Link Building Strategies

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. We are seeing more Google Search ranking volatility kick off yesterday...View the full article

We are less than a week after the Google March 2025 core update finished rolling out and we are seeing some heated volatility again, maybe more heated than what we saw during the last core update.View the full article

We've seen a similar format in the Google Shopping results with a show more button to show more shopping ads but now we are seeing something similar within the main Google Search results. Google is testing overlaying a show more button on the second row of Google Shopping ads in the main search results.View the full article

Microsoft seems to be serving produt and shopping results within the Bing Copilot Answer boxes. When I first saw this I thought this was a bug, but it keeps happening and I can replicate this.View the full article

Google is testing promoting the Google Maps app in the desktop interface of Google Maps. Google is placing a little icon at the bottom left corner of the desktop interface that says "Mobile app." When you click on it, it takes you to an overlay that has links to the iOS or Android Google Maps app and a large QR to scan as well.View the full article

Last November, Google began using AI to generate review summaries in Google Maps. Well, now they seem to be showing up in the local knowledge panels on the right side of the Google Search results page.View the full article

Google's Local Service Ads advertiser console, where advertisers go to manage their LSAs, has been inaccessible for many advertisers since this morning. Google has not yet confirmed the issue but I see a number of complaints from advertisers starting at around 8 am ET.View the full article

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

Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, said it again, that Google does not have a system to recognize if a site is run by a big brand and then automatically just ranks it higher. He said on X, "but no, we don't have a brand-ranking system."View the full article

In late February, Microsoft began quietly testing its new AI Search interface and engine probably named Bing Copilot Search or maybe just Copilot Search. Well, now it seems to be more rolled out, according to Mayank Parmar at Windows Latest.View the full article

Google is testing placing vertical gray bars by the search results titles and descriptions, indenting them in a bit, for stylist purposes. I am not sure what this adds to the search results, but Google decided to test it.View the full article

It seems the Google Search local feature that showed Questions and answers on local panels is no longer working for most businesses. I know Google disabled them in India, but they worked fine everywhere else.View the full article

Microsoft Advertising's team posted its monthly recap of what is new with the Microsoft Advertising platform. There are new items across Shopping campaigns, audience ads, and Performance Max (PMax) management and more.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 seems to be ranking Reddit's AI-translated pages all too well...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 is testing adding a disclaimer or piece of text on the AI Overviews within the desktop and mobile search results that says "Check important info." I guess this is Google being a bit more cautious about some AI Overviews?View the full article

Microsoft is testing a new design and user experience for the Bing sitelinks and related searches. The sitelinks have this hover over shadow effect, while the related searches go from a rounded pill design to line separator design.View the full article

Microsoft is now placing quick buttons or tabs to quickly jump from the Bing Copilot Answer to Bing image or video search results. I am not sure why or when Bing decides to show this but they are, for some (not all) queries that respond with a Copilot Answer. View the full article

It's time for the monthly Google Webmaster Report - the April 2025 version. This month we had the Google March 2025 core update kick off and finish rolling out. Google launched AI Mode, AI Overviews are now powered by Gemini 2.0, we saw some weird AI search tests, expansion of AI Overviews and a whole slew of AI changes.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. I posted three different Google March 2025 core update polls...View the full article

Now that the Google March 2025 core update is done, I wanted to share some polls I spotted on this update, including some I posted myself. The theme is, most said their rankings stayed the same, while many saw declines and improvements with the update. Which tells us, this was a normal core update.View the full article

Google is reportedly going to pay $100 million to settle a 14-year-old class action case for allegedly having its Google Ads (as then known, AdWords) serve ads outside of the geographic regions the advertisers targeted.View the full article

Well, it seems to be official now. Starting April 14, 2025 Google will update its Unfair advantage policy to say it is allowed to show the same ad, from the same company, going to the same page, as long as the ad is in a different ad location. Google was just experimenting with this earlier and now it is officially going to be allowed.View the full article

Last month we reported that Google News Publisher Center changes are coming, well those changes should have happened and been fully completed by today. Google updated its help document on the topic to say "Google News is fully transitioning to automatically generated publication pages in late March 2025."View the full article

Google confirmed it is fixing a bug where old, fake and previously removed reviews are resurfacing in your Google Business Profiles. It is unclear how many Business Profiles are impacted by this, but if you see more reviews pop up that were not previously there, this may be why.View the full article