Link Building Strategies

Branded queries filtering is now available for all eligible sites within Search Console.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. A lot of you are emailing me where did the newsletter go. You may not have seen it, but I need several days off...View the full article

Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is introducing new optional capabilities for merchants to support agentic commerce across the web.View the full article

News publishers will not be happy to learn that AI Overviews seem to be ranking for breaking news more and more. I noticed this several times recently and shared about it on X yesterday...View the full article

New label tests for news results in the Google Discover feed could make certain news results more clickable. View the full article

Google has added a new user-agent to the user-triggered fetchers named Google-Agent. Google said the "Google-Agent user agent is rolling out over the next few weeks, and will be used by Google agents hosted on Google infrastructure to navigate the web and perform actions upon user request."View the full article

Google confirms it is using AI to create title links on the SERP instead of headlines from news publishers, sometimes. View the full article

The Information wrote "OpenAI's First Advertisers Can't Prove ChatGPT Ads Work." In short, the ChatGPT ad platform from OpenAI shares almost no data with advertisers. It is low tech, there is no ad performance data, and it also has very limited ad targeting features.View the full article

Google seems to have added a new section to the Google Business Profiles section named Place page attributes. Place page attributes allows you to let customers know more about your business by showing attributes on your Business Profile. These may appear publicly on Search, Maps, and other Google services.View the full article

Microsoft seems to be testing a new AI-powered image search interface and result set for Bing Image Search. If you do a search on Bing Images, on the right side you may see a button for "New Version." That new version says you can "try a new version of Image Search."View the full article

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

Apple is reportedly launching local ads within Apple Maps, as soon as this month. "Apple Inc. is preparing to introduce advertising in its Maps app, part of a broader push to generate more money from services," Bloomberg wrote.View the full article

In February, Bing rolled out new AI Performance reports within Bing Webmaster Tools. Bing announced a new feature for this report that connects the Grounding Queries and Pages views within the AI Performance report.View the full article

Google is testing encouraging business owners to reply to reviews using AI. There is a new option in the Google Business Profile dashboard that is showing for some businesses that says "Reply to reviews with AI."View the full article

Google is testing changing out some of the links within AI Mode to show as overlay cards, instead of take you directly to the website it is mentioning. This obviously will result in fewer direct clicks to those websites.View the full article

Google was asked if Personal Intelligence in AI Mode will come to paid accounts across the world (not just the US - where it has hit non-paid accounts). Google replied... (Now is the point where you click on the article...)View the full article

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

On March 17, 2026, Google retired some of its Google Ads policies on Ad format requirements. These are specific to "old ad formats that are no longer in use are also being retired," Ginny Marvin of Google.View the full article

Google added a new section to the "Understand available performance metrics" within the Google Business Profiles help documentation. The new section added a section on offer data and it shows the number of times customers viewed and clicked on offers on your Business Profile.View the full article

Google officially announced the rollout of the March 2026 core update early Friday morning at around 5:14 ET. This core update is expected to take up to 2 weeks to roll out. Google said this "is a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites."View the full article

Google announced that it will begin to highlight data quality account issues related to Vehicle ads within Google Merchant Center. This will begin in mid-April 2026.View the full article

Google Ads and Merchant Center is expanding the Loyalty program features to highlight key perks, expand local and regional visibility, expand internationally and within AI Mode and Gemini.View the full article

Google announced Search Live has launched globally, for all languages and locations where AI Mode is available. Google said this is possible by its "new audio and voice model, Gemini 3.1 Flash Live, which delivers even more natural and intuitive conversations."View the full article

Google announced several new steering updates for Google Ads Performance Max including first-party audience exclusions, budget reporting, full audience reporting and network segmentation in placement reporting.View the full article

Microsoft Bing is testing using rounded corners on short videos and normal videos within the Bing search results interface. Bing used to show these as squared-off edges.View the full article