Link Building Strategies

Earlier this year, we spotted a new type of Google Ads campaign option named Search Max. Well, now it was spotted again, the configuration and set up of Search Max with a beta label on it.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 increased the negative keywords for PMax from 100 keywords to 10...View the full article

Initially when Google Ads released the ability to add negative keywords to your Performance Max campaigns, Google limited it to 100 keywords. We asked why only 100 back then. Well, Google listened to the ad community and increased that from 100 to 10,000 negative keywords.View the full article

Google has updated its Google Ads review process policy documentation to clarify that it uses both AI and human evaluation for removing ads, assets, destinations, accounts and other content that goes against the Google Ads policies. View the full article

Google is testing a quick way to copy a link to a search results page and share it with a friend. There is this paperclip icon at the top right of the search results page that lets you copy link to the clipboard. That then generates a goo.gl URL shortener link to share.View the full article

Google has released version 2.9 of the Google Ads Editor. This new update brings a number of new features including support for manager account (MCC) owned labels, shopping ads on excluded brands, age exclusions in PMax campaigns, enhanced CPC deprecation, multi-tab export/import to Google Sheets, ad previews for RSA and asset groups and more.View the full article

Google Ads may now be pushing you to create an experiment ad when you dismiss the recommendations Google Ads is suggesting. So when you dismiss a recommendation, Google Ads can get feisty and push you to at least create an experiment based on that recommendation.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. A new study shows AI search engines way too often gets the answer wrong...View the full article

Google sent out an email to advertisers yesterday about changes coming to Google Tag Manager. Specifically, Google Tag Manager will send events before loading a Google tag and Google calls this a "small change" that "will not harm measurement performance."View the full article

A new study from Columbia Journalism Review showed that AI search engines and chatbots, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Deepseek Search, Microsoft Copilot, Grok and Google's Gemini, are just wrong, way too often. I have said this time and time again, when I see an AI Answer, at this point, I just skip over it because I know I cannot trust it and this proves that.View the full article

A new data report from Rand Fishkin at Sparktoro says that Google Search has seen 21.64% growth in searches year over year. This comes after his study that showed 1/3rd of Google searchers don't search all that much.View the full article

Google can now show the "price at checkout" within the Google Shopping listings, both paid and organic. I am not sure if this is new, being that Google has had policies about suspending merchants who change their pricing at checkout and even allows Googlebot to add items to the cart for this reason.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...View the full article

No surprise here - Google will be testing and experimenting with ads in Google AI Mode. Google told Adweek that they will be "explore bringing ads into" Google AI Mode.View the full article

Google has updated its manual actions documentation around site reputation abuse, to expand on the next steps and actions you can take if you receive this manual action. Google now more clearly says that you should not block that content with your robots.txt file, if you use the noindex rule.View the full article

Google's VP of Product at Google Search, Robby Stein, has responded to concerns from publishers around the new AI Mode. Specifically, the concerns around this new AI search interface not being all that encouraging for users to click over to publishers' sites.View the full article

Google is testing a knowledge panel that includes a places card that can be expanded to show a map and local pack results. I cannot replicate this, which makes me think this is a test. I do see the places section below the knowledge panel, but not one that you can click to expand.View the full article

Google is now using a much larger font for the knowledge panels shown in Google Search. The font size looks jumbo and it does not seem to be test, it seems to be live - I think.View the full article

Google Search is testing a feature to quiz you on the product you are looking for and then to give you more tailored recommendations for product suggestions. This box is titled "get tailored recommendations" and it reminds me of the AI powered recommendation ads, but these are different.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 dropped the horrid page annotations feature, thankfully...View the full article

Google released its much anticipated AI Mode, which is in beta now, but it super cool. Google AI Overviews are now powered by Gemini 2.0. Google had more search ranking volatility this week. Google said they answered...View the full article

Google sent out emails to Local Service Ads advertisers notifying them that their Google Business Profile accounts are not affiliated to your Local Service Ads account. That means your reviews will only be accepted through your Google Business Profile link and not the Local Service Ads link.View the full article

Google Ads has updated its interface for when you select when you want your ads running in specific regions/locations. Now, it has a button to "add locations in bulk," which should help you add locations faster.View the full article

Google may be bringing channel reporting to the Google Ads Performance Max campaigns. I spotted this via Kirk Williams who posted a photo of a slide from Google Think event in Amsterdam where Arjan Schoorl attended. The slide says "Channel Reporting" will be coming to PMax and Demand Gen for increased transparency and controls.View the full article