Link Building Strategies

Earlier this week, Google announced Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and it has a lot of the industry worried. Once SEO named Ramon Eijkemans said, "I hate to bring this, but SEOs: we're gonna be f$@*ed." John Mueller from Google responded on Bluesky and said, "I disagree."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

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

Google Ads is doing a limited test with some advertisers to allow them to run A/B tests with different product titles and images in Shopping Ads. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, said it is "currently being tested with a small number of merchants."View the full article

Google Ads has reportedly streamlined the selection capability of Manual CPC bidding during the campaign setup. Now the option can be found under the "Conversions" goal, labeled as "Manually set bids."View the full article

Google Ads has made the Campaign total budgets officially live as an open beta for any advertiser to sign up and use. Campaign total budgets are now available in Search, Performance Max and Shopping campaigns within Google Ads.View the full article

Microsoft Advertising announced a slew of new features including new customer acquisition goals as an open beta, Share of voice (SOV) metrics, Asset group-level URL options and tracking templates, increased Search Theme limit, enhanced asset group import, Content Targeting now generally available, Location targeting improvements and Autogenerated assets in Responsive Search ads.View the full article

Over the past few weeks, Google has been showing AI Overviews for local packs, leading some businesses to see huge drops in visibility for their Google Business Profile and local listings. Some businesses are seeing 50% declines or more because of the local pack change.View the full article

Rajan Patel, the VP of Engineering for Search, said on X that Google is making "changes to ranking" to remove prediction content from showing up in the Google Search top stories and news sections. This comes after some sites are posting "prediction" content, predicting that some sports trades may happen, that have not happened yet, and those "stories" show up in the news section as actually having occurred. View the full article

It is another week and more Google Search ranking volatility but this was a weird one. Google launched Personal Intelligence in the Gemini app and it is coming to AI Mode in Google Search. Google AI Mode new ad format...View the full article

I am seeing new signs of yet more Google Search ranking volatility and a possible tweak to the ranking search algorithm. Something kicked off yesterday, January 15th, that the third-party tools picked up on. With this update, there is limited chatter, unlike the previous unconfirmed Google Search ranking update.View the full article

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

Google's John Mueller said that link spam left in the comments section have no effect on Google Search or SEO, (and maybe even your website's performance in Google Search?). He wrote on Bluesky, "These links all have no effect - they're from spammers dropping links into comments. These would not have any effect, positive nor negative, on your site."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

As you know, Google has appealed its search monopoly ruling and with that, filed a number of new documents with the court. One is an affidavit of Elizabeth Reid, Google's Vice President and Head of Search. The other is of Jesse Adkins Director of Product Management for Search Syndication and Search Ads Syndication.View the full article

Apple will reportedly release two new Siri versions, one this year with iOS 26.4 and one next year with iOS 27. Plus, Apple may release an AI pin wearable device in 2027.View the full article

As you know, OpenAI will soon show ads on ChatGPT, but now we are hearing that those ads will be charged on a pay-per-view, impression-based model, not a click-based, cost-per-click model.View the full article

A few weeks ago, we covered how damaging the Google Search results were for recipe publishers and bloggers. It was nicknamed Frankenstein recipes because it would take pieces of these recipes from bloggers, mash them together and ruin them, all while also mentioning the brand name - hurting the brand. View the full article

Google added a new crawler, robot, to its list of user-triggered fetchers in the Google crawlers documentation. This specific bot is named Google Messages and it is a fetcher "used to generate link previews for URLs sent in chat messages," Google wrote.View the full article

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

Last week,I reported on January 15th of a Google Search ranking update with a lot of heated volatility. Truth is, it went through the weekend, but now it is spiking back up again as of yesterday and today - January 20th and 21st.View the full article

Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind CEO, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that Google does not have "any plans" to bring ads to Gemini. This comes even after OpenAI announced ads are coming to ChatGPT.View the full article

Google added an "Answer now" link or button to the Gemini app. Clicking "Answer now" will stop Google's Gemini from thinking and then give you an answer right away using Gemini 3 Flash model.View the full article

Google is testing adding to the verification section of the Local Service Ads detail screen various details and qualifiers. These details and qualifiers include attributes such as Passed License Check" , "Number Of Recent Bookings", "Passed Background Check" And "Has Business Insurance."View the full article

Google announced late on Friday that Gemini 3 Pro is now powered Google AI Overviews for complex queries. Google actually said this last November, but then edited its story to say it was just AI Mode that was powered by Gemini 3 Pro and not AI Overviews. Now both AI Overviews and AI Mode can use Gemini 3 Pro.View the full article