stick to the top (of the AI Overview section only) as you scroll down past the AI Overview. This keeps those citations more in view, as you scroll over the AI Overview.View the full article

Last November, Google began using AI to generate review summaries in Google Maps. Well, now they seem to be showing up in the local knowledge panels on the right side of the Google Search results page.View the full article

Google's AI Shopping tab is now pushing shoppers and searchers to find more products. The prompt responses to your queries can display "Show more products" and other links to get you to view more products.View the full article

Google Ads is rolling out Google AI voice models as a new asset optimization feature for your video ads. This is for your existing Performance Max video ads.View the full article

Google has rolled out fewer confirmed search ranking updates in 2025, then it did in all the past years where Google confirmed these updates. Google rolled out only four confirmed updates in 2025, before than seven in 2024, nine in 2023 and ten in 2022 and 2021.View the full article

Google announced that GA4, Google Analytics, has a new AI Assistant traffic measurement. This allows you to track AI chatbot traffic, like from ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. This is through a new AI Assistant channel in your Default Channel Group reports.View the full article

A week or so ago, Google Analytics made some updates to how it handles campaign data quality and attribution reporting. Many are now seeing a new label named "Data not available" show up in their GA4 reporting.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 Analytics real time reporting seems to be lagging again this morning. I woke up to a ton of complaints on social about the real time reporting reports in GA4 are simply not working as expected.View the full article

Google has posted some fresh data, saying they answer over 5 trillion searches per year. The last time we saw this data was in 2016, when Google was at 2 trillion searches per year and then 1.2 trillion in 2012.View the full article

Over the years, we have written that service areas are not used as a local ranking factor by Google Search. Well, the API leak document also implies this to be true. View the full article

Google added a carousel to the top of the image tab within some Google Search apps, I think it might be a test. The carousel lets you scroll through some ideas to get you started with your image search.View the full article