Link Building Strategies

There have been a number of threads on LinkedIn over the past week about how poorly Google Ads AI Max is performing compared to other match types. The conversions or conversion value is greatly below other match types, in early tests, despite Google saying it should deliver 14% more.View the full article

Microsoft announced on Friday afternoon that Copilot now has its own dedicated search experience. Plus, because Microsoft knows how important publishers are to the ecosystem, it is making citations and links way more prominent and clickable. 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. Late last week, into this weekend...View the full article

Google Ads is now showing summaries of your budget settings in the budget and bidding optimization setting. This will summarize what your settings are configured for, at a glance.View the full article

There are reports that Google is showing more free product listings from Google Merchant Center in the Google AI Overview responses. I am told there are two variations of this AI Overview response: one where the favicon and price appear as an overlay, and another where the free listings look more like a map pack.View the full article

Google's John Mueller confirmed that Google is not killing off all forms of schema and structured data support for Google Search. The question came up in a Reddit thread after Google's announcement about more structured data support and search features going away.View the full article

A month ago, we reported Google added a new form to report negative review extortion scams on your Google Business Profiles and local listings. Google also listed some tips on how to handle these extortion attempts. But I am glad to report that some local SEOs are saying this form is working and those extortion reviews are being removed by Google.View the full article

Microsoft is now requiring all third-party publishers to have Microsoft Clarity in order to be paid out for impressions and clicks from Microsoft Advertising.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 is not killing off schema...View the full article

Microsoft is testing placing site favicons at the top of the Bing search results page that when clicked on, anchor you down to the specific search result on the page. This is a test, it does not always show up, but I was able to replicate this in one of my browsers.View the full article

Google emailed advertisers who are leveraging message leads within Google Local Service Ads telling them about the new value-based pricing. Basically, when a seacher uses the "Request multiple opinions" within local results, those leads may result now in higher discounts than the previous 50% discount you would get on those messages.View the full article

Google now lets you add your shipping and returns information within Google Search Console, even if you do not have a Google Merchant Center account. Previously, Google let you do this only if you had a Merchant Center account, that is no longer a requirement.View the full article

Google is now embedding its AI chat feature within the Google Ads advertiser console, specifically in some screens. The "Guide me" button that triggers an AI chat feature was spotted in the policy disapprovals screen.View the full article

Google is reportedly working on a "fix" for the AI spam that routinely shows up within users' Google Discover feed. Google issued a statement to the Press Gazette saying, "We're actively working on a fix" for the fake AI spam stories showing up in Google Discover.View the full article

Google is testing showing normal search ads in an ad carousel at the top of the image search results on mobile. The ads take up a lot of the top real estate of the image results and can be scrolled from side to side.View the full article

Google Ads top combinations report now has a Top Combinations option for PMax campaigns. This report should be able to quickly show you your top performing assets including logos, headlines, descriptions, images, sitelinks, and other assets.View the full article

Supposedly, there is this "hack" to "crack the code" to make your Local Service Ads work in Google Ads that is fake and not recommended. Folks are saying if your LSAs are not working, you should close that Google Ads account and make a new one. But Google and LSA experts are saying otherwise.View the full article

Google said it has made significant improvements to the Google Ads advertiser suspensions. Google said it reduced incorrect suspensions by 80%, appeals are addressed 70% faster and 99% of appeals are resolved within 24 hours.View the full article

This week, we had a pretty big update touch down early on and it really continued throughout the whole week, I named it the Movember update. Google Opal tool encourages you to create optimized AI content at scale. Google said...View the full article

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

Google seems to be rolling out the annotations feature within Google Search Console's performance reports. This was a feature Google began testing in May and now it seems to be rolling out. I see it, so do many others in our community - do you see it?View the full article

Google added a carousel to the top of the image tab within some Google Search apps, I think it might be a test. The carousel lets you scroll through some ideas to get you started with your image search.View the full article

Google Ads may be introducing a new bidding type named Journey Aware bidding in 2026. This will be reportedly for search campaigns using Target CPA.View the full article

There have been several complaints over the past week about Google showing searchers its old Google Search design. Some of those search results seem to lead to a broken interface, while others just look like they are from a decade or so ago.View the full article

Google announced a bunch of AI-based search features for Google Shopping, AI Mode and Gemini for the holiday season. Google is rolling out the AI Mode comparison feature (we saw it earlier), calling stores feature, AI price tracking and agentic checkout based on the price trigger.View the full article