Link Building Strategies

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. I posted three different Google March 2025 core update polls...View the full article

Google is testing adding a disclaimer or piece of text on the AI Overviews within the desktop and mobile search results that says "Check important info." I guess this is Google being a bit more cautious about some AI Overviews?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. Google launched its AI mode, but it is in beta and you need to be added to a waitlist...View the full article

Google is testing a new job carousel in the search results titled "jobs at similar employers." This likely pulls from the Google Jobs postings schema and more but it can come up if you are just searching for products from that company.View the full article

Google now supports expressive reactions for Google reviews on mobile search and maps. This shows up when viewing a Google Business Profile's reviews on mobile.View the full article

Last November, Google began using AI to generate review summaries in Google Maps. Well, now they seem to be showing up in the local knowledge panels on the right side of the Google Search results page.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 Search ranking volatility spiked and heated again over the past 24-hours or so. I am seeing renewed chatter spike up yesterday, January 29th and continue through today. I am also seeing that some of the tracking tools are showing an increase in ranking volatility within Google Search over the past day.View the full article

Google has upgraded the emails Google Business Profiles sends when your verification has failed. It now shows the reason(s) a verification has failed and what you need to do to become verified in Google Business Profiles.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

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. We are seeing some big chatter over the weekend...View the full article

Google is testing opening the normally closed/collapsed AI Answer box. Meaning, normally you need to manually tap to expand the answer, here Google is testing opening these boxes by default, without you needing to click expand.View the full article

I am seeing a lot of renewed chatter within the SEO industry of a possible unconfirmed Google search ranking update touching down in the past 24-hours or so. The weird thing is that the tools are not really showing much of a spike in volatility but the chatter seems incredibly high.View the full article

Gary Illyes from Google ranted on Bluesky about folks updating the lastmod date in their sitemap files when all they have changed was the date in their footers copyright line from 2024 to 2025. Gary said, don't do it, it is not enough of a change to the page's content to warrant a lastmod date update.View the full article

Earlier this month we reported that Bing was testing ad labels in blue colors. Well, now I am seeing examples of those ads labels without the blue, but rather normal black text and icons on white backgrounds.View the full article

Since March 1st, there are many Google Ads accounts that are not serving ads. The Google Ads forum is filled with complaints about this and as far as I can tell, I cannot find a single response from an official Google Ads representative (as of yet).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. Posted a status update on what we're seeing from the Google March 2025 core update...View the full article

Google is testing various link formats in AI Mode. Initially Google launched AI Mode with those tiny paperclip links, but Google, like they've done in AI Overviews, is testing in AI Mode, anchor text links and URL links within the text of the AI response.View the full article

Google Ads has a new feature in the keyword planner tool that will auto-organize new keywords into ad groups for you. This feature will take your new keywords and auto-organize them into keyword ideas in ad groups. View the full article

Microsoft seems to be testing dropping the AI labels and other interaction features from the Bing Search AI Answers. Or maybe, Bing dropped its AI Answers for normal featured snippets - although, I doubt that. View the full article

In December, Google told us they are testing powering AI Overviews using Gemini 2.0. We think we even saw Google testing this in the wild with deeper AI Overviews with tons of links. Well, now, in the U.S. AI Overviews are officially powered by Gemini 2.0, it is no longer a test.View the full article

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

Google has updated its Google Business Profiles reinstatement emails to now include the case number on the first appeal email. Plus, Google added five proof upload boxes to upload more evidence for Google to review.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

While we've seen AI Overviews in the United States for a while now, and while Google has expanded them to 100+ countries - they are still not officially launched in many European countries like Germany, Switzerland, Italy and others. Well, now we are hearing that Google is testing AI Overviews in those countries.View the full article