Are You Ready for the Wave of Deals Coming?

AD

Proxy, the AI Agent for Everyday Life

Imagine if you had a digital clone to do your tasks for you. Well, meet Proxy…

Last week, Convergence, the London based AI start-up revealed Proxy to the world, the first general AI Agent.

Users are asking things like “Book my trip to Paris and find a restaurant suitable for an interview” or “Order a grocery delivery for me with a custom weekly meal plan”.

You can train it how you choose, so all Proxy’s are different, and personalised to how you teach it. The more you teach it, the more it learns about your personal work flows and begins to automate them.

Join the waitlist here

CONTENT CREATORS

A week after attending Google’s Web Creator Conversation Event, Joshua Tyler shares the sobering news about shutting down new article publishing on the Giant Freakin Robot (GFR) site. But the good news for GFR followers is he’ll keep creating new content, just on the GFR YouTube channel.

A beloved independent entertainment and science fiction news site, due to Google's apparent prioritization of large media companies in search results. Despite previously reaching 20 million monthly visitors, GFR's traffic has plummeted to just thousands per month due to what Tyler describes as systematic suppression of independent publishers across all major platforms.

SEO

ChatGPT Search: Initial Analysis Post-Launch & Comparison vs Google SERPs

Aleyda Solis compares ChatGPT's new search functionality with Google's search results. While ChatGPT excels at informational and long-tail queries by offering well-structured, comprehensive answers with easy-to-verify sources, it falls short on commercial searches compared to Google. The integration includes multi-modal responses with images, videos, and maps, plus a sidebar featuring citations and related search results.

Internal Links and SEO: Best Practices, Examples and Tips

Roslyn Ayers shares internal linking best practices that can significantly impact your site's SEO and user experience. She emphasizes the importance of creating a logical site structure while maintaining user-focused linking strategies that enhance both navigation and search engine rankings. She offers many scenarios regarding links too with problems and solutions.

My Take: This is the last of the internal linking scenarios, but I think it’s also the most important. If there’s no link, the rest of the scenarios are useless 👇️ 

• We don’t have time to add links now. We can just add links later.

  • Problem: Adding internal links to new content can help it get crawled faster. And no one wants to do more work auditing later.

  • Solution: Set up a process to add internal links as new content is published or updated.

SEO Ripples

• Jon Henshaw breaks down how to appear in ChatGPT's search results (powered by their OAI-SearchBot and Bing) while still preventing your content from being used to train their AI models. The key is in your robots.txt file - just don't block OAI-SearchBot and Bingbot, and you're good to go. Jon even provides a handy robots.txt template that blocks other AI crawlers while keeping your content searchable where it matters.

• Google's URL inspection tool can incorrectly show third-party domain names as the canonical URL for some websites. This "Canonical Confusion" attack, as explained by SEO expert Darth Autocrat, is a form of negative SEO where someone copies your content to another domain, potentially outranking your original site. If this happens to you, focus on building your site's reputation and addressing any quality issues, as Google's incorrect canonical selection often points to underlying site authority problems (translation: get more links 😂 ).

• Microsoft's AI-powered buying guides are rolling out more widely in Bing search results. These guides appear in the top right section for e-commerce queries, offering AI-generated product research and comparisons.

• Google says you need more AIO - They’re testing AI-generated overviews in its "People Also Ask" (PAA) sections, replacing the traditional featured snippets. Derek Perkins from Nozzle spotted these AI Overview results while browsing in US English. This change could significantly impact how content appears in search results, as PAA sections have historically relied on featured snippets pulled directly from websites.

AI

OpenAI's Data Scraping Wins Big as Raw Story's Copyright Lawsuit Dismissed by NY Court

A New York court just dismissed Raw Story and AlterNet's copyright lawsuit against OpenAI, who they sued for using their content to train ChatGPT. The key factor? The publishers couldn't prove they were actually harmed by OpenAI's use of their content. The judge made an interesting point: since AI systems create new content rather than copy-paste existing articles, it's tough to prove copyright violation. This is huge news for content creators and AI companies alike, potentially setting the stage for how similar cases play out in the future.

