Link Building Strategies

Google is testing replacing the definitions box in the search results with AI Overviews. I am personally able to replicate this but this was posted in Reddit a couple of months ago - I didn't think it was new, but yea, this is been an ongoing test for some time.View the full article

We've seen Google test showing Google Discover on the desktop home page for years now but Google has now confirmed it will be bringing Discover to its desktop Google.com home page in the future. When that will happen exactly, I don't know, but Google did announce it at the Search Central Live event in Madrid this morning.View the full article

Google has been rolling out its new full-width redesign of Google Discover. But the issue is that it is taking publishers' images and cropping them to fit this new width. View the full article

Only two months ago, Google officially rolled out the follow feature on Google Discover. Now, that feature is no longer active and Google has removed the documentation associated with it.View the full article

Google is adding more AI features to Google Discover, specifically pushing people from articles in Google Discover into Google AI Mode. When you click on an article from Google Discover and then click on the three dots at the top right of the screen, you are given three options to go into AI Mode.View the full article

Have you seen those Google Discover notifications that pop up and seem like news notifications from the Google app but what they do is drive you into Google AI Mode. I find them incredibly annoying, because every time I click on it, I think I am going to a news article but instead, I am given an AI-generated AI Mode answer.View the full article

As VP of Engineering for Search at Google, Rajan Patel said months ago - "We're experimenting with various approaches to X in Discover." Google has been super busy with testing various approaches to Google Discover. Here are some of the more recent tests I found via Damien (andell) and Gagan Ghotra over the last few weeks.View the full article

Google has been showing social media posts in Google Discover, including posts from X for a while now, and Google may even show more posts from those you follow. But is Google showing too many social media posts from X in your Google Discover feed?View the full article

Google Discover is testing and maybe rolling out an option to "Tailor your feed." This allows you to tailor the feed with "Say in your own words what you want to see," and Google will try to figure it out.View the full article

Google is now testing summarizing the stories listed on Google Discover with generative AI. Some are calling this adding AI Overviews to Google Discover, which I guess is about the same thing. Of course, publishers may be worried that these AI summaries will reduce clicks from Google Discover.View the full article

Google is supposedly testing an endless, infinite scroll for Google Discover. When I scroll through Google Discover, it eventually just stops and doesn't keep going. But Gagan Ghotra said he is seeing it go on and on forever. View the full article

Google is testing a new widget at the top of the Google Discover feed. It is called "Top Searches," and it will randomly show some of the top searches across Google Search. And guess what, when you click on them, it takes you into AI Mode, not Google Search.View the full article

This is weird. It is 2026, and Google.com, the Google Search home page, is still showing yesterday's New Year's Eve doodle of 2025 going into 2026. But it is after 7 am ET here on January 1, 2026, and on all my devices, I see yesterday's Google Doodle.View the full article

The details from the DOJ and Google monopoly case hearing exhibits just keep on flowing and with that, we have another mention of how Google does look at clicks from the search results. This one talks about how the position of the link can be a bias towards the number of clicks that result gets, so Google had to develop an adjustment of sorts to counter that bias.View the full article

Google seems to have removed the minimum required budget for Local Service Ads. It is not clear if this is intentional or a bug but the box to stop you from setting a budget too low, seems to not be there anymore.View the full article

Google seems to be no longer showing the events carousel, event rich results, in the desktop search results. I see them on mobile search but I cannot trigger them on any browser on desktop search.View the full article

Google seems to have dropped showing the number of reviews are on a page, the review count, next to the review stars, for non-shopping/e-commerce pages. Google Search is now showing rating review values when using AggregateRating mark-up.View the full article

Google's John Mueller announced Google is "simplify the search results page" by removing "some features that aren't being used very often and aren't adding significant value to users." This means more structured data types will be removed, but for some reason, Google did not specify exactly which ones are going away.View the full article

Google has shut down, turned off, and disabled, its new page annotations feature. The feature where Google hijacked your content, placed links in your content, links you didn't add yourself, and directed your content to Google Search. It is no longer, Google shut it down. View the full article

Google launched education Q&A carousel back in 2022 for English languages only. Now, Google has expanded support to include also Spanish and Vietnamese language. Spanish is supported in Mexico while Vietnamese is supported in all Google regions.View the full article

Last month, we covered how we saw an "Incentivized" label on some product reviews within Google Search. Now, Google is emailing merchants and advertisers notifying them that they must properly tag incentivized reviews for Google.View the full article

A couple of days ago, Google sent out an email to owners of Google Business Profile listings. The email was a reminder about the Google Business Profile policies, and it highlighted policies around reviews.View the full article

Google added a number of new features to the event rich results search feature within Google Search. Some of these might not be new, but now on these event results you can share the event, add it to your calendar, see similar events, get more details on the venue and find nearby food and drinks.View the full article

Google quietly updated its AI Overviews ad documentation to say that ads in AI Overviews are supported in Australia, Canada, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, and US. Previously, it just said it was available in the US and "will expand to select English speaking countries soon."View the full article

Google has rolled out AI Overviews to more European regions after we caught them testing these AI Overviews earlier this month. AI Overviews are now officially live in Germany, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.View the full article