Link Building Strategies

I am seeing a number of complaints that Google Analytics real-time reporting is not working properly. Many are complaining that the data looks off and is underreporting, at best.View the full article

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

Over the past few days, I've noticed signs of increased Google Search ranking volatility. I held off reporting on it until now because I wanted to see how things settled, but it does seem like Google is testing ranking algorithm updates, on and off, over the past few days.View the full article

Microsoft is not only testing removing the name "Microsoft Bing" from its search bar and logo, Microsoft is also testing shortening the underline under the search tab to about half the length.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 spoke about when (if ever) independent sites will see their content surface better in Google Search and hint...View the full article

Google announced it has refreshed its Shopping tab listings report which it initially launched in November 2022 and renamed it to the Merchant opportunities report. The refreshed report now includes details about payments methods and store ratings, Google said.View the full article

Google would not give a specific date for when we will see independent sites to start surfacing better and higher in Google Search. As a reminder, Google wrote with the March 2025 core update, "We also continue our work to surface more content from creators through a series of improvements throughout this year."View the full article

Google Search is not just having its AI Overviews link back to itself but also search features like Things To Know. This is all while Google touts how it is seeing impressive growth in search results (artificially inflated?) and while supposedly prioritizing traffic to publishers (made up also?).View the full article

Ginny Marvin, Google's Ads Liaison, said that the Google Ads team is working on improvement the advertiser support experiences and some improvements have been rolling out. "There are ongoing efforts to improve experiences and outcomes for the millions of businesses and agencies around the globe that use Google Ads," Ginny Marvin wrote on X.View the full article

Google has been using AI to write parts of the knowledge panels for some time now. But now it seems, when Google does that, it will show references and link cards, like it does in the AI Overviews.View the full article

Google seems to have added a new section to music knowledge panels named "Behind the music." It seems that this is generated using Google's Gemini AI and gives you a bit of background on the song.View the full article

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

There is a big debate in the SEO community on the topic of schema markup and LLMs. Do LLMs like Microsoft Bing's Copilot, Google's Gemini, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Perplexity and others use schema markup and structured data in any way. Fabrice Canel, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft Bing, said they do.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

Google Analytics real time reporting seems to be lagging again this morning. I woke up to a ton of complaints on social about the real time reporting reports in GA4 are simply not working as expected.View the full article

Labeling your Google Business Profile as kid-friendly is not new, but I don't believe I have ever seen an icon that represents that within the Google Business Profile listing within Google Search. The icon is a pack of crayons that says "Good for Kids."View the full article

Google is testing various link formats in AI Mode. Initially Google launched AI Mode with those tiny paperclip links, but Google, like they've done in AI Overviews, is testing in AI Mode, anchor text links and URL links within the text of the AI response.View the full article

Google's John Mueller was quick to debunk a claim that owning an .esports domain will have no positive SEO effect. He said on Bluesky, "There's no positive SEO effect from a TLD like that."View the full article

Google Ads is rolling out a new way to view some of your reports in a tree table view. "Instead of flat tables, you now get a hierarchical layout where dimensions are stacked visually," explained Thomas Eccel who posted about this on LinkedIn.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 Search ranking volatility is heating up now...View the full article

Google's John Mueller said having "four identical links on a page to another page seems fine & common to me." He said, don't worry if you have that in your navigation, and implied it won't have an impact on your SEO.View the full article

Google seems to be testing removing the green checkmark from the Local Service Ads. I was able to replicate this for the same query, and the same set of advertisers. In one case it has the Google Screened checkmark in green and in the other, it does not.View the full article

About 30 minutes ago, Google sent out a batch of invites to its new AI Mode. I was one who got that email but when I click on the "try now" button, it still tells me I am on the waitlist and I can't access it just yet.View the full article

Google's John Mueller said if you have hreflang tags that point to a 301 redirect, it is probably okay. But you probably also want to automate the process of setting up those hreflang tags so that there is no redirect.View the full article