Link Building Strategies

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...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

Google is testing a new design for its search results that are more of a grid format, more of a boxed in design. They are not on all the search results elements but more of the search features.View the full article

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...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

The Google Search Console API has been delayed for the past several days. Data is days behind the web interface and causing issued for those who use Looker Studio, Big Query and other solutions to see the Search Console data when accessed through the API.View the full article

John Mueller from Google wrote on Bluesky, "and let's be honest, people can tell when author bios are used purely as an SEO tactic. It's kinda awkward, not reassuring." This was in response to a post from Nikki Pilkington who said "Stop treating author bios as an SEO tactic and start treating them as what they are '" a tool for building trust with your actual human readers."View the full article

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...View the full article

Martin Split from Google said that having an audio version of a page or a blog post, does not impact your Google rankings. He said it is good for your users, but has no SEO impact.View the full article

Google Business Profile edits may have a bug or some sort of glitch. A number of local SEOs are reporting seeing the message, "Your edit was not approved" when trying to make simple edits to Business Profiles.View the full article

Google seems to have added, for some merchants, a new section named Physical Stores to the Google Merchant Center Next console. In this section is random data from within the store's Google Business Profiles listing.View the full article

So after Google literally paid Reddit for its content and then ranked them incredibly well in Google Search and its search features, Reddit during its earnings call blamed Google's search algorithm for not hitting its expected user growth.View the full article

If you try to access your Google Business Profile page right now, you likely won't be able to. It seems Google Business Profile edit section within Google Search is broken and serves a 500 error when you try to do anything.View the full article

Ever since we began seeing the new Yahoo Search AI features and AI Chat, we've been asking if they were powered by their own AI, by maybe OpenAI or maybe Microsoft Copilot. Well, it seems there is evidence that these features are powered by Microsoft Copilot.View the full article

Microsoft seems to be testing a new related image search box in the main web search results in Bing Search. I personally cannot replicate this, which I take as a sign that this is a test.View the full article

Have any of you heard of the Google Ads mystery shopping rating? Well, it may be used by Google for the overall store rating, which is calculated from customer reviews and a "Mystery Shopping Rating," according to a Google Ads rep.View the full article

Microsoft is testing another user interface and experience for the links they show within its AI Answers, the Copilot responses. These links show with a hyperlink icon and the domain name spelled out, and then when you mouse over it, it has a carousel you can flip through for more links.View the full article

Google Ads is testing adding a new column to its Performance Max reports named "Used Since." This column is visible on the asset level and it shows the date an asset was added.View the full article

On Thursday, January 23rd, Google updated its search quality raters guidelines PDF document. The last time Google updated this document was for the March 2024 spam update changes, over ten months ago. This update seems to focus on on spam and adds some additional details.View the full article

Remember the Bing shopping / e-commerce cards? Well, now it looks like Bing is putting an ad slot in them and labeled them as ads.View the full article

Google has posted an update on the reviews bug we first reported on a week ago, that it later confirmed this past Monday and we saw a fix rolling out starting on Tuesday. The short, it is not yet fully fixed but it should be in the coming few days.View the full article

Google is testing a new "share list" button for local packs, place results, in the Google Search results. I assume this lets you share the local listings you see with a friend or colleague.View the full article

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...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. The Google reviews bug seems to be fixed...View the full article

There is some chatter in the SEO community that Google Image Search may be down ranking, lowering the rankings, of AI-generated images, in favor of non-AI-generated images within the Google Image search results.View the full article