Link Building Strategies

Rajan Patel, the VP of Engineering for Search, said on X that Google is making "changes to ranking" to remove prediction content from showing up in the Google Search top stories and news sections. This comes after some sites are posting "prediction" content, predicting that some sports trades may happen, that have not happened yet, and those "stories" show up in the news section as actually having occurred. View the full article

Google said it will be strict in enforcing accurate pricing for lodging listings on Google, both for ads and free booking links. There is no policy change but they will have a "higher standards for price accuracy."View the full article

Google sent out a notification that it will automatically opt you into using content from your email campaigns to help Google know what to show in Google Search, Shopping, and Maps. It will look for content around new arrivals, sales or ongoing promotions, social media profiles, and others.View the full article

Google is sending emails to some advertisers letting them know that they can opt out of a test, where Google will use AI to automatically create backgrounds for their images in Google Shopping Ads.View the full article

Reuters has a headline that reads Exclusive: Google to test changes to search results, source says as EU fine looms. This confuses me because I thought Google had been testing this for a couple of years now. View the full article

Google announced it will be updating its Shopping Ads political content policy on April 16, 2026. Google said the update is to "implement additional restrictions on some political content."View the full article

Google is showing AI-generated review summaries on some top quality store pages. So when you click on a specific retailer or merchant's top quality store link, at the top of the reviews you may see an AI-generated summary of those reviews.View the full article

Google is now showing a "top search" definition box below the auto suggestions within Google Search for some searches. I guess it is a quick way for Google to give you a definition for a word.View the full article

Google is testing a feature to let you get notified if there is a deal for the product(s) you are searching for directly in Google Search. It is named "Track deals from this search" and it has a slider to toggle on the notification.View the full article

Google has added Gemini to the Google Trends Explore page to help you find new and fresh search terms. It will also compare those search terms automatically for you, all in a new design. This is rolling out now, but you might not see it just yet.View the full article

Google upgraded the Try On feature to now support shoes, in addition to other forms of clothing. Plus, Try on will soon also work in Australia, Canada and Japan, Google announced.View the full article

Google has updated its Google iOS app and with that, the most noticeable change was it updated the super G logo, with a more blended version of the logo. I am not sure if this is going to be the new logo going forward of this is a temporary change for an event, maybe like I/O.View the full article

As I noted in my story yesterday about Google reviews dropping out, Google has updated the Google Business Profiles review policies, the Prohibited & restricted content section.View the full article

Google has updated or is updating a number of Google Ads and Google Merchant Center policies. This goes across alcohol, prescription drugs, gambling and games and government documents and services policies.View the full article

Google updated its core update documentation to say it does smaller core updates and does not announce those updates. This is not new; Google told us this back in 2019. What is new is that Google added it to its search developer documentation.View the full article

Google has switched from updating its googlebot.json file, the file that contains the list of IP addresses Googlebot uses, from weekly to daily. Gary Illyes from Google said this was done based on feedback from the community.View the full article

Google updated its JavaScript SEO best practices document with a new section on how to set the canonial URL when using JavaScript. Google wrote, "The best way to set the canonical URL is to use HTML, but if you have to use JavaScript, make sure that you always set the canonical URL to the same value as the original HTML."View the full article

Google has updated its reviews policy to add two items; (1) do not have your staff solicit a certain number of reviews and (2) the content of the review should not mention the staff member's name and information.View the full article

Google has made a number of updates to its Merchant Center product data specifications, including some that went into effect on April 8th and some that will go into effect on July 1, 2025.View the full article

Google has made a number of updates to its Merchant Center product data specifications. Some changes went into effect on April 14, 2026 and others happen June 30, 2026 and January 31...View the full article

Google confirms it is using AI to create title links on the SERP instead of headlines from news publishers, sometimes. View the full article

Google seems to be showing more and more ads in the local pack, aka Local Pack Ads. Just a couple of months ago, Google had ads on the local pack for less than 3% of tracked keywords; now it's up to about 22% of tracked keywords. View the full article

Google seems to be testing showing call assets on Vehicle Ads within Google Search. So on the Vehicle Ads there is a way to call the dealer or seller, like you see on some other ads.View the full article

Google now accepts RVs (recreational vehicles) and campers in Google Vehicle Ads. Google posted this on Friday afternoon and wrote, "Vehicle ads will be expanding to include recreational vehicles (RVs) and campers."View the full article

Google now allows you to run vehicle ads in your Standard Shopping campaigns. Previously, this was only available in Performance Max for Vehicle ads only, according to PPC News Feed.View the full article