Link Building Strategies

This week, we covered yet again some more Google search ranking volatility. Google Discover will be coming to the desktop version of Google's homepage. Google Search Analytics API now shows hourly data for the past ten...View the full article

It appears that Google is letting Reddit's AI translated pages rank too well within its search results. This is in addition to Google letting Reddit get a lot of other search visibility, but AI translation, well, that should really not perform so well.View the full article

Google has updated the list of Google products and services that use the Google Read Aloud user agent. The updated page also says that the "service provides an audio version of web pages by understanding their content through help of AI" but adds, "no data from the page is retained for AI model training."View the full article

Google announced it has refreshed its Shopping tab listings report which it initially launched in November 2022 and renamed it to the Merchant opportunities report. The refreshed report now includes details about payments methods and store ratings, Google said.View the full article

Google is relaxing its photo guidelines for Local Service Ads. This may result in photos that were not previously allowed, may be allowed after May 22, 2025. I am not sure if these photos will automatically show up in your Local Service Ads or if you need to manually approve them after May 22nd.View the full article

Google confirmed it is essentially removing the Q&A feature within Google Maps, and instead, searchers can use the new AI-powered Ask button on a Google Business Profile to get the answers they are looking for.View the full article

Mike Ryan put together the single most comprehensive third-party report on Google Ads Performance Max campaigns. It is free, super detailed, easy to read and chock-full of useful information. And guess what, Google's Ginny Marvin responded to some of the concerns in the report.View the full article

Google's VP of Product at Google Search, Robby Stein, has responded to concerns from publishers around the new AI Mode. Specifically, the concerns around this new AI search interface not being all that encouraging for users to click over to publishers' sites.View the full article

Google posted a new Google Ads update for Response search ads (RSAs) where up to two RSA headlines can serve in the space that previously only sitelinks were eligible for when Google's system predicted they would improve performance.View the full article

Another Google court document from the DOJ trial showed that Google said it is currently rethinking its entire search stack, from the ground up, with LLMs playing a more fundamental role. The doc said:View the full article

A year ago, we learned that Google would transition from Google call ads, call-only ads, to using call assets within responsive search ads (RSAs) but we didn't know the dates. Now, Google said this will happen in two phases: February 2026 and February 2027.View the full article

The big Google review count bug, that we first reported on Friday and that later Google confirmed on Monday afternoon, is now being fixed. We can now see review counts climbing again and many small business owners and local SEOs are reporting improvements.View the full article

Back in October, many businesses reported that reviews left on their Google Business Profiles were disappearing. It wasn't happening to every business, but it was widespread. Last night, I was told the bug had been fixed and that the reviews should be returning.View the full article

Did you know Google can label some of the reviews in the product reviews section as "incentivized"? I am not sure I've seen this before, have you?View the full article

Google is testing an update to the reviews services summary box. We know Google does ask for services attributes and other attributes from both the business owner and reviewers but this review box seems newish.View the full article

Google has been testing its AI advisor in Google Ads and Analytics since 2023, there were some bugs throughout that testing, promoted the test to the top menu and then Google renamed it Ads Advisor in August. Now, Google announced Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor is rolling out English-language accounts globally in early December.View the full article

After several months of testing, Google seems to be rolling out the "Read more" links at the end of some of the search results listings. We saw Google test variations of this back in July and it now seems to be live.View the full article

We all knew it was coming and now Google is roll out early access to Gemini for Home voice assistant in the U.S. You can either say "Hey Google" to your speaker or display to request specific help or answers, or talk naturally with Gemini Live by saying "Hey Google, let's chat."View the full article

Google's Gemini 3 and Nano Banana Pro is now available in AI Mode in 120 countries and territories in English. This expands it from Gemini 3 in AI Mode's initial launch just a couple of weeks ago.View the full article

Digiday reported that a Google spokesperson told them they made link updates to AI Overviews in May 2024 that added more links and made it easier for searchers to click on links. But I don't think that is true, that didn't come until August 2024, and did they really help drive clicks to your sites?View the full article

John Mueller from Google wrote on Bluesky, "and let's be honest, people can tell when author bios are used purely as an SEO tactic. It's kinda awkward, not reassuring." This was in response to a post from Nikki Pilkington who said "Stop treating author bios as an SEO tactic and start treating them as what they are '" a tool for building trust with your actual human readers."View the full article

Google is sometimes showing a hyperlink at the bottom of its search results named "About this data." This links to a Google help document in Merchant Center support named "How Google sources and uses information in the brand profile."View the full article

Google has added price tracking data charts for each retailer within Google Search. On the right side, after you click on a product, Google may show a price chart with pricing over time. Google may also let you click on the available merchants and retailers to see how the price has changed for that specific merchant over time.View the full article

Earlier we reported that Google was testing AI-organized restaurant results in the Google Search results. Now, Google is doing the same for local events; and organizing them with AI.View the full article

Google is now showing AI Overviews within the movie review summaries in Google Search. Under the review summaries is a disclaimer that reads, "Al overviews are experimental."View the full article