Proper link-building takes creative thinking, writes Justilien Gaspard. He suggests ways to accomplish this on a tight budget and with a fresh perspective. For example, try reading "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu or the business history book "Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies."

Bill Slawski tells us about a patent granted this week to Google that describes why Google might look for duplicate content during the crawling of Web pages, how the engine might handle crawling and anchor text, and describes how some URLs for Web pages are crawled in a round-robin format over days, weeks or longer. Slawski writes that the patent also describes different methods for identifying duplicate content, such as taking fingerprints of content found on pages to match content from another page.

David Harry has republished a white paper on Google's personalized search. In fact, the SEO expert published the paper earlier this year, but since Google's announcement Monday, Harry decided to publish it again. The paper looks at transactional and informational query spaces and isolated geographic-related factors. The results are also the basis for a post published Monday, titled "chill out."

Google reported Tuesday developing an experimental news site with the New York Times and the Washington Post called "Living Stories." The site aims to pool disparate articles that newspapers publish on one topic, such as politics, into one Web page. Readers can customize pages based on topics. Each page updates to include new stories on the topics, and keeps track of the articles the reader has viewed. During the coming months, Google will refine the site based on consumer feedback. Neha Singh writes that Google also plans to develop tools that can aid news organizations in the creation of these …

Developing a brand's social strategy to focus on engagement must become the big-picture focus, according to Merry Morud. Whether selling goods, acquiring leads or providing a service, find the correct social media profiles and choose the correct platforms for your business to engage the community, he writes. In a panel discussion at Search Engine Strategies in Chicago, Brian Boland, performance solutions manager at Facebook, along with other experts on the panel, dished out to-dos for companies eager to engage with social communities.

Amber analyses an article posted last week on Search Engine Land describing how Google plans to stop allowing companies to create local business ads, with plans to have the service return in the future. She says it could potentially hurt some local advertisers, especially the ones who rely on the local business ads but do not run any PPC ads. But no fear, she has a solution: "Location Extensions." If you're running a PPC ad with a location extension, your PPC ad will show the local address you entered as the extension in your PPC account, as well as a …

Historically, paid search held a "major leg over the other online channels in terms of positive ROI performance," writes Josh Dreller. He explains why. He also explains some of the ways display has been advancing. As tactics from targeting and audience segmentation, to dynamic creative ads and vertical ad networks, become more common, it may become more difficult to differentiate return on investment between search and display advertising.

Google recently announced it's introducing another version of its home page, and Aaron Wall analyzes why that's a good idea. When the new page first loads, it shows only Google's logo, the search box and the buttons. Additional links on the page are revealed as users move the mouse across the page. "As Google noises up their search results with various verticals (from their universal search) they want to remind searchers how beautiful and minimalistic and elegant Google is," writes Wall. The change also works "to get people to pay more attention to the ads below the search box (making …

Real-time search, location-based applications, augmented reality, mobile payments and Internet TV and movies are some of the 10 themes set to define the Web next year, Pete Cashmore writes. For example, the term, real-time search, "represents the growing demand for immediacy in our interactions," he writes. "Immediacy is compelling, engaging, highly addictive ... it's a sense of living in the now."

Tony Bradley provides insight into why Google bought Appjet. He explains that the startup provides real-time collaboration for online documents. He writes that AppJet's product has been compared with Google Docs. Both provide online, collaborative document editing. Some AppJet employees formerly worked for Google, Bradley writes, citing the AppJet Web site. "Chief executive officer Aaron Iba used to write algorithms for improving search quality, chief operating officer Daniel Clemens was an associate product manager, and chief technology officer J.D. Zamfirescu left Google as well," he writes.