Link Building Strategies

Google sent out an email to advertisers yesterday about changes coming to Google Tag Manager. Specifically, Google Tag Manager will send events before loading a Google tag and Google calls this a "small change" that "will not harm measurement performance."View the full article

A new study from Columbia Journalism Review showed that AI search engines and chatbots, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Deepseek Search, Microsoft Copilot, Grok and Google's Gemini, are just wrong, way too often. I have said this time and time again, when I see an AI Answer, at this point, I just skip over it because I know I cannot trust it and this proves that.View the full article

A new data report from Rand Fishkin at Sparktoro says that Google Search has seen 21.64% growth in searches year over year. This comes after his study that showed 1/3rd of Google searchers don't search all that much.View the full article

Google can now show the "price at checkout" within the Google Shopping listings, both paid and organic. I am not sure if this is new, being that Google has had policies about suspending merchants who change their pricing at checkout and even allows Googlebot to add items to the cart for this reason.View the full article

Google is testing a new shopping ad format. This format expands product listings available within a store, shows the products with larger images and product details and then lets you swipe through a carousel of those items.View the full article

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

No surprise here - Google will be testing and experimenting with ads in Google AI Mode. Google told Adweek that they will be "explore bringing ads into" Google AI Mode.View the full article

Google has updated its manual actions documentation around site reputation abuse, to expand on the next steps and actions you can take if you receive this manual action. Google now more clearly says that you should not block that content with your robots.txt file, if you use the noindex rule.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 is testing a knowledge panel that includes a places card that can be expanded to show a map and local pack results. I cannot replicate this, which makes me think this is a test. I do see the places section below the knowledge panel, but not one that you can click to expand.View the full article

Google is now using a much larger font for the knowledge panels shown in Google Search. The font size looks jumbo and it does not seem to be test, it seems to be live - I think.View the full article

Google Search is testing a feature to quiz you on the product you are looking for and then to give you more tailored recommendations for product suggestions. This box is titled "get tailored recommendations" and it reminds me of the AI powered recommendation ads, but these are different.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 dropped the horrid page annotations feature, thankfully...View the full article

Google released its much anticipated AI Mode, which is in beta now, but it super cool. Google AI Overviews are now powered by Gemini 2.0. Google had more search ranking volatility this week. Google said they answered...View the full article

Google sent out emails to Local Service Ads advertisers notifying them that their Google Business Profile accounts are not affiliated to your Local Service Ads account. That means your reviews will only be accepted through your Google Business Profile link and not the Local Service Ads link.View the full article

Google Ads has updated its interface for when you select when you want your ads running in specific regions/locations. Now, it has a button to "add locations in bulk," which should help you add locations faster.View the full article

Google may be bringing channel reporting to the Google Ads Performance Max campaigns. I spotted this via Kirk Williams who posted a photo of a slide from Google Think event in Amsterdam where Arjan Schoorl attended. The slide says "Channel Reporting" will be coming to PMax and Demand Gen for increased transparency and controls.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 has this new "Know before you go" section in the search results. I mean, it is new for search, not new for Google Maps and not new for local. But I've never seen a Know before you go box in the search results before.View the full article

Microsoft is now showing why it selects or chooses to show a specific ad directly in the Bing search results. When you click on the arrow down by the URL of the search ad snippet, you will get window dialog that may explain why the ad was shown.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 launched its AI mode, but it is in beta and you need to be added to a waitlist...View the full article

Google has officially announced Google AI Mode, after hearing rumors about it for months and then seeing leaked screenshots of it a few weeks ago. Google said AI mode gives you more advanced reasoning, thinking and multimodal capabilities so you can get help with even your toughest questions.View the full article

In December, Google told us they are testing powering AI Overviews using Gemini 2.0. We think we even saw Google testing this in the wild with deeper AI Overviews with tons of links. Well, now, in the U.S. AI Overviews are officially powered by Gemini 2.0, it is no longer a test.View the full article

Google is testing more favicon designs within Google Search. I mean, we cover these way too often but hey, I like favicons, don't you? View the full article

It looks like Microsoft is testing search ads that auto expand to reveal sitelinks under those ads within the Bing Search results. You don't need to click or do anything and the ad will dynamically expand to show more sitelinks underneath the search ad unit.View the full article