Link Building Strategies

A year or more ago, Google added a toggle switch to use Gemini directly in the iOS Google Search app. Well, that was removed this week and you now need to go to the native Gemini app to use Gemini, you cannot use the Google app.View the full article

Microsoft is testing outlining the individual search result snippets within Bing Search. So when you look at a snippet, it has this outline around it, and then when you hover your cursor over it, it highlights more.View the full article

If you go to Google Shopping and enter a query that is not shopping related, Google will add a button above the shopping results asking you to search Google for that query.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

I am seeing the SEO community starting to chatter around a lot of Google Search ranking volatility. Keep in mind, the third-party tracking tools currently seem relatively calm. Often, I see the chatter kick in before the tools catch on but not always.View the full article

Google has updated its "How the Google Ads auction works" page to add a line that says that Google will run different auctions for each ad location.View the full article

Google has released version 19 of the Google Ads API, v19 adds enhanced video assets for Performance Max campaigns, updates to brand guidelines and tons of other additions, changes and removals. View the full article

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

Google is now showing a "top search" definition box below the auto suggestions within Google Search for some searches. I guess it is a quick way for Google to give you a definition for a word.View the full article

Google may be rolling out the high value new customer mode for Google Ads advertisers, after it has been in beta for some time. This setting lets you set different bidding priorities for high value new prospects, regular new customers and existing ones.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 Local Service Ads opts advertisers into booking links, by default...View the full article

Google Ads had a bug with the sitelinks creation page, where the prefill functionality was not working right. Google confirmed the issue and said it was "very limited and was not widespread." View the full article

Google has sent out an email to its Google Local Service Ads advertisers, notifying them that they are now letting searchers use a booking link to schedule an appointment or service, when the booking link is detected on the Google Business Profile of that business.View the full article

A few weeks ago, we saw Microsoft testing green colored sponsored URLs for the Bing search results. Now I am seeing reports of both underlined and bolded URLs and titles of the sponsored results, where the organic/free listings are not underlined or bolded.View the full article

Last April 2024, Gary Illyes from Google said he was on a mission to make web crawling more efficient, he wanted to "figure out how to crawl even less, and have fewer bytes on wire." Gary updated us saying "there's lots more in works" for this but implies some improvements have already been made.View the full article

Microsoft is testing another user interface and experience for the links they show within its AI Answers, the Copilot responses. These links show with a hyperlink icon and the domain name spelled out, and then when you mouse over it, it has a carousel you can flip through for more links.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 more fully AI-powered search engine, which may be named Copilot Search. Copilot is the name of Microsoft's AI features, formerly known as Bing Chat. View the full article

Some sites, hosted on some CDNs (content delivery networks), are experiencing a big spike in server response times for crawling, while seeing a drop in total crawl requests. So technically, the crawling has dropped but Google is taking much longer to crawl a lot less.View the full article

18 year old, publicly traded education technology company, Chegg, has sued Google over its AI Overviews and how it has hurt their traffic and revenue. Chegg has "filed a complaint against Google, which has unjustly retained traffic that has historically come to Chegg, impacting our acquisitions, revenue and employees," said Nathan Schultz, CEO of Chegg.View the full article

Google is testing opening the normally closed/collapsed AI Answer box. Meaning, normally you need to manually tap to expand the answer, here Google is testing opening these boxes by default, without you needing to click expand.View the full article

The Google Search Console API has been delayed for the past several days. Data is days behind the web interface and causing issued for those who use Looker Studio, Big Query and other solutions to see the Search Console data when accessed through the API.View the full article

Google seems to have added, for some merchants, a new section named Physical Stores to the Google Merchant Center Next console. In this section is random data from within the store's Google Business Profiles listing.View the full article

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

A few weeks ago, I reported on how Google was testing showing deeper Google AI Overviews, maybe powered by Gemini 2.0, with over 60 links and citations in them. Well, over the past few weeks, more and more of us are seeing these AI Overviews, with dozens of links within them. And we are asking ourselves, who will click on these links?View the full article