Link Building Strategies

Google sent out an email to advertisers yesterday about changes coming to Google Tag Manager. Specifically, Google Tag Manager will send events before loading a Google tag and Google calls this a "small change" that "will not harm measurement performance."View the full article

There are a number of advertisers in the local space who are complaining that the lead quality has been worse than ever in the past few months. They blame the new automated ad credits system, which removed the method for advertisers to manually request lead credits for poor quality leads.View the full article

Google / Alphabet reported its Q4 2024 earnings last night, where its ad revenue hit $72.46 billion, up 10.6% from last year's quarter of $65.52 billion. Google's revenue was up 12% with $96.47 billion and its profit was up 30.7% to $30.9B. Search revenue specifically was up 12.5% to $54 billion.View the full article

On Friday afternoon, Danny Goodwin covered a 170 or so page PDF that Search Engine Land received from an anonymous tip named "Preference Ranking Guidelines." It looks to me similar to the Google Quality Raters guidelines that continuously leaked until Google began publishing them for all to see.View the full article

Google has confirmed that Apple will be adding its Gemini AI service to Apple Intelligence by the end of 2025, reports are saying. We knew this would happen but we should also expect Apple to add not just Gemini but other AI services to Apple Intelligence. View the full article

Apple seems like it may be preparing integration Google Gemini in Apple Intelligence as an option for its users to select. Aaron Perris from MacRumors spotted hints in the iOS 18.4 beta code that Google is listed alongside OpenAI as a "third party model."View the full article

Apple has made some updates to its Applebot documentation, primarily explaining the difference between the normal Applebot crawler and the Applebot-Extended crawler. To be clear, Applebot-Extended is not new, Apple introduced it about a year ago but Apple wanted to clarify how blocking Applebot-Extended impacts Applebot, if at all.View the full article

It's time for the monthly Google Webmaster Report - the April 2025 version. This month we had the Google March 2025 core update kick off and finish rolling out. Google launched AI Mode, AI Overviews are now powered by Gemini 2.0, we saw some weird AI search tests, expansion of AI Overviews and a whole slew of AI changes.View the full article

It looks like Microsoft is testing search ads that auto expand to reveal sitelinks under those ads within the Bing Search results. You don't need to click or do anything and the ad will dynamically expand to show more sitelinks underneath the search ad unit.View the full article

Microsoft is testing placing a new tag on some sponsored ads within the Bing Search results. This tag is in blue and says "Local Business," which I guess helps promote local businesses near you.View the full article

Recently, I've been complaining that Google is linking many of its search features back to more search results, this is also includes the AI Overviews. Well, Bing Search is also doing this for some of their AI-based answer snippets.View the full article

Microsoft Bing's shopping carousel results have a "buy now" button that now links directly to the checkout page of the merchant. So when you click on buy now, it adds that item directly to the cart of the merchant's website.View the full article

Microsoft has this new style for some of the Bing Search Copilot answers. They can show a card or box that has a tabbed carousel where you can swipe through different sections of an article to get different categories of answers for the topic.View the full article

Microsoft is now placing quick buttons or tabs to quickly jump from the Bing Copilot Answer to Bing image or video search results. I am not sure why or when Bing decides to show this but they are, for some (not all) queries that respond with a Copilot Answer. View the full article

Microsoft Bing is testing placing a "more videos" section in the Bing Copilot answers. Recently we covered how Bing placed images and video links but this implementation makes more sense.View the full article

Microsoft is testing adding a read more link to the Bing Copilot Answers in Bing Search. The read more link will expand the answer to show more content, generating a more detailed and longer answer for your query.View the full article

Microsoft Bing Search's Copilot Answers now can show maps and local results, including local ads. The AI answer has a map on the left side and then on the right side it has local organic and paid listings with the company name, address, phone, website and directions - plus a photo. View the full article

Microsoft is now showing the sources it used to generate its AI-based "from sources across the web" section in Bing Search. If you click on the little i icon, Bing will show you where it pulled the list together from.View the full article

I don't know if you might also like this, you probably won't but Bing is dropped ads in their featured answers, featured snippets. They are calling these ads "You might also like."View the full article

Microsoft seems to be testing a new related image search box in the main web search results in Bing Search. I personally cannot replicate this, which I take as a sign that this is a test.View the full article

Microsoft is testing trending icons on Bing Search's related searches section. We've seen both Google and Bing use trending icons in various search features over the years, but now Bing is testing them on the related searches feature.View the full article

Microsoft is testing removing its name, i.e. Microsoft Bing, next to the logo in the Bing Search bar. Normally the search bar has the Microsoft Bing name next to the logo on the left side of the search bar, now Microsoft is just testing showing the logo.View the full article

Remember the Bing shopping / e-commerce cards? Well, now it looks like Bing is putting an ad slot in them and labeled them as ads.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

Microsoft Bing is testing placing the sources section of its AI Answers in a carousel view, instead of a list view. This let's you scroll through the sources as opposed to just seeing them below in a list view.View the full article