Link Building Strategies

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

Gary Illyes from Google ranted on Bluesky about folks updating the lastmod date in their sitemap files when all they have changed was the date in their footers copyright line from 2024 to 2025. Gary said, don't do it, it is not enough of a change to the page's content to warrant a lastmod date update.View the full article

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

Earlier this month we reported that Bing was testing ad labels in blue colors. Well, now I am seeing examples of those ads labels without the blue, but rather normal black text and icons on white backgrounds.View the full article

As you know, Google updated its Search Quality Raters guidelines with 11 new pages a couple of weeks ago. But with that, Google also added the term "generative AI" to the quality raters guidelines for the first time, and it is listed 14 times.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

Jordi Ribas, the Head of Search at Microsoft, touted Bing's growth on social media (X and LinkedIn). He wrote, "Since we launched Bing Chat in Feb 2023, we've seen significant growth in users, engagement and even market share on PC."View the full article

Since March 1st, there are many Google Ads accounts that are not serving ads. The Google Ads forum is filled with complaints about this and as far as I can tell, I cannot find a single response from an official Google Ads representative (as of yet).View the full article

Microsoft has updated Bing Webmaster Tools to make selecting the date ranges a lot easier in the performance reports. Now the date selectors are very quick to select, and not deeper inside a menu option.View the full article

Google Business Profile edits may have a bug or some sort of glitch. A number of local SEOs are reporting seeing the message, "Your edit was not approved" when trying to make simple edits to Business Profiles.View the full article

In late February, Microsoft began quietly testing its new AI Search interface and engine probably named Bing Copilot Search or maybe just Copilot Search. Well, now it seems to be more rolled out, according to Mayank Parmar at Windows Latest.View the full article

Did you ever want to validate to see if Google or other search engines can see your tabbed (hidden in a tab) navigation or content? Well, John Mueller from Google listed some ideas on how to do so.View the full article

Google has combined the marketing email preferences within Google AdSense, which may lead to you getting more emails from the Google AdSense team. Google merged the "Customized help and performance suggestions" and "Periodic newsletters with tips and best practices" email lists into one.View the full article

If you try to access your Google Business Profile page right now, you likely won't be able to. It seems Google Business Profile edit section within Google Search is broken and serves a 500 error when you try to do anything.View the full article

Pretty much every data provider that tracks AI Overviews in Google Search are showing that Google is showing AI Overviews more often today than they were a month ago. I am sure this is no surprise to many of you, I mean, we see them so often now.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

Microsoft seems to be testing dropping the AI labels and other interaction features from the Bing Search AI Answers. Or maybe, Bing dropped its AI Answers for normal featured snippets - although, I doubt that. View the full article

Google now supports expressive reactions for Google reviews on mobile search and maps. This shows up when viewing a Google Business Profile's reviews on mobile.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 some big chatter over the weekend...View the full article

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

OpenAI announced big news that its ChatGPT Search service is now open and no longer requires a login or an account. It comes the same day that Google expanded access to Gemini 2.0 to all users and where Microsoft said Think Deeper in Copilot is free for all users.View the full article

We know Google loves to link to its own search results from the AI Overviews, and we have seen those links sometimes go in a loop of sorts. But did you know Google can show the same link to a website in the AI Overviews more than once?View the full article

Google is testing a new shopping ad format. This format expands product listings available within a store, shows the products with larger images and product details and then lets you swipe through a carousel of those items.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 launched its AI mode, but it is in beta and you need to be added to a waitlist...View the full article

Google Search ranking volatility spiked and heated again over the past 24-hours or so. I am seeing renewed chatter spike up yesterday, January 29th and continue through today. I am also seeing that some of the tracking tools are showing an increase in ranking volatility within Google Search over the past day.View the full article