Link Building Strategies

Google's John Mueller explained that changing the dates in your XML Sitemaps lastmod date to all show today, the most recent day, won't favor your rankings or SEO. He said on Reddit, "setting today's date in a sitemap file isn't going to be something that works in favor of anyone, it's just lazy."View the full article

While you can access Google AI Mode directly at google.com/aimode, there is currently no way to go direclty to something like google.com/aimode?q=QUERYGOESHERE. But that might come, said Robby Stein, VP, Product at Google Search.View the full article

Google is sending some of its advertisers personalized emails about how they can boost their ads performance by following a few steps. The email is titled, "Your step-by-step guide to boost ads performance."View the full article

Google Business Profiles has another bug, this time with the toggle to hide or show the business address. The toggle for "Show business address to customers" just does not work - I even tried it myself and it is not working for my business.View the full article

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

Google Posts/Updates are starting to disappear from the local panels within Google Search. I saw complaints about this yesterday and tested it by adding a post myself on my business, it was there, until it wasn't. Now I see a huge number of complaints that posts or updates are missing from Google local panels.View the full article

I am hearing reports that Google is showing driving direction request data on the Google Business Profile API for Service Area Businesses (SABs). SABs do not get a directions button, because those addresses are hidden in Google Search and Google Maps - so how does anyone trigger driving directions to that business? View the full article

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

Google is testing a new sub or secondary menu under the search bar in Google Search. This secondary menu, or sub-menu, is below the main search vertical options and is missing the bubble format that we've seen Google use for this sub-menu.View the full article

Yep, we are seeing more Google search ranking volatility mid-week. I posted the monthly Google webmaster report for February. Google Ads has a new quality update that accounts for user navigation experience...View the full article

Google Ads has added explanations for your performance changes directly in the charts and graphs in your Google Ads console. You can click the highlighed section of the graph to see explanations for your performance changes, like cost increases or decreases. 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's CEO, Sundar Pichai...View the full article

Nilay Patel of The Verge had a great one-on-one conversation with Sundar Pichai, Google's CEO. Nilay did put on the pressure around how the changes with AI Overviews and AI Mode in Google Search are impacting publishers in a very negative way, but Sundar seemed unconvinced that web publishing is dead.View the full article

Microsoft is testing a new pagination bar for its Bing Search results. Instead of the left arrow, page numbers and then right arrow, Bing is testing showing a "Next" button and then a "Prev" button.View the full article

Google has just given up on a third-party cookie alternative. Google announced it will maintain its "current approach to offering users third-party cookie choice in Chrome, and will not be rolling out a new standalone prompt for third-party cookies."View the full article

This week, guess what, we saw more Google search ranking volatility heat up mid-week. Several new studies have come out showing that AI Overviews hurt click-through rates from search results. Google will stop supporting the...View the full article

Google is now pushing search ads on AI Mode and the desktop version of AI Overviews. Google's Vidhya Srinivasan said at Google Marketing Live, "we're expanding ads in AI Overviews to desktop, and bringing ads to AI Mode to create new opportunities for our customers."View the full article

We've seen variations of Google's popular products section in the search results show both article and video content reviews. But now we are seeing another format for it, one that even links to laptop reviews from 55 years ago, a good ten years before the Osborne 1 hit shelves.View the full article

Google launched its shopping / e-commerce card in the search results as a test several months ago. Since then, the card has undergone various tweaks. Now, Google is testing showing an animated/playable video in the shopping card block.View the full article

As I covered yesterday, Google is going to redirect its ccTLDs to Google.com. And as I reported yesterday, Google also said "it won't affect the way Search works." Despite Google saying that, there are tons of people in our industry thinking that international SEO has changed with this announcement - it has not.View the full article

Google has published two new help documents on the topic of AI; one on guidance on using generative AI content on your website and the second on AI features and your website. Google also published a blog post on the topics over here.View the full article

Google is testing a "recently viewed" label in the search results, next to search result snippets that you have clicked on in your recent search history. This is similar to the you visit often label and the other recently visited examples we've seen over the years.View the full article

Google Ads is updating its Ads Transparency policy to specify that it will display the payment profile name as the payer name for verified advertisers, if that name differs from their verified advertiser name, starting this month.View the full article

Google released its annual metrics on how well it did with fighting spam on Google Maps. In short, Google said it blocked or removed more than 240 million policy-violating reviews, blocked or removed more than 70 million policy-violating edits, removed or blocked more than 12 million fake Business Profiles and placed posting restrictions on more than 900,000 accounts.View the full article

Google's John Mueller does not want you to lump programmatic SEO with technical SEO. He said they are different things and that while technical SEO "will definitely continue to be a thing," programmatic SEO is another story.View the full article