Link Building Strategies

Microsoft is now showing the sources it used to generate its AI-based "from sources across the web" section in Bing Search. If you click on the little i icon, Bing will show you where it pulled the list together from.View the full article

The big Google review count bug, that we first reported on Friday and that later Google confirmed on Monday afternoon, is now being fixed. We can now see review counts climbing again and many small business owners and local SEOs are reporting improvements.View the full article

Google Business Profiles support team is currently a bit delayed, with a backlog of support requests, video verification delays, and reinstatement request backlogs. View the full article

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

It's been almost two weeks since I last reported on a Google Search ranking update (unconfirmed) and that may be a recent record. But that being said, I am now seeing some signs of another unconfirmed Google update. The tools are starting to spike, and I am seeing some limited chatter within the SEO community.View the full article

Google is now using generative AI, and labeling it as such, within the Google Search product details overlay. When you click on a product listing in Google Search, the overlay window has a section called top insights. That section can be generated using AI.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 posted new data that says they answer over 5 trillion queries per year...View the full article

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

On Friday, we reported that the Google local reviews seem to be disappearing or being counted wrong. Well, Google finally confirmed the issue, just minutes ago, in the Google Business Profiles Forums.View the full article

Microsoft Bing Search's Copilot Answers now can show maps and local results, including local ads. The AI answer has a map on the left side and then on the right side it has local organic and paid listings with the company name, address, phone, website and directions - plus a photo. View the full article

Did you know there is a quick way to directly generate an access request for Service Area Businesses in Google Maps? This is apparently not so new but also not widely known.View the full article

Google Business Profiles now can add backgrounds to the images you upload to your Google Posts, using AI. Victoria Kroll from Google wrote that you can now "can create an engaging AI-generated background for the photos you plan to use in the post."View the full article

John Mueller from Google wrote on Bluesky, "and let's be honest, people can tell when author bios are used purely as an SEO tactic. It's kinda awkward, not reassuring." This was in response to a post from Nikki Pilkington who said "Stop treating author bios as an SEO tactic and start treating them as what they are '" a tool for building trust with your actual human readers."View the full article

Microsoft seems to be testing a new related image search box in the main web search results in Bing Search. I personally cannot replicate this, which I take as a sign that this is a test.View the full article

Google's John Mueller said that there is no persistent shortcut to faster crawling. Yes, you can expedite crawling for specific situations and times, but there is no way to just tell Google you want them to crawl you faster, all the time.View the full article

Google is testing a new design for its search results that are more of a grid format, more of a boxed in design. They are not on all the search results elements but more of the search features.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. The Google reviews bug seems to be fixed...View the full article

Google / Alphabet reported its Q4 2024 earnings last night, where its ad revenue hit $72.46 billion, up 10.6% from last year's quarter of $65.52 billion. Google's revenue was up 12% with $96.47 billion and its profit was up 30.7% to $30.9B. Search revenue specifically was up 12.5% to $54 billion.View the full article

Google has added a method to bulk manage the special hours for all the businesses you manage in Google Business Profiles. You can easily copy special hours from one business listing to others.View the full article

Google is testing adding filters to the latest post carousel. These filters can show recent posts, video posts, posts from Instagram, or Facebook. View the full article

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

Google has once again expanded the reach of its site reputation abuse policy, beyond the US enforcement from from May and beyond limited European regions last week - we are now seeing enforcement in the massive German market.View the full article

Martin Split from Google said that having an audio version of a page or a blog post, does not impact your Google rankings. He said it is good for your users, but has no SEO impact.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 seeing new shuffling with the Google search results...View the full article

Remember the Bing shopping / e-commerce cards? Well, now it looks like Bing is putting an ad slot in them and labeled them as ads.View the full article