Google Vids Generally Available Now

The Google Workspace team has announced the general availability of Google Vids, their new AI-powered video creation app designed to streamline video content creation for businesses. The app includes a royalty-free stock content library and integrates seamlessly with Google Drive and Photos. While previously limited to Gemini for Workspace customers, Vids is now available across select Workspace subscription plans, starting with Business Standard.

OpenAI’s SimpleQA Measures LLMs for Accuracy

OpenAI researchers have developed SimpleQA - a new benchmark for measuring how accurately language models answer factual questions. This open-source dataset consists of over 4,300 curated questions spanning topics from science and technology to TV shows and video games. What makes SimpleQA unique is its focus on short, fact-seeking questions with indisputable answers. The results are on their Github page and very interesting. Results were graded either Correct, Incorrect, or Not Attempted. GPT o1-preview only scored a 42.4% correct, o1-mini at 7.6, gpt-4o at 40.1, gpt-4o at 9.5, Claude 3.5 Sonnet at 28.9, and Claude 3 Opus at 23.5. Results for the smaller models aren’t that surprising since it’s based on how much information each model is trained on.

AI Ripples

• ByteDance and Tsinghua University have developed X-Portrait 2, an AI tool for creating animated videos from still photos. Xiaochen Zhao and colleagues have built something that could be a game-changer for content creators - imagine turning any portrait into an expressive video by simply providing a reference performance clip. What makes this special is its ability to capture subtle facial movements and emotions while maintaining the original person's identity. It also works with cartoon images and artwork, opening up exciting possibilities for storytelling and virtual content creation.

• HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah sold the premium domain Chat.com to OpenAI, with visitors now being redirected to ChatGPT. Shah had originally purchased the domain for $15.5M for personal use, but decided to sell it when he realized OpenAI would be a perfect fit. While the exact sale terms weren't disclosed, Shah hinted that the deal likely involved OpenAI shares rather than pure cash.

MARKETING

21 Black Friday Marketing Strategies to Maximize Your Profits

Jonathan Berthold shares a guide to maximizing Black Friday profits through strategic marketing. He covers the importance of early preparation, data-driven decision-making, and utilizing multiple marketing channels to stand out during this competitive shopping season. He suggests things like starting early by cleaning email lists, testing tracking pixels, and launching pre-Black Friday campaigns to optimize performance before the main event

My Take: It’s good for general marketing strategies too and not just for Black Friday.

Marketing Ripples

• YouTube creators can now initiate ad partnerships directly through YouTube instead of waiting for advertisers to come to them. This feature is available to YPP creators with 4,000+ subscribers who run ads on Shorts. The new system lets creators access valuable performance metrics and restrict content usage to approved advertisers only. Up to 300 Google Ads accounts can be linked per channel, giving creators more control over their monetization strategy and brand partnerships.

• Charlotte Colombo reports that Canada has ordered TikTok to close its offices and operations in the country, citing national security risks. For creators and businesses, though, there's no need to panic - users can still access, create content, and advertise on the platform as usual. TikTok isn't taking this sitting down and plans to challenge the order in court.

• Lon Harris explores how creator-led product lines are increasingly moving from direct-to-consumer to mainstream retail, particularly Walmart. While this shift offers creators instant nationwide distribution and gives retailers added "cool factor," Harris warns about the potential pitfalls through recent examples. He details how Prime Hydration, despite generating $1.2B in 2023 sales, has seen a 50% drop in Q1 2024 and faces lawsuits over its ingredients. Similarly, MrBeast's ventures like MrBeast Burger and Lunchly have struggled with quality control issues, highlighting how the same creator influence that drives initial success can severely damage reputations when products don't meet expectations.

CONTENT

Want to Create Viral Content? Here's What the Research Says

Kelsey Libert breaks down new research on what makes content go viral. The key factors? Content with high emotional intensity can boost engagement by 24%, especially when triggering curiosity or surprise. Timing matters too - posting during late-night hours (10 PM - 4 AM EST) sees 15% higher engagement. For maximum impact, use storytelling archetypes like "Triumph Over Adversity" which can increase engagement by 20-23%. The data shows that successful viral content isn't random - it's a strategic combination of emotional triggers, perfect timing, and compelling narrative structures.

