Rebranding Ups and Downs - digital surfer Wave Issue 201

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SEO

Google Found in Violation of Antitrust Laws

A federal judge determined that Google violated US antitrust laws, specifically targeting its exclusive contracts that have long secured its position as the dominant search engine. The judge came to this conclusion: “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.” Here was Google’s official response via X:

My Take: It’ll be quite some time (probably years) due to appeals and the legal process in general, so don’t hold your breath for any immediate changes. If you want to read speculations, great, but don’t expect any changes tomorrow. The antitrust lawsuit was filed during the Trump administration, so you can see how long these things can take. And the spin from the Google statement - wow, just wow.

The Default Blocklist: Why Google Trusts Big Brands (But Not You)

Ryan Law dives into the challenges Google faces with the surge of AI-generated content and how this has led to a “default blocklist” mentality. With so much content flooding the web, distinguishing between quality and AI "slop" has become a massive task for search engines. As a result, Google is now favoring big, trusted brands to ensure the credibility of search results. For smaller or newer publishers, this shift means that trust must be earned from scratch, not assumed.

My Take: The “default blocklist” is a good way to put things and I think it’s also true of many areas of our lives now, not just Google. I’m old and I still remember the days when I get a new email and I think “ooo, who sent me an email?” Instead of “how much junk emails are there now?” The default thoughts now are more skepticism than trust.

How Google’s Hidden Gems Update Yielded Explosive Growth In Search Visibility For Many Forums

Glenn Gabe explores the impact of Google's unconfirmed "hidden gems" update, which caused a significant surge in search visibility for many forums, starting in the fall of 2023. While platforms like Reddit and Quora saw explosive growth, Glenn points out that many other niche forums also benefited from this update. Forums featuring user-generated content saw the most substantial gains. Some niche forums experienced over 1000% YOY increases in visibility.

My Take: So… next business model that’s going to be promoted is to create public forums and fill it with AI-UGC. Just saying… 🤑 

SEO Ripples

• In this episode of Google’s Search Off the Record, John Mueller, Lizzi Sassman, and Gary Illyes talk about misconceptions around crawl frequency and site quality, what's challenging about crawling the web nowadays, and how search engines could crawl more efficiently. Transcript here.

• Matt G. Southern sheds light on Google's concerns about URL parameters causing crawling headaches, especially for e-commerce sites. These parameters can generate infinite URL variations, bogging down Google's crawlers. Matt suggests site owners proactively manage their URL structures, utilize robots.txt wisely, and implement canonical tags to streamline crawling and indexing.

• Dan Taylor discusses local businesses with multiple locations and emphasizes creating a scalable, efficient local SEO campaign that enhances visibility and drives conversions. Key things he talks about include leveraging programmatic content creation while maintaining unique value propositions, optimizing internal linking strategies, and ensuring Google Business Profiles are correctly linked to their respective location pages.

AI

OpenAI's Deliberate Approach to Releasing an AI-Detection Tool

Anthony Ha dives into OpenAI's cautious strategy for releasing a tool that detects writing generated by ChatGPT. While the tool could potentially help educators identify AI-assisted cheating, OpenAI is weighing the risks before making it available. The tool uses a text watermarking method to subtly alter word choices, creating an invisible marker that could be detected later. However, concerns about circumvention by bad actors its impact on non-English speakers and potential workarounds have led to a careful, deliberate approach.

Create Your Own Custom AI With Meta’s AI Studio

Meta’s AI Studio let’s anyone create, share, and discover AI characters by starting a new AI chat message on Instagram. Whether you're looking to build an AI that can crack jokes, give travel advice, or even manage your Instagram DMs, AI Studio has you covered. The platform offers flexibility for creators to design AI characters as personal extensions or for broader audiences. This is a great tool for content creators aiming to enhance engagement with their followers while automating routine interactions.

In another article, Sydney Bradley talks about how Instagram users can now create AI boyfriends, girlfriends, and even quirky characters to chat with. Sydney shares her experience testing these AI bots, highlighting the strange and sometimes steamy interactions that blur the lines between entertainment and connection.

AI Ripples

• Nvidia was caught scraping massive amounts of YouTube data to train its AI models without consent. Nvidia also apparently attempted to conceal its actions.

• Michael Nuñez covers Runway's latest update to its Gen-3 Alpha tool that adds the ability to bookend videos using specific images. Creators can now anchor their projects with consistent start and end frames, enhancing creative control and brand consistency.

• OpenAI cuts prices on their latest GPT-4o model again - 50% cheaper for inputs to $2.50/M tokens and 33% for outputs to $10/M tokens. It’s now cheaper than Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Gemini 1.5 Pro. Use the new model name: gpt-4o-2024-08-06.

• Jess Weatherbed dives into the legal battle between AI music startups, Suno and Udio, and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). These startups are pushing back against lawsuits, asserting that training their AI models on copyrighted music is protected under the fair-use doctrine.

MARKETING

Elon Musk Declares “It Is War” on Ad Industry as X Sues Over “Illegal Boycott”

Elon Musk’s X Corp has filed a lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers and other big-name companies, accusing them of conspiring to cut off ad revenue as part of an “illegal boycott.” He declared that after two years of trying to make peace, “now it is war.” The lawsuit centers on claims that these companies are unfairly pressuring X to adhere to certain advertising standards, and Musk is not backing down.

The X CEO Linda Yaccarino has also written an open letter to advertisers.

My Take: Elon Musk probably shouldn’t have bad-mouthed advertisers ever since he purchased Twitter, and then told advertisers to “go f*** yourself.” I’m not a lawyer, but I think buyers can decide who they want to buy from, don’t they?

