Link Building Strategies

Google added a new crawler, robot, to its list of user-triggered fetchers in the Google crawlers documentation. This specific bot is named Google Messages and it is a fetcher "used to generate link previews for URLs sent in chat messages," Google wrote.View the full article

Google has published a new help document on the topic of Google Business Profile negative review extortion scams. The document explains what they are, how to report the scam, what to expect and more importantly, what not to do.View the full article

We had a few unconfirmed but big Google search ranking updates but we are still waiting on an official core update...View the full article

Google's spam update completed after almost a month rollout, it was pretty wild and got even more wild after the rollout completed. Google AI Mode rolled out to more languages, is more visual, is testing agentic experiences and much more. Google dropped the num parameter causing a huge mess for so many of us.View the full article

In early March, it was leaked that Google Ads will be rolling out channel reporting for Performance Max campaigns. Well, now it is official, Google said they are introducing "'­new'¬'­ channel-level'¬'­ reporting'¬'­ in'¬'­ Performance'¬'­ Max" plus, "full'¬'­ search'¬'­ terms'¬'­ reporting'¬ and'¬'­ more'¬'­ detailed'¬'­ asset'¬'­ reporting'¬'­ that'¬'­ show'¬'­ you'¬'­ all'¬'­ the'¬'­ metrics'¬'­ for'¬'­ individual'¬'­ assets.'¬"View the full article

It is now official, Google confirmed it has entered "into a multi-year collaboration" with Apple to power Apple Intelligence features and Siri with Google's Gemini models and cloud technology.View the full article

A month ago, we reported that Google was testing linking words in the AI Overviews back to its own search results. We felt this set a horrible message but hey, Google did not, instead, Google made it an official feature of AI Overviews because it helps "people more easily explore topics and discover relevant websites," the company told me.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 Ads has this new way to preview your Performance Max campaign ads, with one click. Now you can easily preview your PMax asset group ads from the table by clicking on the images.View the full article

Google Search Console has a bug with its API when filtering on the searchAppearance dimension. This bug occurs when using the notEquals or notContains operators, it will only return rows with the excluded value, instead of excluding those rows.View the full article

OpenAI has officially launched ads in ChatGPT yesterday. The company announced, "Today, we're beginning to test ads in ChatGPT in the U.S. The test will be for logged-in adult users on the Free and Go subscription tiers. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education tiers will not have ads."View the full article

As you may have heard, the latest AI-powered web browser launched yesterday, the much-anticipated OpenAI ChatGPT web browser. OpenAI named its web browser Atlas. The built-in search features seem to be mostly powered by Google Search, for some reason.View the full article

If you look at the source code in some of the responses OpenAI's ChatGPT gives you, you may now see references to ads. The response in the source code says, "InReply to user query using the following additional context of ads shown to the user."View the full article

OpenAI is reportedly scaling up its crawling infrastructure for the holiday shopping season. The folks at Vercel noticed OpenAI adding a lot of new IP ranges for its bots and crawlers.View the full article

As you know, OpenAI will soon show ads on ChatGPT, but now we are hearing that those ads will be charged on a pay-per-view, impression-based model, not a click-based, cost-per-click model.View the full article

OpenAI has updated its spider/crawler it uses for ChatGPT, OAI-SearchBot. The AI company updated the description and details of the crawler information removing that it is used for links and to train OpenAI's generative AI foundation models.View the full article

Asad Awan, who is in charge of monetization at OpenAI was interviewed by his own company on "The Thinking Behind Ads in ChatGPT." It is a 25 minute interview and one part he discusses how he would like to see advertisers simply prompt to create ads and ad campaigns and not have to hire an agency or "performance marketers" to run ads on ChatGPT.View the full article

OpenAI announced on Friday it will begin testing ads in the ChatGPT responses in the coming weeks. The ads will show on the free product and low-cost subscription tier, ChatGPT Go. The ads will show under the main response and not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you. Advertisers will not get conversations with ChatGPT. The ads will be clearly labeled as ads.View the full article

Google is rolling out what it calls "Personal Intelligence" in the Gemini app and it will soon also come to Google Search within AI Mode. Google announced that Personal Intelligence in Gemini "connects Gmail, Photos, YouTube and Search in a single tap."View the full article

I ran a poll yesterday on X asking Would you block Google from using your content for AI Overviews and AI Mode. About 33% of the over 350 responses said they would block Google from using and showing their content in the AI search experiences. 42% said they would not block Google and 25% are not sure yet.View the full article

Navah Hopkins, the Microsoft Advertiser Ads Liaison, asked on LinkedIn if you will be adding Microsoft Advertising part of your marketing mix in 2026? The poll had over 200 responses, with most saying it is already included in that mix but 36% saying they will be adding it to the mix.View the full article

With Google rolling out AI Mode in the US and calling it the future of Google Search, many SEOs are worried about how organic search will lead traffic and conversions for their business and their clients. Well, a small poll showed that most SEO are scared about AI Mode being the future of Google Search.View the full article

I am seeing signs of a possible Google search ranking update or volatility around January 12, 2026. This is weird in that most of the tools, not all, are mostly calm, but the chatter has picked up and many SEOs are noticing ranking fluctuations. View the full article

This is a programming note that I am completely offline for the Passover holiday today. In fact, this post was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today - so you know I am offline. Passover is/was Sunday and Monday...View the full article

This is a programming note that I will be not be posting here for the next several days. I am not exactly sure how long it will take and when I will be back at 100% but I am expecting it to take at least several days.View the full article