How Google evaluates E-E-A-T? 80+ signals for E-E-A-T

Olaf Kopp breaks down over 80 signals that Google potentially uses to evaluate E-E-A-T based on research from Google patents, documentation, and official statements. He organizes these signals into three key dimensions: document level, domain level, and source entity level. This comprehensive analysis helps demystify how Google might algorithmically assess content quality and trustworthiness at scale.

My Take: It’s a good list of things to think about that when looking at your own sites and content.

How to Create Helpful Content Post-HCU

Maryann Muthami provides a guide on creating helpful content that aligns with Google's latest updates. She says that with AI tools making content creation easier, search results are now flooded with superficial articles. To stand out, content creators must focus on serving people first, not just search engines. She explores how to build trust through E-E-A-T while delivering value that resonates with your audience. Maryann shares strategies for understanding search intent, creating deeper content, and building a diverse content ecosystem beyond just blog posts.

LINK BUILDING

June 2024 Google Link Spam Update: What It Really Did to Sites

Vince Nero says June 2024's Google Link Spam Update had a bigger impact than many realized. After studying 50 SaaS companies, he found that over half were affected, with many seeing their traffic gains from links suddenly plateau or decline. The update seems to target common link-building practices, particularly focusing on low-quality guest posts, link insertions, and exchanges. He also suggests that Google might be devaluing entire content formats, like listicles and roundup posts, due to their frequent use in link manipulation schemes.

Connectively (formerly HARO) Shutting Down

Cision has announced the Connectively platform will shut down on Dec. 9, 2024. For anyone using this service, you'll need to export your data before the shutdown. Paying subscribers will receive prorated refunds by early December. While Cision is steering users toward their CisionOne platform, it's worth noting that CisionOne doesn't include HARO's journalist request features.

My Take: if you’re looking for another one with journalist requests, you can check out Featured.com. I wrote about how I used Featured in the first Surfer Insights email.

TOOLS AND RESOURCES

How to Leverage Cosine Similarity for Ecommerce SEO

Chris Long shares how to leverage cosine similarity in ecommerce SEO for today's AI-driven search world. He explains how search engines use mathematical concepts like embeddings and cosine similarity to understand content relationships and determine relevance. By vectorizing content into numerical values, Google can effectively measure how closely related different pieces of content are, helping to rank pages more accurately. He provides practical examples from major retailers like REI, Chewy, and Wayfair to illustrate these concepts in action

My Take: It’s a good overview to start understanding how to use embeddings. If you’re someone who leans toward the technical side of things, this is good to know.

Content Raptor for $1 Goes Away on Nov. 10th

Content Raptor will be raising their prices on Sunday, Nov. 10th - Tomorrow. They’ll be going from $10/month to $17 for unlimited content optimizations (by comparison, SurferSEO is $89 for 30 content optimizations a month). They’ll be launching a big new feature on Nov. 11th (hint of A/B test), so fair warning before the price increases. It’s $1 for the first month, so you could try it out for a month, including the new feature, and if you don’t like it, you can cancel. If you do like it, it’s only $10 vs $17 each month.

Linkifi Giving Away iPads with 20% Off Packages

I normally wouldn’t send this out until the BFCM email, but it’s first-come, first-serve with the free iPad Airs. If you’re one of the first 10 to get their 50 or 100 link packages, you get a free iPad Air. If you get the smaller packages of 5, 10, or 20 links, you get either a $100 or $200 Amazon Gift Card. That’s on top of 20% off all the packages with code: BLACKFRIDAY20.

NEWS

Microsoft Rewards: A Million-Dollar Sweepstakes

For everyone switching over to Bing - You can win up to $1,000,000 by using Bing, downloading the Bing app, setting Bing as your default search engine, etc.

Automattic Taunts WP Engine With Provocative Website

Roger Montti reports on a website called "WP Engine Tracker" that monitors and lists websites that have left WP Engine's hosting platform. The site, complete with a searchable database and downloadable CSV of current WP Engine customers, appears to be the latest move in an ongoing dispute between Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine over their contributions to WordPress development.

As I write this, it shows 16,880 have left. I downloaded the CSV and there are still 841,554 domains and subdomains left.

Ready to start your own beehiiv newsletter?

Get 20% OFF for 3 months as a Digital Surfer Partner

Try out the premium features first for free for 30 days!