Link Building Strategies

Google has clearly documented how it tracks link clicks, impressions and positions for AI Overviews in this help document. But if you ever saw an AI Overview and interacted with them, you'd know that (1) when you click on a link icon, the citation cards on the right change and (2) running the same query a minute later may return different citation cards.View the full article

Google Ads is bringing brand controls, like brand inclusion support, to Standard Shopping campaigns. This was supported for PMax and AI Max camapigns but now are showing up for Standard Shopping campaigns.View the full article

Google announced a bunch of AI-based search features for Google Shopping, AI Mode and Gemini for the holiday season. Google is rolling out the AI Mode comparison feature (we saw it earlier), calling stores feature, AI price tracking and agentic checkout based on the price trigger.View the full article

Supposedly, there is this "hack" to "crack the code" to make your Local Service Ads work in Google Ads that is fake and not recommended. Folks are saying if your LSAs are not working, you should close that Google Ads account and make a new one. But Google and LSA experts are saying otherwise.View the full article

Google said it has made significant improvements to the Google Ads advertiser suspensions. Google said it reduced incorrect suspensions by 80%, appeals are addressed 70% faster and 99% of appeals are resolved within 24 hours.View the full article

This week, we had a pretty big update touch down early on and it really continued throughout the whole week, I named it the Movember update. Google Opal tool encourages you to create optimized AI content at scale. Google said...View the full article

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

Google seems to be rolling out the annotations feature within Google Search Console's performance reports. This was a feature Google began testing in May and now it seems to be rolling out. I see it, so do many others in our community - do you see it?View the full article

Google Ads top combinations report now has a Top Combinations option for PMax campaigns. This report should be able to quickly show you your top performing assets including logos, headlines, descriptions, images, sitelinks, and other assets.View the full article

We know Google has been using machine learning and more recently, AI, to generate search result snippets descriptions. Well, here is an example of Google getting a snippet not just wrong, but downright insulting. View the full article

Google added a carousel to the top of the image tab within some Google Search apps, I think it might be a test. The carousel lets you scroll through some ideas to get you started with your image search.View the full article

There have been several complaints over the past week about Google showing searchers its old Google Search design. Some of those search results seem to lead to a broken interface, while others just look like they are from a decade or so ago.View the full article

Google Ads may be introducing a new bidding type named Journey Aware bidding in 2026. This will be reportedly for search campaigns using Target CPA.View the full article

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

Google added new features to AI Mode including agentic booking for travel and Canvas for helping you build your vacation. The agentic booking works with dinner reservations and Google previewed booking for hotels and flights.View the full article

Google confirmed a new search algorithm update - well, this is just a weather feature - but it is a stormy one. Well, maybe not. Google said Google Search's weather results were updated to what they call WeatherNext 2 - Google's "most advanced and efficient forecasting model."View the full article

Microsoft is testing a new ad label for the Bing Search ads labeled "Ads related to" followed by the query the ads are related to. In the example below, it shows "Ad related to: Cushions"View the full article

Google Ads has rolled out the "Campaign total budget" feature for Performance Max (PMax) campaigns. This was available for other match types and is now available for PMax.View the full article

For a decade now, Google's John Mueller has been saying consistency is the most important SEO advice you can give someone. In 2025, he said it again, posting on Bluesky, "Consistency is the biggest technical SEO factor."View the full article

Cloudflare, which is used by around 20% of all websites (including this one), is having major outages this morning. Lots of site owners are concerned with how this may impact Google, Bing, and other crawlers. The truth is, these search engines have seen this many times before and it can handle it.View the full article

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

Business Insider interviewed both SEOs and representatives from Google, Microsoft, and Perplexity on what it calls the "GEO rush." The rush for SEO companies or other companies to sell GEO (AI SEO) related services. There are quotes from Danny Sullivan from Google, Krishna Madhavan from Microsoft and more.View the full article

Google Ads may be rolling out a new metric named "Original Conversion Value." This shows the raw data before Google does anything with it.View the full article

Microsoft announced a number of new Microsoft Advertising features including Asset-level editorial review, Conversion Delay insights, callouts for Hotel Price Ads expansion and Microsoft Curate updates.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