Jim Boykin, link-building guru, sits down with Aaron Wall to talk about search engine optimization strategies. He still views links as a key driver to optimize sites. The two talk about links and the challenges facing SEO professionals, such as whether links are still the backbone of Google's rankings in query results and whether tail keywords are significantly underrated by the market.

With money to spend and the desire to acquire the necessary talent and technology to achieve the company's goals, David Lawee, head of the mergers and acquisitions group, continues to hunt for the perfect mix of talent and and knowledge, according to Connie Guglielmo. The company made a couple of recent small acquisitions, but there are plans to step up the activity of acquiring entrepreneurs.

With more than 1 million Web sites on the Google Display Network, marketers really need to optimize campaigns at the keyword level. So Google developed new controls and after testing, made the Display Campaign Optimizer available to all. The tools allow marketers to leave the job of finding sites, adjusting settings, and monitoring campaigns to the tool. David Mitby provides some examples of how companies and organizations, such as Dale Carnegie, use the tool.

March was a busy month for Google engineers. The group made 50 changes to its search algorithms. The post links to a video from a meeting in March led by Amit Singhal, in which he discusses changes to search. It took eight video cameras and 16 microphones, but the video provides an inside look at how things get done at Google.

Found through a Twitter tweet by Stefano Di Paola, Russ Cox explains how Google Search code worked before the company shut it down. Cox worked at Google as an intern in 2006. He tells us that at the time "Google had an internal tool called gsearch that acted as if it ran grep over all the files in the Google source tree and printed the results." Cox explains the detailed and complicated code, summarizing its use. 

Jeff Allen tells us that for one client, mobile paid-search campaigns have generated 30% of the company's leads at a 40% lower CPL than their desktop and tablet-targeted campaigns. He provides details on some best practices and a couple of pitfalls to get started. One of the biggest, he writes, is enabling mobile targeting in a desktop campaign at the same bid rate. it will likely return worse results because marketers use desktop bids, which are probably higher than bids for mobile.

Know the audience and keep paid-search reports brief for those reviewing the information. It may seem simple, but Alistair Dent tells us that the person running the department should have all the answers, and those he shares information with may not want to know all the details. Remember that people reviewing the data will want specific knowledge of paid-search requirements and campaigns. Dent provides a list of dos and don'ts, along with advice regarding questions that may arise.

John Lee tells us that Google released conversion data through tracking associated with Ad Extensions, such as Sitelink, Location, Call and Product Extensions. He explains through detailed instructions and screen shots how to build reports in AdWords, and segment ad conversion data. For example, Lee suggests using the Segment feature to see how each extension performed separate from regular text ads.

The days of using blog and syndication networks to build links are coming to an end, as Google recently announced the de-indexing of the industry’s major blog networks, leaving some SEOs to wonder about the future of link development, according to Jeff Bedford. He provides a list of ideas that could compensate for the change, to help SEO experts and clients to prepare.

Todd McDonald analyzes a post where Mike King writes about the responsibilities of SEO experts, and a new process that he believes allows professionals to improve the effectiveness of all digital marketing channels. He looks at the problems with the old process and presents new ideas. McDonald takes those ideas of link-building and expands on them.