Link Building Strategies

Google is testing showing a call to action in the search results that says, "Skip digging, start guided research" which drives users to a Web Guide-like results page.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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Branded queries filtering is now available for all eligible sites within Search Console.View the full article

A new agency-dedicated experience Merchant Center experience from Google should streamline managementView the full article

Google's John Mueller revealed an interesting tip on Bluesky the other day for anyone still disavowing links. John explained that site owners can indeed disavow entire TLDs if they want to. Note...View the full article

Google has offered this feature that shows you your past searches, including being able to see your related activity searches from the Google Search results. Now, it seems, Google added a chart to show that search activity over time.View the full article

A new survey from the aptly named PPCsurvey.com shows that the majority of PPC practitioners believe that PPC is getting MORE difficult.View the full article

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