Link Building Strategies

Google Posts/Updates are starting to disappear from the local panels within Google Search. I saw complaints about this yesterday and tested it by adding a post myself on my business, it was there, until it wasn't. Now I see a huge number of complaints that posts or updates are missing from Google local panels.View the full article

A few months ago, we saw Google testing recurring, repeating Google Posts options. Well, now that option is officially live. This is in addition to the ability to schedule Google Posts.View the full article

Google has updated its tips to get more reviews help documentation with a new section on tips to write better review replies. This section includes how to make your replies positive and relevant and a section on giving helpful responses to negative reviews. View the full article

Last November, Google announced it was dropping support for a number of structured data types and search features. One of those was practice problem structured data types, and now, Google has removed the help documentation along with it.View the full article

The Google preferred sources deeplink button feature is broken and has been since at least last Wednesday. When you click on a button to make a site a preferred source, such as for this site, it does not pre-fill in the site's URL in the box, as it should. You can retype it in the box but it does not pre-fill it for you.View the full article

Back in December, Google expanded Preferred sources globally, but only for English-language content. Now, according to The Verge, Google's preferred sources support all languages globally.View the full article

Google announced that Preferred Sources is now rolling out globally, after launching just in the US and India in August, following its beta period in June. Plus, Google announced Spotlighting subscriptions are coming to Gemini, AI Mode, and AI Overviews.View the full article

Google is experimenting more with shopping carousels, this time, showing products and then which articles are recommending those products. These can be shown in best of articles and recommended in articles. View the full article

Google reportedly has a bug that displays incorrect product reviews in Google Search for a retailer. It is now pulling from text on the page that includes the Google Business Profile reviews, despite the product reviews not being there and not being marked up on the page.View the full article

Google is now using generative AI, and labeling it as such, within the Google Search product details overlay. When you click on a product listing in Google Search, the overlay window has a section called top insights. That section can be generated using AI.View the full article

Google is promoting AI Mode in its search results with a large banner ad. The banner ad says, "New! Try Al Mode. Get Al-powered responses & ask follow-ups with a new experiment. Try now..."View the full article

Google proposed a number of changes in the ''¬2.95B EU antitrust fine over its ad technology. The changes include changes to Google Ad Manager and increasing the interoperability between its tools. Google still plans to appeal the ruling.View the full article

Google's John Mueller posted a PSA yesterday, reminding SEOs and developers to verify the host name of cloud providers they are using to host images, videos, and other content. Specifically, you should use a DNS CNAME to the bucket, then verify with DNS with Search Console.View the full article

Google is making more changes to the Google Publisher Center, in March Google News will fully transition to automatically generated publication pages in March.View the full article

Anish Kattukaran, CPO at Google Home & Nest announced in the Google Gemini forums that Gemini will not be replacing Google Assistant by the end of 2025. He wrote, "We're adjusting our previously announced timeline to make sure we deliver a seamless transition, and will continue our work to upgrade Assistant users to Gemini on mobile devices into 2026."View the full article

Google's John Mueller questioned the need for all websites to use ccTLDs, different domain names, to take their websites international. He said on Reddit, "you both make things harder on yourself, but you also make it harder for search engines to understand each of these sites."View the full article

This week, we covered yet again some more Google search ranking volatility. Google Discover will be coming to the desktop version of Google's homepage. Google Search Analytics API now shows hourly data for the past ten...View the full article

It appears that Google is letting Reddit's AI translated pages rank too well within its search results. This is in addition to Google letting Reddit get a lot of other search visibility, but AI translation, well, that should really not perform so well.View the full article

Google has updated the list of Google products and services that use the Google Read Aloud user agent. The updated page also says that the "service provides an audio version of web pages by understanding their content through help of AI" but adds, "no data from the page is retained for AI model training."View the full article

Google announced it has refreshed its Shopping tab listings report which it initially launched in November 2022 and renamed it to the Merchant opportunities report. The refreshed report now includes details about payments methods and store ratings, Google said.View the full article

Google is relaxing its photo guidelines for Local Service Ads. This may result in photos that were not previously allowed, may be allowed after May 22, 2025. I am not sure if these photos will automatically show up in your Local Service Ads or if you need to manually approve them after May 22nd.View the full article

The Google Chrome team announced its early preview of WebMCP, "a standard way for exposing structured tools, ensuring AI agents can perform actions on your side with increased speed, reliability, and precision," André Cipriani Bandarra from Google wrote.View the full article

Google confirmed it is essentially removing the Q&A feature within Google Maps, and instead, searchers can use the new AI-powered Ask button on a Google Business Profile to get the answers they are looking for.View the full article

Mike Ryan put together the single most comprehensive third-party report on Google Ads Performance Max campaigns. It is free, super detailed, easy to read and chock-full of useful information. And guess what, Google's Ginny Marvin responded to some of the concerns in the report.View the full article

Google's VP of Product at Google Search, Robby Stein, has responded to concerns from publishers around the new AI Mode. Specifically, the concerns around this new AI search interface not being all that encouraging for users to click over to publishers' sites.View the full article