Link Building Strategies

Google has this new map unit that is titled "Related places" and shows a map with a carousel beneath it of related places. This actually comes up for brand name searches, which isn't great - why would you want Google to show competitor names when you search for a specific brand name.View the full article

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

We are seeing more Google search ranking volatility hit both over the weekend and also mid-week. Google expanded its site reputation abuse enforcement to Germany. Google AI Overviews powered by Gemini 2.0 can go insanely deep. Google launched a new labs experiment named Ask for me...View the full article

Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, has confirmed that demographic exclusions will apply to Shopping inventory in Performance Max campaigns. Marvin added that the reporting on how this is shown to advertisers is still to be determined, but the goal is to let advertisers control which age groups can or cannot see the ads.View the full article

Google is testing (I think again) review carousels and block units in its search results for product queries. A number of SEOs spotted these coming up over the past week or two, and they basically show product review content in a separate section within Google Search.View the full article

Google Search is now sometimes showing the ability to filter products in its search results by product rating. I am not sure if this is new or not, but I cannot replicate this but some are seeing the product rating filter/refinement option when searching.View the full article

Google is testing a new filter for its shopping results in the mobile search results. Instead of showing a single filter menu, Google is showing a product image carousel line first and then a filter menu for additional search filters.View the full article

Google has a new Search Labs feature named Ask for me. Ask for me will have Google call businesses for you, to figure out the cost of the service and when it can be scheduled for you. It is like that Duplex feature we saw years ago, where Google would try to schedule a restaurant reservation for you.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 seems to be spiking once again...View the full article

Google Search ranking volatility spiked and heated again over the past 24-hours or so. I am seeing renewed chatter spike up yesterday, January 29th and continue through today. I am also seeing that some of the tracking tools are showing an increase in ranking volatility within Google Search over the past day.View the full article

Did you know there is a quick way to directly generate an access request for Service Area Businesses in Google Maps? This is apparently not so new but also not widely known.View the full article

Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, explained why Google is only letting you add up to 100 negative keywords to your campaign-level negative keywords within your Performance Max campaigns on Google Ads.View the full article

We recently covered how you can now drag and drop menu items for your restaurant in your Google Business Profiles. But Google also seemed to add the ability to move menu items between sections of your menu and the ability to batch edit pricing of menu items.View the full article

In early December, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, said Google is starting to test powering AI Overviews with Gemini 2.0. Well, we may be starting to see some of that in the wild, with much deeper and detailed AI Overviews and citations.View the full article

Microsoft reported its second quarter 2025 earnings and it showed that its search and advertising revenue was up 21%. The previous quarter it was up 18%, then 19% but before than it was 12% and 8% - so things are looking more positive.View the full article

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

Google has once again expanded the reach of its site reputation abuse policy, beyond the US enforcement from from May and beyond limited European regions last week - we are now seeing enforcement in the massive German market.View the full article

Google may have pushed some improvements to the reporting system within Google Search Console. Now Google can show how soon the report was updated within a 30 minute interval. So instead of showing last updated 3 hours ago or 4 hours ago, as an example, Google can show 3.5 hours ago.View the full article

Earlier this month, the Google Ads industry had a lot of confusion around if and in what cases the Google Ads API accept or support placement exclusions for Performance Max campaigns. Well, Google's Ginny Marvin clarified this the other day in an email to Navah Hopkins.View the full article

Google AI Overviews, even when not signed into a Google Labs project, is providing coding and programming examples and help. This started sometime yesterday, I believe, and before, I believe you had to opt into a Search Labs experiment to trigger this.View the full article

John Mueller from Google noted that he finds it "interesting" how those who spend time in our industry "can often recognize made-for-search-engine content fairly quickly." Meaning, we are good at seeing a piece of content on the web and knowing if it was created to perform well in search or written by a normal user trying to help others.View the full article

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

Google Ads is testing adding a new column to its Performance Max reports named "Used Since." This column is visible on the asset level and it shows the date an asset was added.View the full article

John Mueller from Google said that merging content is always more challenging than a basic site move. Meaning, when you take a look at your content on your site and decide to merge a bunch of the content into fewer URLs, that takes longer for Google to handle than moving a site from domain A to domain B with no other changes.View the full article

Gary Illyes from Google said that if a URL has a status within Google Search Console as "URL is unknown to Google" that means that URL is really unknown to Google and has zero priority within Google Search systems.View the full article