Link Building Strategies

Google has added a new user-agent to the user-triggered fetchers named Google-Agent. Google said the "Google-Agent user agent is rolling out over the next few weeks, and will be used by Google agents hosted on Google infrastructure to navigate the web and perform actions upon user request."View the full article

Google confirms it is using AI to create title links on the SERP instead of headlines from news publishers, sometimes. View the full article

The Information wrote "OpenAI's First Advertisers Can't Prove ChatGPT Ads Work." In short, the ChatGPT ad platform from OpenAI shares almost no data with advertisers. It is low tech, there is no ad performance data, and it also has very limited ad targeting features.View the full article

Google seems to have added a new section to the Google Business Profiles section named Place page attributes. Place page attributes allows you to let customers know more about your business by showing attributes on your Business Profile. These may appear publicly on Search, Maps, and other Google services.View the full article

Microsoft seems to be testing a new AI-powered image search interface and result set for Bing Image Search. If you do a search on Bing Images, on the right side you may see a button for "New Version." That new version says you can "try a new version of Image Search."View the full article

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

Apple is reportedly launching local ads within Apple Maps, as soon as this month. "Apple Inc. is preparing to introduce advertising in its Maps app, part of a broader push to generate more money from services," Bloomberg wrote.View the full article

In February, Bing rolled out new AI Performance reports within Bing Webmaster Tools. Bing announced a new feature for this report that connects the Grounding Queries and Pages views within the AI Performance report.View the full article

Google is testing encouraging business owners to reply to reviews using AI. There is a new option in the Google Business Profile dashboard that is showing for some businesses that says "Reply to reviews with AI."View the full article

Google is testing changing out some of the links within AI Mode to show as overlay cards, instead of take you directly to the website it is mentioning. This obviously will result in fewer direct clicks to those websites.View the full article

Google was asked if Personal Intelligence in AI Mode will come to paid accounts across the world (not just the US - where it has hit non-paid accounts). Google replied... (Now is the point where you click on the article...)View the full article

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

On March 17, 2026, Google retired some of its Google Ads policies on Ad format requirements. These are specific to "old ad formats that are no longer in use are also being retired," Ginny Marvin of Google.View the full article

Google added a new section to the "Understand available performance metrics" within the Google Business Profiles help documentation. The new section added a section on offer data and it shows the number of times customers viewed and clicked on offers on your Business Profile.View the full article

Google is testing showing a call to action in the search results that says, "Skip digging, start guided research" which drives users to a Web Guide-like results page.View the full article

There is new data out from Newzdash that shows just how often AI Overviews appear within Google across new sections. And while AI Overviews shows 60%+ of the time for health queries, when it comes to breaking news and major headlines, it shows less than 6% of the time.View the full article

Google had made a few changes to its SEO developer help documentation. First it documented how Google Search handles and processes robots meta tags outside the HTML head. Second, it added more supported properties for Discussion Forum and QA Page markup.View the full article

Google has released the March 2026 spam update on March 24, 2026 at around 3:20 pm ET. This update applies globally and to all languages and will take a few days (not weeks) to complete.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 released the March 2026 spam update yesterday...View the full article

Google is reportedly expanding Shopping Ads eligibility to 15 additional European markets. This is a two phase roll out over the coming months...View the full article

Google Merchant Center updated its landing page requirements to say that products that are out of stock, those pages must have a grayed out add to cart/buy button on that page.View the full article

Google announced it will be updating its Shopping Ads political content policy on April 16, 2026. Google said the update is to "implement additional restrictions on some political content."View the full article

Google Ads has released a minor version update to the Google Ads API. We are now up to version 23.2. 23.2 adds VideoEnhancement resource, updates to HotelSettingInfo, and so many other updates.View the full article

Google is continuing to expand ads across AI Mode and now there's another type of ad unit for retailers to play with. We know that AI Mode is the future of Search and that means Google will need to continue innovating on the advertising front...View the full article

Google is running a test (or a bug) that shows a massive box of citations (massive in size, not in number of citations) at the bottom of AI Overviews. View the full article