Link Building Strategies

Microsoft is testing different colored URLs for its organic (free) results and its sponsored (paid) results. The organic URL slugs are bold black colored and the sponsored URL slugs are bold green colored.View the full article

Microsoft is testing yet another variation for its favicons in the Bing Search snippets. This one uses a dark gray background, with a circle formatted favicon, next to the search result snippets.View the full article

Microsoft seems to be testing dropping the AI labels and other interaction features from the Bing Search AI Answers. Or maybe, Bing dropped its AI Answers for normal featured snippets - although, I doubt that. 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

Microsoft is testing adding a new box to the knowledge panels within Bing that show related searches. This is obviously to encourage searches to do more queries, to generate more ads and more revenue. Or maybe to help searchers find a more diverse set of topics to search for.View the full article

Microsoft is testing a new format for an AI Answer or AI Summary in the Bing Search results. This shows the AI generated answer as a list of terms that can be expanded and clicked on to generate a new search result set.View the full article

Microsoft is testing a new Copilot answer interface and layout in the Bing Search results. Instead of the grid/block design, Microsoft is testing a more bullet point design, and when you hover over each answer, you get the sources overlay.View the full article

Microsoft is testing another user interface and experience for the links they show within its AI Answers, the Copilot responses. These links show with a hyperlink icon and the domain name spelled out, and then when you mouse over it, it has a carousel you can flip through for more links.View the full article

Microsoft is testing a new local pack design and layout for Bing Search local pack results. Bing is placing these blue boxes, either below the map, to the right side, including different numbered variations.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

Microsoft is testing outlining the individual search result snippets within Bing Search. So when you look at a snippet, it has this outline around it, and then when you hover your cursor over it, it highlights more.View the full article

Bing is testing a pill-shaped favicon design, like Google did a lot last year, and showing both the site name and the favicon in the pill design.View the full article

A few weeks ago, we saw Microsoft testing green colored sponsored URLs for the Bing search results. Now I am seeing reports of both underlined and bolded URLs and titles of the sponsored results, where the organic/free listings are not underlined or bolded.View the full article

Microsoft has opened access to the Copilot feature within Bing Webmaster Tools. I played a lot with it when I was in the limited beta in December and it is a cool nifty feature to use, but I am not sure how critical of a feature it is.View the full article

Bing Webmaster Tools has been down and/or loading incredibly slowly for the past couple of hours. SEOs began noticing this since around 11 am ET and as of the time I posted this story, it is still down or barely loading.View the full article

You can now compare date ranges of data directly in the Bing Webmaster Tools Search Performance reports without having to export it to a third-party tool.View the full article

Microsoft has updated Bing Webmaster Tools to make selecting the date ranges a lot easier in the performance reports. Now the date selectors are very quick to select, and not deeper inside a menu option.View the full article

Fabrice Canel said Microsoft will streamline the Bing Webmaster Tools notifications because, at times, it can be a bit overwhelming. Fabrice wrote on X, "working to streamline things" when Martin MacDonald complained about getting way too many emails from Bing Webmaster Tools.View the full article

Microsoft is now showing two rows of shopping ads at the top of the Bing Search results. There is even an option to expand them to show more ads.View the full article

For the past week or so, news publishers from Brazil have not been happy with Google. It seems that Google Discover is broken for a lot of Brazilians, showing irrelevant content to users and searchers, and not showing content from the typical publishers based in Brazil.View the full article

If you try to access your Google Business Profile page right now, you likely won't be able to. It seems Google Business Profile edit section within Google Search is broken and serves a 500 error when you try to do anything.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

OpenAI announced big news that its ChatGPT Search service is now open and no longer requires a login or an account. It comes the same day that Google expanded access to Gemini 2.0 to all users and where Microsoft said Think Deeper in Copilot is free for all users.View the full article

After initially going live on Wednesday morning, Microsoft did not officially announce the launch of Copilot Search in Bing until late Friday afternoon. Microsoft said, "Copilot Search seamlessly blends the best of traditional and generative search together to help you find what you need '" and meet you where you're at in your discovery journey."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 seems to be ranking Reddit's AI-translated pages all too well...View the full article