Link Building Strategies

Google is testing a new menu, tab bar, under the search bar within Google Shopping. This new bar most visibly has the super G logo and then contains additional options that take you to search, nearby, deals and for you searches.View the full article

Google announced a bunch of AI-based search features for Google Shopping, AI Mode and Gemini for the holiday season. Google is rolling out the AI Mode comparison feature (we saw it earlier), calling stores feature, AI price tracking and agentic checkout based on the price trigger.View the full article

Google is now showing the number of reviews that were deleted on a specific Google Business Profile due to defamation complaints. This seems to be live in Germany and not other countries right now.View the full article

Google may be testing showing more links and citations within the AI Mode results. Google has done this with AI Overviews a year or so ago and now may be testing it with AI Mode results.View the full article

Google added a new button to the top stories section of Google Search named "Sign in to customize." This leads users who are not logged into Google to sign in, so those users can configfure there preferred sources in Google Search.View the full article

Here is a weird one - doing a site command and Google presenting an AI Overview summary of the results. In this case, the AI Overview was dead wrong - which is not all that uncommon - but why show an AI Overview here? View the full article

Google has a weird and somewhat limited and rare issue with sitemap files within Google Search Console. These sitemap files cannot be fetched and retrieved by Google Search. The issue seems to be related to 5-character subdomains that are on a Polish ccTLD, .pl.View the full article

Google AI Mode seems like it got a lot faster over the past day or so. Instead of going through the steps of saying thinking about this, searching for results, organizing results, it just now saying kicking off searches and then looking at sites and then quickly shows the AI Mode response.View the full article

Last week, Shameem Adhikarath spotted a sponsored label on top of the "People also consider" box within the Google Search results. I figured it was a bug with ads not loading but then Shay Harel spotted the same thing a week later. Is this another bug or is this a new ad unit?View the full article

Google may be testing a new ad unit named Sponsored Places. I think this is new, I mean, have any of you seen this before in the search results? Instead of it saying "Sponsored results" or a local pack with sponsored listings.View the full article

Google was asked if it is possible to add a new status to the XML sitemap statuses for "still processing." John Mueller from Google responded on Blueshy saying, "I've chatted with the teams involved about this on & off, I've seen that it can be annoying." But he added he has nothing to announce.View the full article

Google's John Mueller said he still recommends you have visible anchor text for your links in order to "provide more context for search engines." Don't just use title elements in the link attribute; make sure the link has actual visible anchor text.View the full article

Google announced it will be deprecating the Special announcement structured data on July 31, 2025. This structured data was introduced during COVID as a way to communicate special announcements from websites and businesses related to health and safety.View the full article

CNBC reports Google has been sued in the UK for <<£5 billion ($6.6 billion) in potential damages over allegations that the U.S. tech giant abused its "near-total dominance" in the online search market to drive up prices.View the full article

18 year old, publicly traded education technology company, Chegg, has sued Google over its AI Overviews and how it has hurt their traffic and revenue. Chegg has "filed a complaint against Google, which has unjustly retained traffic that has historically come to Chegg, impacting our acquisitions, revenue and employees," said Nathan Schultz, CEO of Chegg.View the full article

On Friday, Google announced it had filed a lawsuit against SerpApi for scraping the Google search results. Google alleges that SerpApi is running an "unlawful" operation that bypasses Google's security measures to scrape search results at an astonishing scale.View the full article

Over the weekend, the Super Bowl LIX weekend, there has been a lot of chatter about ranking volatility and traffic losses. Truth is, I feel there is often chatter about traffic losses over a Super Bowl weekend, as many are watching the Super Bowl and not spending time searching Google as much.View the full article

Google announced a number of new tag, analytics and data strategies on Friday including a new Google tag gateway for advertisers. Google tag gateway for advertisers allows you to run your Google tags, be it client-side or server-side through your own website infrastructure, such as a content delivery network (CDN), load balancer, or web server.View the full article

Google may be integrating Google Tag Manager directly into the Google Ads interface. The integration of Tag Manager also comes with a new interface and user experience.View the full article

Google's Danny Sullivan and John Mueller spoke on the Search Off the Record podcast about whether hiring an AEO/GEO or buying an AI-optimization tool is any different than hiring an SEO or buying an SEO tool. In short, the advice is the same - both Googlers said.View the full article

Google's John Mueller does not want you to lump programmatic SEO with technical SEO. He said they are different things and that while technical SEO "will definitely continue to be a thing," programmatic SEO is another story.View the full article

Google is expanding AI Mode both in terms of features and access. Google is testing AI Mode in the wild with a limited number of searchers. Google also opened up its waitlist to all 18+ U.S. users. Google added product and place cards to the AI Mode results. Plus, Google added a history tab.View the full article

About a year ago, Google announced you can opt in, within Search Labs, to see Audio Overviews within the Google Search results. But now, I saw two different people say they saw it without opting into the experiment. So Google may be testing this in the wild.View the full article

In January Google announced a change to how AI Overviews worked where clicking the "Show more" button at the end of an AIO would directly take you into AI Mode. But that was only on mobile. Now it seems Google is testing that functionality, but on desktop...View the full article

Google is testing a "new" label in the search result snippets. Several people are noticing this "new" label next to search result snippets that have new content. View the full article