Link Building Strategies

A few weeks ago, we reported Google was exploring ways to allow sites to opt out of showing up in Google's AI features, like AI Mode and AI Overviews. Google's Sulina Connal said at the FT Strategies News in the Digital Age conference that this is a "huge engineering project."View the full article

Microsoft Advertising seems to be testing a new design for the Bing shopping ads carousel. The new design fills the screen more from left to right than the old design and is just wider in general.View the full article

Google's John Mueller again spoke about the disavow link file. This time he said that while "most sites don't need it, he added but "that's not all sites." Some sites may indeed need to disavow links.View the full article

Back in May, Google said it will be giving advertisers more visibility into the search partner network with channel reporting for Performance Max campaigns. Well, now some are seeing it live in their accounts for some of the campaigns they manage.View the full article

This week, yep, we had another story on Google Search ranking volatility. I posted the Google webmaster report for January 2026. Google Discover seems to be showing too many...View the full article

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

Google is appealing the ruling that it is an illegal search monopoly - which surprises no one. Plus, Google asked the court to pause the remedies during the appeal phase.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

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

Google seems to be replacing its Google Ads support form with an AI agent, maybe from its Ads Advisor system. When you go to support.google.com/google-ads/gethelp you are redirected to the chat experience now. I am not sure if this is global, but I am seeing this myself across two Google Ads accounts I have access to.View the full article

As you know, January was an incredibly intense month of Google Search ranking volatility. It surprised me that Google has still not confirmed that a Google search ranking update took place. Now, John Mueller of Google was asked about it and said, "Unfortunately, I don't have any insights / updates to share."View the full article

There are some reports coming out that Grokipedia, the AI-based Wikipedia, is now showing a decline in search visibility in both Google and even ChatGPT. This comes after both an indexing and ranking surge in Google Search.View the full article

Google Ads now has a new recommended experiments box in the Experiments page. This should offer you customized and personalized recommendations that Google Ads thinks you should try based on your account setup and performance data.View the full article

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

Microsoft Bing Search is testing a new layout for videos within the search results. Instead of a list view, Bing is testing a two-by-two grid layout.View the full article

Google Local Service Ads can be super expensive; each call or click can cost hundreds of dollars. Which is why Google has generally been good about refunding for mistaken leads or issues with those leads. View the full article

Microsoft is testing a "Go to Shopping" button within the Bing Search results. This is instead of the narrower shopping section that shows shopping results by just says "see all."View the full article

Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger interviewed Google's head of Search, Liz Reid, on Google's progression of AI into Search. It felt like a very candid interview that is worth listening to. In short, Liz is still not sure if Gemini and Google Search will ever fully converge or not.View the full article

Yep, more of the same - the Google Search ranking volatility remains heated. Many are asking when we will see an officially announced Google core update. But it has not been announced yet.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...View the full article

John Mueller from Google dropped a very John-like hint that maybe, just maybe, Google Search Console will add AI visibility reporting. John was asked about it again and responded, saying, "While I have nothing to announce, I can say for sure that very few things online are permanent."View the full article

Microsoft Advertising is testing a new ad format within its newish Answer Card format called a magazine layout. These load ads in the card formats you see at the top of some of the Bing search results.View the full article

Google announced on Friday that there is a delay with the Google Ads team reviewing and thus approving developer token access applications. This is because Google is "seeing significant interest in the developer community for Google Ads API access, and are receiving an increase in developer token access applications," the company said.View the full article

Microsoft Bing is testing a dynamically loading results count under the search box. So when you enter your search phrase, the results count will dynamically count up from 0 to the number of results found.View the full article