Link Building Strategies

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

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

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

Google's Robby Stein reiterated that Google's AI experience, such as AI Mode and AI Overviews, integrates Google's core search signals. This helps Google provide more useful and helpful responses to users in the AI experiences. But it doesn't always get it right, as many of you know.View the full article

In a rare Sunday launch, Google announced new AI Mode ads named Direct Offers. Google also announced branded AI agents and a new open standard for agentic commerce it calls Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP).View the full article

Google Ads has a new experiment feature for Performance Max campaigns that lets you A/B-test assets. This allows you to compare the performance of 2 different sets of assets within the same asset group to find out which creative combination works best for your Performance Max campaign.View the full article

Google announced new Business Agents, branded AI Agents, a "new way for shoppers to chat with brands, right on Search," Google said. "It's like a virtual sales associate that can answer product questions in a brand's voice, enabling retailers to connect with consumers during critical shopping moments and help drive sales," Google added.View the full article

Google Ads seems to be slowly rolling out a new Google Ads experimental feature in the Google Ads Lab section named Brand Linking. Brand linking lets you "Link customers to brands," it reads.View the full article

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

This week, yep, we had another story on Google Search ranking volatility. I posted the Google webmaster report for January 2026. Google Discover seems to be showing too many...View the full article

Google's Danny Sullivan and John Mueller spoke on the Search Off the Record podcast about whether hiring an AEO/GEO or buying an AI-optimization tool is any different than hiring an SEO or buying an SEO tool. In short, the advice is the same - both Googlers said.View the full article

Google's Danny Sullivan said on the Search Off the Record podcast that was published yesterday that Google does not want you to turn your content into bite-sized chunks to rank well in LLMs. He said, "we don't want you to do that" and he even spoke to Google engineers about this.View the full article

Microsoft announced its AI-agents agentic experiences under the names of Copilot Checkout and Brand Agents. Copilot Checkout lets you shop and checkout directly in the Copilot chat experience and Brand Agents lets you add AI-chat experience to your site, and the AI is trained on your product data.View the full article

In September, we posted about a number of local pack design tests from Microsoft Bing. But now, Bing might be testing a more retro, older-looking interface for the local pack in the Bing search results.View the full article

Navah Hopkins, the Microsoft Ads Liaison, posted a reminder on LinkedIn, encouraging advertisers to ensure the email settings are all configured properly. You can get monthly invoices, billing alerts, account notifications, ad and keyword rejection notices, optimization and performance tips and more.View the full article

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

Microsoft is hiring a "very" Senior Product Manager who will initially work on fighting spam across Bing and Copilot. Fabrice Canel said this is a "very" senior PM role and the job description says the "initial focus on reducing Spam in Copilot, Bing, MSN and Ads."View the full article

Greg Gifford, a veteran automotive and local SEO, published a hard warning to vendors suggesting that they tell automotive dealerships to set up separate Google Business Profile department listings for separate services. He said, do not, do not, do this and that it can lead to your Google Business Profiles being suspended and removed from Google Search and Google Maps.View the full article

John Mueller, a Google Search Analyst, responded to a question on Reddit named Is SEO still enough, or do we need to start thinking about GEO too? In short, John said you should look at the "full picture, and prioritize accordingly."View the full article

Adam Wathan the creator of Tailwind CSS posted that he had to let go of 75% of his engineering team because of AI. He said traffic to the Tailwind help documentation is down 40% and that is where most people learn about his solution and then buy commercial products. He added his revenue is down 80%.View the full article

Google seems to be testing showing call assets on Vehicle Ads within Google Search. So on the Vehicle Ads there is a way to call the dealer or seller, like you see on some other ads.View the full article

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

There are a number of SEOs and site owners complaining that they saw a large drop in Google Search rankings yesterday, January 6, 2026. This unconfirmed Google update does not feel as widespread as some of the previous ones we reported on but I wanted to document this one as such, just in case some of you are impacted.View the full article

Google will update how it handles multi-channel products, products sold both online and locally in the store, to help with managing inventory. Google emailed merchants that this applies to and the changes go into effect this March.View the full article

Microsoft is testing a much larger "Ask Copilot" button on the Bing home page. Normally, Bing only has a small Copilot logo on the right of the search box but in this test, Bing writes it all out - "Ask Copilot" with the logo.View the full article