Link Building Strategies

Asad Awan, who is in charge of monetization at OpenAI was interviewed by his own company on "The Thinking Behind Ads in ChatGPT." It is a 25 minute interview and one part he discusses how he would like to see advertisers simply prompt to create ads and ad campaigns and not have to hire an agency or "performance marketers" to run ads on ChatGPT.View the full article

OpenAI announced on Friday it will begin testing ads in the ChatGPT responses in the coming weeks. The ads will show on the free product and low-cost subscription tier, ChatGPT Go. The ads will show under the main response and not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you. Advertisers will not get conversations with ChatGPT. The ads will be clearly labeled as ads.View the full article

Google is rolling out what it calls "Personal Intelligence" in the Gemini app and it will soon also come to Google Search within AI Mode. Google announced that Personal Intelligence in Gemini "connects Gmail, Photos, YouTube and Search in a single tap."View the full article

I ran a poll yesterday on X asking Would you block Google from using your content for AI Overviews and AI Mode. About 33% of the over 350 responses said they would block Google from using and showing their content in the AI search experiences. 42% said they would not block Google and 25% are not sure yet.View the full article

Navah Hopkins, the Microsoft Advertiser Ads Liaison, asked on LinkedIn if you will be adding Microsoft Advertising part of your marketing mix in 2026? The poll had over 200 responses, with most saying it is already included in that mix but 36% saying they will be adding it to the mix.View the full article

With Google rolling out AI Mode in the US and calling it the future of Google Search, many SEOs are worried about how organic search will lead traffic and conversions for their business and their clients. Well, a small poll showed that most SEO are scared about AI Mode being the future of Google Search.View the full article

I am seeing signs of a possible Google search ranking update or volatility around January 12, 2026. This is weird in that most of the tools, not all, are mostly calm, but the chatter has picked up and many SEOs are noticing ranking fluctuations. View the full article

This is a programming note that I am completely offline for the last days of Passover holiday Wednesday and Thursday. I am likely not going to schedule any stories, I apologize (still in recovery mode). So I apologize for the lack of stories here. I hope to come back soon...View the full article

This is a programming note that I am completely offline for the Passover holiday Thursday and Friday. I am likely not going to schedule any stories, I apologize (still in recovery mode)...View the full article

This is a programming note that I am completely offline for the Passover holiday today. In fact, this post was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today - so you know I am offline. Passover is/was Sunday and Monday...View the full article

This is a programming note that I will be not be posting here for the next several days. I am not exactly sure how long it will take and when I will be back at 100% but I am expecting it to take at least several days.View the full article

This is a programming note that I will be completely offline for the holiday of Shavout/Shavous on Friday, May 22, 2026. Any stories published here will be scheduled, written beforehand, and not written during the holiday hours...View the full article

This is a programming note that Tuesday and Wednesday are Simchat Torah and I will be offline the next two days. I will be offline on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 14th and October 15th.View the full article

This is a programming note that Tuesday and Wednesday are Sukkot and I will be offline the next two days. I will be offline on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 7th and October 8th.View the full article

This is just a programming note that I will be 100% offline starting Wednesday night (October 1st) through Thursday night (October 2nd) for Yom Kippur. I am not scheduling any stories on Yom Kippur...View the full article

This is a programming note that Tuesday and Wednesday are Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and I will be offline the next two days. I will be offline on Tuesday and Wednesday, September 23rd and September 24th...View the full article

Did you know that Bing Webmaster Tools treats http and https as the same property, it does not distinguish between http and https? This is different from Google Search Console, which lets you set up a property for each and every variation. View the full article

Greg Gifford, a veteran automotive and local SEO, published a hard warning to vendors suggesting that they tell automotive dealerships to set up separate Google Business Profile department listings for separate services. He said, do not, do not, do this and that it can lead to your Google Business Profiles being suspended and removed from Google Search and Google Maps.View the full article

Raptive, an advertising-sales company representing thousands of websites (content publishers), filed a 93-page complaint against Google in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The suit says "Google has carried out a sophisticated, anticompetitive, and deceptive scheme for well over a decade" by "manipulating auctions for ad space across the Internet."View the full article

Google added a very useful feature to the Google Search Console Insights report named query groups. It does what it is named, it groups similar queries together as one, so you can see how your site is performing for that specific topic, instead of individual queries.View the full article

Business Insider interviewed both SEOs and representatives from Google, Microsoft, and Perplexity on what it calls the "GEO rush." The rush for SEO companies or other companies to sell GEO (AI SEO) related services. There are quotes from Danny Sullivan from Google, Krishna Madhavan from Microsoft and more.View the full article

Google has confirmed a "rare" bug with Google Ads reporting where it can lead to over-reporting click-through rate percentages. Brad Geddes posted about the issue on LinkedIn, and Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, responded with confirmation. 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

On the Reddit Q4 2025 Earnings Call (see transcript here), Steve Huffman, the CEO of Reddit, was asked about how he feels about how Google and OpenAI link or use citations to link to Reddit's content. Overall, Steve made it sound like the interfaces are adapting quickly and he is hopeful they will drive traffic to the conversation (within Reddit) in the future.View the full article

Reddit announced earnings late last week and it boggles me how people love this stock. I am not a financial expert of analysis but Reddit has been saying for some time that 50% of its traffic comes from Google Search. Reddit also said on this Q3 earnings call that its search traffic is flat and that AI is not a traffic driver, at least not yet.View the full article