Link Building Strategies

Google announced that on August 20, 2026 it will experiment with an updated set of commonly used ad technology partners. If the experiments go well, Google will switch it "on or after June 5, 2026."View the full article

It looks like Google is testing a new report within Google Search Console named AI contribution. I have no clue what it looks like but I suspect it is a lot like the Bing Webmaster Tools AI performance reports.View the full article

Google was asked if it is possible to add a new status to the XML sitemap statuses for "still processing." John Mueller from Google responded on Blueshy saying, "I've chatted with the teams involved about this on & off, I've seen that it can be annoying." But he added he has nothing to announce.View the full article

Google's John Mueller reconfirmed that Google Search may simply ignore outbound links from sites that violate its search spam policies. This is not new, Google has been doing this manually and algorithmically for years now but he reiterated this on Bluesky.View the full article

On the latest Search Off The Record Podcast, Martin Split and Gary Illyes discussed the growing page weight issue and how that impacts users and Googlebot crawling. This follows Google updating its documentation to clarify file size limits for Googlebot (and various versions of Googlebot). View the full article

If you're using Gemini in Chrome (the sidebar you can summon via a button in Chrome), then you might be happy about the latest feature that showed up in Chrome Canary. After running a prompt...View the full article

Google's March 2026 broad core update has officially completed rolling out. Google announced this via X this morning and the Search Status Dashboard has been updated to document the rollout. The update took 12 days and 4 hours to complete...View the full article

In January Google announced a change to how AI Overviews worked where clicking the "Show more" button at the end of an AIO would directly take you into AI Mode. But that was only on mobile. Now it seems Google is testing that functionality, but on desktop...View the full article

Google's Sundar Pichai was on the Cheeky Pint podcast and was asked about the future of Search. He basically laid out a future where Search is Jarvis-like where users will be completing tasks and have "many threads running"...View the full article

Spotted in the wild are what appear to be swipeable GBP location assets.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

Google announced a logging error on Friday, April 3rd in the data anomalies report and explained that error prevented the accurate logging of impressions in GSC since May of 2025. That's right, almost a full year of inaccurate impressions...View the full article

In February I shared how Grokipedia started dropping heavily in Google after initially surging. It became yet another example of what I call "Mt. AI". That's when sites scaling heavily with AI-generated content initially surge in Google, but then drop heavily as Google's systems...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. Going offline for Passover tonight through Saturday night...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

Earlier this month, Google rolled out the "Ask Maps" feature. Now, Google said it is "available to everyone in the U.S. and India."View the full article

Google posted a new blog post named Inside Googlebot: demystifying crawling, fetching, and the bytes we process alongside episode 105 of the Search Off the Record segment named Google crawlers behind the scenes.View the full article

You can now update your store's name and / or domain name directly in Merchant Center within Microsoft Advertising. View the full article

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

Google's John Mueller explained, one again, why it takes weeks to roll out a core update. It is often because there are different components to core updates through the rollout stages, and each needs to be pushed individually. View the full article

Microsoft is at it again with its sponsored labels tests. This time, Microsoft is testing almost transparent sponsored labels within the Bing search results. The labels are super grayed out and super hard to see.View the full article

Last week, OpenAI announced a new feature for ChatGPT named location sharing. This allows you to share your precise location with ChatGPT, so ChatGPT can give you more localized and near me results.View the full article

Google Ads is rolling out asset group theming for Performance Max campaigns. This lets you copy an asset group and apply this theme to your text and images using Google AI.View the full article

Google is sending out emails with updates on how Google Business Profiles may verify your business details. Google said it may "reach out using automated messages via call, text, or WhatsApp to the verified phone number on your Business Profile."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 Search Console performance reports may be off again. A teen SEO wants to save his family business...View the full article