Link Building Strategies

John Mueller from Google had Danny Sullivan from Google on the Search Off the Record podcast to talk about "Thoughts on SEO & SEO for AI." In short, they both said SEO for AI is the same as SEO for traditional search but then they got into it.View the full article

Google updated its JavaScript SEO best practices document with a new section on how to set the canonial URL when using JavaScript. Google wrote, "The best way to set the canonical URL is to use HTML, but if you have to use JavaScript, make sure that you always set the canonical URL to the same value as the original HTML."View the full article

Google is bringing Gemini 3 Flash to AI Mode, bringing much of Gemini 3's power without waiting too long - hence the "Flash" part of the name. Robby Stein from Google said, "Starting today, we're rolling it out globally in Search as the default model in AI Mode."View the full article

Back in October, many businesses reported that reviews left on their Google Business Profiles were disappearing. It wasn't happening to every business, but it was widespread. Last night, I was told the bug had been fixed and that the reviews should be returning.View the full article

Microsoft is also testing underlining the text of the Bing Ads search snippets and descriptions. I am not sure if those underlined words are links or not but I assume so.View the full article

After almost a month delay with the page indexing report within Google Search Console, the report is now back to its normal timeframe. This morning it was reading that the last updated date was November 21st. Now, it is reading December 14th, which is a normal delay for this report. View the full article

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

Google Discover is testing and maybe rolling out an option to "Tailor your feed." This allows you to tailor the feed with "Say in your own words what you want to see," and Google will try to figure it out.View the full article

If you submitted a review appeal within Google Business Profiles it will likely take longer than normal to hear back. Google's review appeals are delayed and Google cannot provide a specific response timeframe for pending cases.View the full article

Google is testing extremely long and expandable search result snippet descriptions in the search results. These are also AI-generated snippets, which we've seen before, but not this long. This goes on for eight lines of text.View the full article

Google has updated its Manage customer reviews help documentation to expand and clarify the "Understand what happens to your replies" section. It now specifies why a business reply to a review may be hold, how long it takes and more.View the full article

Microsoft is testing the ability to upload an image directly within the Bing search bar. You click on a plus sign and Bing shows you "search with an image" and "make an image." I get the search with an image feature but why add generative AI features, like make an image, in this search bar?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

Nick Fox is the SVP of Knowledge and Information at Google was interviewed again on the AI Inside channel by Jason Howel and Jeff Jarvin. He said a lot of interesting things but said no, Google won't be offering standarized licensing deals for all publishers. He also said that optimizing for AI Search is the same as what you do for web search and normal SEO.View the full article

Google updated its JavaScript SEO documentation to warn against using a noindex tag in the original page code on JavaScript pages. Google wrote, "if you do want the page indexed, don't use a noindex tag in the original page code."View the full article

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

Can you imagine you manage hundreds of clients in your Google Ads Manager Accounts (MCC) gets hijacked. Or your Google Account and your ad campaigns gets hijacked due to an MCC hijack? Well, this stuff happens and it can be incredibly scary and painful.View the full article

Google is now showing the "What to know" section within web search, not just AI Mode, within the product summary bar on the right side. This shows up when you click on a product.View the full article

Google announced that it will be reinstating the suspended hotels in Hotel Center and removing the Suspended Hotels" tab in the "Properties" page of your Hotel Center account.View the full article

OpenAI announced shopping research within ChatGPT, "a new experience in ChatGPT that does the research for you to help you find the right products," as OpenAI put it. This is clearly OpenAI's response to Google's AI Mode and Gemini 3 shopping experiences.View the full article

Google Ads now lets you create up to five custom views on the Overview tab. The Overview now supports custom views and you can add up to five tabs and create Overview pages customised for your unique needs, Google wrote on the Google Ads console.View the full article

Google Ads has supported adding WhatsApp Messenger for a while to your ad extensions. Now, it seems Google is also rolling out support for more messaging apps, including Facebook Messenger and Zalo, the Vietnamese instant messaging multi-platform service.View the full article

The Google local pack within the Google Search results changes, I think. When you click on the "More businesses" button at the bottom of the local pack, you aren't taken into Google Maps anymore; you are taken to the Google Places tab. And then when you scroll to see more, the pagination is broken.View the full article

Google is testing removing the "more" results button for Local Service Ads within the web search results. Instead, you are given the option to expand the results to 8 in total but not click through to see more LSA listings.View the full article

Google Ads is testing two new sections in the Overview tab. There is a new trends section and a new performance by stage section.View the full article