Link Building Strategies

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

Google officially announced the rollout of the December 2025 core update on Thursday at around 12:25 pm ET. This core update is expected to take about 3 weeks to roll out. Google said this "is a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites."View the full article

Google is now sending email notifications for when Google Business Profiles has removed the restrictions on your reviews and ratings. The email says, "Restrictions on your reviews and ratings have been removed" and it comes from the Google Business Profiles team.View the full article

On Wednesday, Google announced a number of new AI features, which we covered (links below) but one other feature Google spoke about was "AI-powered article overviews." This is an experiment Google News is trying with a handful of publishers.View the full article

Google Maps is updating its share buttons by removing the options to share on X and adding the options to share on Reddit and Facebook. View the full article

Brad Geddes dug into how he felt "AI Max can The President your existing exact and phrase match keywords and then claim credit for the conversions and revenue." And then Google's Ad Liaison, Ginny Marvin responded to those specific examples on why this happened and what Google is changing in the future with Google Ads AI Max.View the full article

Google announced that Gemini can now respond to your local questions with local results in a "rich, visual format." Google will visually lay out the local results to include photos, ratings, and real-world info from Google Maps data.View the full article

In this week's recap, we covered that the Google December 2025 core update was unleashed. Google also said more core updates are definitely on their way and one should be coming soon Google also updated its...View the full article

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

Google announced the Google December 2025 core update on Thursday afternoon, December 11th, and it already has a significant impact on Google Search results. The most noticeable day of the impact was Saturday, December 13th, but there are plenty of signs it started to hit hard on Friday, December 12th.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

Google is testing showing full detailed property sale listings within the Google Search results. This is getting a lot of interest from those in the real estate business.View the full article

Microsoft is testing a "see more" button in the Bing Search results, which, when you click on it, loads more search results in the middle section.View the full article

Google's John Mueller said that it is impossible for Google to pre-announce quality improvements to Google Search, including core updates. He said, "having quality changes ready for a specific date/time is never a given, and pre-announcing for a fixed date isn't possible."View the full article

On Friday, Google announced a number of updates around translation, language, audio, voice interactions and thus Search Live. Google said it released a more "fluid and expressive conversations when you go Live with Search."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. We are starting to see big movement from the Google December 2025 core update...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

Google Search Console's performance report seems to finally be all caught up and up-to-date as of last night and this morning. I am seeing the normal two-hour or so delay, which has always fluctuated from an hour to five hours on a normal day.View the full article

Earlier this month, we documented that the average position sharply increased for many sites when Google made that num 100 change blocking a lot of automated queries. Well, for some sites, that number is dropping again, which may mean that there is a workaround for the blocking of those bots and automated queries.View the full article

Microsoft made a small update to the Microsoft Advertising console where there is now an "All accounts" tab. This lets you see all your accounts in one place with quick access to account summaries, recommendations and more.View the full article

Google Search is showing a carousel in the merchant / retailer panel that lets you scroll through the merchant's delivery, return and payment options. This information has been in the Google Search results for a while, but this carousel feels new to me - is it?View the full article

Google has removed the visit website button from the first screen of the Google Maps hotel results. Instead, you first need to click on the "Check availability" to get to the visit website button.View the full article

Microsoft Bing is testing loading more people also ask options as you click on them. This is something Google has done for a long time now, but now when you click on an option under the people also ask section within Bing, Bing may load more beneath them - to show you more options.View the full article

Google's December 2025 core update is now done rolling out, it took 18 days and 2 hours to complete. The core update started on December 11, 2025 at around 12:25 pm ET and ended on December 29, 2025 at around 2:05 pm ET...View the full article

I am sad to report the passing of Andy Drinkwater, a super-experienced SEO and a friend to the search marketing industry. Andy was a UK-based SEO who loved educating his industry by contributing content and attending local events.View the full article