Sun, Mail, Mirror, Express and Independent Roll Out ‘Consent or Pay’ Walls

Bron Maher dives into the latest move by major UK publishers like The Sun, Mail Online, and The Independent as they introduce "consent or pay" walls. These pop-ups are prompting readers to either consent to third-party cookies or pay a monthly fee for a cookie-free experience. They’re trying to balance user privacy with the financial demands of quality journalism. As more readers opt out of cookies, publishers are seeking alternative revenue streams to sustain their operations.

How Creators Can Get Out of Facebook Jail

Facebook has introduced a new training feature designed to help creators avoid unintentional mistakes when violating Community Standards. Instead of immediately issuing a formal warning, first-time violators will now be guided through an educational in-app training. This approach focuses on learning and retaining access to key Facebook features, ensuring creators can continue to grow without the fear of losing their platform over minor, accidental missteps.

My Take: What about my personal FB account that received the death penalty 10+ years ago? Guess accounts can’t come back from executions 😂 

CONTENT

Combating Thin Content: How to Identify and Fix It

Sean Collins gets into identifying and fixing thin content on your website, which could be harming your SEO efforts. Whether it's outdated information, lack of depth, or content that's just not useful. This article breaks down what thin content is, why it's problematic, and offers actionable steps to improve your site's content quality.

TOOLS AND RESOURCES

Automattic Launches AI Writing Tool for WordPress

Automattic has a new AI tool aimed at helping bloggers write more clearly and concisely. The “Write Brief with AI” tool is designed to streamline the writing process by offering suggestions to simplify sentences, reduce wordiness, and improve readability. Currently in beta and available exclusively on WordPress.com via Jetpack, this tool can assess the confidence and complexity of your writing.

Introducing Recommendations in Google Search Console

Google is slowly rolling out a new feature in GSC, Search Console Recommendations. It’ll show optimization opportunities and suggest actions you can take to improve your search presence.

My Take: Wonder if it’ll be as useful as Bing Webmaster Tools’ Insights, like when they told me I have “inadequate inbound links from high quality domains.”

• Andy Crestodina dives into the accuracy issues of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and reveals that it can underreport traffic by up to 20%. From ad blockers to cookie consent banners, there are plenty of reasons why your GA4 numbers could be off. Andy shares tips on how to cross-check your data with other sources and improve your tracking accuracy.

CASE STUDY

New Research: So Far, AI is Not Disrupting Search or Making a Dent in Google

Rand Fishkin dives into the latest findings on how AI is impacting the search landscape—or rather, how it isn’t. Despite all the hype, Google's dominance in search remains unchallenged, with AI platforms like Perplexity making only small gains. He shares data from Sonata Insights and Datos that highlights how Google continues to grow, while AI search engines aren’t a significant threat yet. Some of the highlights:

• Google's search traffic grew by 1.4% from May 2023 to May 2024, outpacing AI search engines.

• Only 16.45% of traditional search engine users have tried AI search platforms, showing slow adoption.

• 99% of AI platform users continue to use traditional search engines.

• DuckDuckGo is considered a more significant competitor to Google than AI platforms, although it doesn’t receive as much media attention.

• Google users perform about 200 searches per month compared to Perplexity’s 15 searches per user.

EDUCATION

Site Improvement Brainstorming Session with Marie Haynes

Marie Haynes shares a client consulting session that offers a deep dive into how Google's algorithms, particularly the Navboost system, impact SEO. A lot of useful, general information in the first 48-49 minutes and then specific discussion about the client’s site, a psychotherapist from Australia.

My Take: These are the types of videos that I like a lot because they’re about specific sites and situations. It’s a coaching session and one that I’ve done a number of times with students and clients. Even though the sessions are to help the student/client, I always learn from these sessions too because I learn more about Google algos and the SERPs. I see how they may interpret different things about sites.

Step-by-Step SEO Audit: A Comprehensive How-To Guide

Olga Zarr breaks down the essentials of conducting a successful SEO audit, a vital first step for anyone working to improve website performance. Olga shares a step-by-step process, from manual reviews to using tools like Google Search Console and SE Ranking’s Website Audit. She also offers tips on tracking and prioritizing issues to maximize your SEO efforts.

BUSINESS IDEAS

Maximizing Your SEO Investment: Tips For Outsourcing Effectively

Adam Heitzman dives into the benefits and strategies of outsourcing SEO, offering practical tips to ensure your partnership with an SEO provider is effective and yields great returns. He emphasizes the importance of setting clear goals and choosing the right partner that aligns with your business needs.

My Take: I’ve seen more and more people go into freelance/agency work and this is a good read if you’re one of them. Even though it’s written for the business owner who’s considering outsourcing SEO, “putting yourself in their shoes” is always a great exercise to help you close deals.

Being able to do that is how you solve problems for people. That’s why there will always be a need for human artists, writers, editors, etc. The nuances to meeting human needs requires another human. But it also requires an experienced human.

Think about Oscar-winning actors and actresses. They’re amazing in films and win awards because they put in the research work to experience the characters they are portraying.

While we’re not in the running for Oscar awards, I make it a point to have my teams make sure they always understand who they’re serving. It doesn’t matter if they’re on the topical map strategy team, the content team, or other SEO/digital marketing teams, they have to know their end user.

And the end users are rarely ever the client - it’s the client’s customers.

NEWS

Red Ventures sells CNET to Ziff Davis

Sara Fischer dives into the surprising twist of CNET's sale to Ziff Davis for over $100 million—a fraction of the $1.6 billion CNET paid to acquire Ziff Davis two decades ago. This move highlights the volatile nature of digital media and the challenges of integrating different business models. Even big names in the industry can stumble if they can’t adapt to shifting market dynamics.

My Take: Always interesting to see how things have changed when Company A acquires B, but years later, B acquires A.

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