Link Building Strategies

Google's John Mueller posted one of his one-liners, where he called some forms of SEO content as "digital mulch." He wrote, "And let's be honest'"most of that SEO content is just digital mulch. (...) If your blog exists solely to rank, it's living on borrowed time."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 questions the need for ccTLDs for all websites that go international. Google's John Mueller calls some SEO content...View the full article

I am sad to report the passing of Andy Drinkwater, a super-experienced SEO and a friend to the search marketing industry. Andy was a UK-based SEO who loved educating his industry by contributing content and attending local events.View the full article

Google's December 2025 core update is now done rolling out, it took 18 days and 2 hours to complete. The core update started on December 11, 2025 at around 12:25 pm ET and ended on December 29, 2025 at around 2:05 pm ET...View the full article

Microsoft made a small update to the Microsoft Advertising console where there is now an "All accounts" tab. This lets you see all your accounts in one place with quick access to account summaries, recommendations and more.View the full article

Google has removed the visit website button from the first screen of the Google Maps hotel results. Instead, you first need to click on the "Check availability" to get to the visit website button.View the full article

Google Search is showing a carousel in the merchant / retailer panel that lets you scroll through the merchant's delivery, return and payment options. This information has been in the Google Search results for a while, but this carousel feels new to me - is it?View the full article

Microsoft Bing is testing loading more people also ask options as you click on them. This is something Google has done for a long time now, but now when you click on an option under the people also ask section within Bing, Bing may load more beneath them - to show you more options.View the full article

Adam and Joanne Gallagher from the food recipe blog, Inspired Taste, has been documenting a lot of really painful and shameful tactics Google is using for its AI responses to some recipes. Adam calls its Google's AI Frankenstein recipes, where it pulls parts of the recipes from recipe bloggers, says it is the brand's recipe, but changes it enough where the recipe is not real and tastes horrible.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. The Google December 2025 core update is done rolling out...View the full article

Google has posted the New Year's Eve Doodle and New Year's Day Doodle on the Google.com home page for when it is New Year's Eve for you and New Year's Day for you.View the full article

Here are the most popular articles on the Search Engine Roundtable by number of comments. In other words, these are the articles with the highest number of comments posted in 2025.View the full article

The Search Engine Roundtable is made up of what you, the search community, are talking about. What are you, the search community, noticing in the search results, whether it be ranking changes, user interface changes, or beyond...View the full article

The Search terms report within Google Ads has this quick dropdown filter that lets you filter by search terms, search terms and landing pages from AI Max, search terms from Dynamic Search Ads and search terms and landing pages from Dynamic Search Ads.View the full article

Several months ago, back in March, Google added a screen to request reviews by sharing a link or QR code with your customers. Now, it seems Google has added a new help page on how to use this feature.View the full article

Google has rolled out fewer confirmed search ranking updates in 2025, then it did in all the past years where Google confirmed these updates. Google rolled out only four confirmed updates in 2025, before than seven in 2024, nine in 2023 and ten in 2022 and 2021.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 Business Profiles adds new help page for requesting reviews via links or QR codes. Google Ads search term report has quick filters...View the full article

It is now official, Google confirmed it has entered "into a multi-year collaboration" with Apple to power Apple Intelligence features and Siri with Google's Gemini models and cloud technology.View the full article

Google seems to have a bug that prevents searchers from leaving hotel reviews directly in the Google Search desktop interface. It works fine within Google Maps and Hotel search interfaces but not in the web search interface.View the full article

Google Shopping is updating its promotions policy to now allow for promotions on subscription fees and abbreviations. This was updated as of this month, January 2026.View the full article

I am seeing signs of a possible Google search ranking update or volatility around January 12, 2026. This is weird in that most of the tools, not all, are mostly calm, but the chatter has picked up and many SEOs are noticing ranking fluctuations. View the full article

Microsoft Advertising has expanded the number of search themes it allows to 50 search themes for Performance Max campaigns. This should be live now but Microsoft will announce it sometime this week.View the full article

The Microsoft Advertising team released a new PDF guide named "From discovery to influence: AEO A guide to and GEO." This guide offers "Practical data strategies to empower retailers for AI search, AI assistants and AI browsers."View the full article

I am seeing a spike in complaints from Google AdSense publishers of earnings dropping again over the past 24-hours or so. This is similar to last week, and it also coincides with an unconfirmed Google search ranking update.View the full article

For the past few weeks, Google Ads has been rolling out a new and faster way to set up an account by using an existing campaign. The option reads, "Create an account with campaign for faster setup."View the full article