Link Building Strategies

A new data report from Rand Fishkin at Sparktoro says that Google Search has seen 21.64% growth in searches year over year. This comes after his study that showed 1/3rd of Google searchers don't search all that much.View the full article

Google is testing a new ad groups interface for the Google Ads Search campaigns console. This seems to be a simpler interface with fewer options than the current version.View the full article

Google now is showing Performance Max terms in the Google Ads search terms report. Plus this report shows the new negative keywords terms that is now supported for PMax campaigns.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 testing adding links to AI Overviews that generate clicks, but these links go to Google Search...View the full article

Google has expanded where the Structured data carousels (beta) search feature works and for what types of queries. When it first launched, about a year ago, it was available for flights queries in Germany, France, Czechia, and the UK. Now it is available for queries related to ground transportation, hotels, vacation rentals, local business, and things to do (for example, events, tours, and activities) in all European Economic Area (EEA) countries.View the full article

Google had some more ranking volatility around the Super Bowl weekend. Reddit blamed Google for not meeting its expected user growth. Google Search is now faster for some users. Google had a reviews count bug that it later confirmed and later fixed...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 testing replacing the local pack in the search results with AI Overviews...View the full article

Now that the Google March 2025 core update is done, I wanted to share some polls I spotted on this update, including some I posted myself. The theme is, most said their rankings stayed the same, while many saw declines and improvements with the update. Which tells us, this was a normal core update.View the full article

Google Ads has updated its interface for when you select when you want your ads running in specific regions/locations. Now, it has a button to "add locations in bulk," which should help you add locations faster.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 was ruled an illegal monopoly once again...View the full article

OpenAI has begun rolling out shopping search features directly into ChatGPT Search across fashion, beauty, home goods, and electronics categories. These are not ads or affiliate-driven, but they are powered by structured data from third-party sources.View the full article

We've seen the clipable coupons within the search results for several years now and in store listings and many places, but have we seen them in local knowledge panels? Maybe, I am not sure.View the full article

Google is testing placing vertical gray bars by the search results titles and descriptions, indenting them in a bit, for stylist purposes. I am not sure what this adds to the search results, but Google decided to test it.View the full article

Microsoft Advertising's team posted its monthly recap of what is new with the Microsoft Advertising platform. There are new items across Shopping campaigns, audience ads, and Performance Max (PMax) management and more.View the full article

Google admitted in a video published on its own Search Central YouTube channel that if searchers do not use your page(s) in the search results, those pages may stop showing up in the search results. Martin Splitt said this in a recent YouTube short he posted where he said, "if pages fall off the index again... users don't really use them in search results."View the full article

We are less than a week after the Google March 2025 core update finished rolling out and we are seeing some heated volatility again, maybe more heated than what we saw during the last core update.View the full article

Dwarkesh Patel interviewed Jeff Dean and Noam Shazeer of Google and one topic he asked about what would it be like to merge or combine Google Search with in-context learning. It resulted in a fascinating answer from Jeff Dean.View the full article

Google has switched from updating its googlebot.json file, the file that contains the list of IP addresses Googlebot uses, from weekly to daily. Gary Illyes from Google said this was done based on feedback from the community.View the full article

Google AdSense has updated its policy center by adding three new issue labels; policy issue, regulatory issue, and advertiser preference and also adding new filters. Google said this is to "help you better understand, prioritize, and resolve your issues."View the full article

Microsoft is testing a new design and user experience for the Bing sitelinks and related searches. The sitelinks have this hover over shadow effect, while the related searches go from a rounded pill design to line separator design.View the full article

Google is testing a new link feature in the search results, it is in the form of a link box, in the search result snippet, that when you click on it, it anchors you down on the page to a specific portion of that text.View the full article

Google Ads conversation started goals section, where you setup WhatsApp messages within Google Ads, has new tabs. Google added diagnostics, store diagnostics, and webpages.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...View the full article

Microsoft is at it again with its search engine - Bing. Previously, when you searched for Google, they tricked you to think you were searching Bing and then hide Google completely from its search results. Now when you search for Chrome, Gemini, Grok or even Perplexity - you are given a banner to use Microsoft products and not use Google, X or Perplexity.View the full article

Google is testing showing images within the sitelinks carousel in Google Ads and sponsored results. We've seen images in sitelinks before, numerous times, but here is a version of them in the ads extension.View the full article