Google Algorithm Updates - 2024 Ongoing Discussion

[devise]

Google doesn't know jacksh*t anymore how to do search.

ChatGPT will take a bigger marketshare.

My new favorite hypothesis is that Google simply doesn't know what the fuck it is doing any more. Too much complexity over too long of a time period.

Corps don't retain good tribal knowledge at the C-Suite lol. Those are career jumpers too!

Even small companies I've been at are terrible at considering tribal knowledge before someone puts leaves for a better job.

Corporations are notoriously bad at retaining tribal wisdom below the c-suite, if even there, given how many career ladder jumpers exist in "tech".

Didn't Google just shuffle some chairs around at the top of the search experience team too?

 

[PickleRick]

For the most lucrative queries with 'best'

Query 1:

1. Niche site, was N2 before I got hit. Very similar but better researched content than mine.
2. An app with a shallow porrly written gpt piece, but a brand (has thousands of searcher for the brand name)
3. reddit
4. amazon
5. another shop
6. cosmopolitan
7. womanhealthmag

Query 2:

1. GQ
2. Niche site
3. Brand that makes one of the products
4. allure
5. reddit
6. womanhealthmag
7. amazon

Yeah, kinda what I expected. Many SERPs will now consist of max 1 niche site (mostly the highest authority one in the niche), UGC (Reddit, Quora, and forums), sites that offer a service or product (shops, apps, tools, etc.), high authority brands, and sometimes parasites.

Add to that the "From sources across the web" box Google has been going crazy with lately, and other Google features that push results down, and it becomes quite clear it's not so much about the quality of your content or whatever magic on-page bullet people claim it to be. It's an overall shift in what is being served.

Main points are:

• Brand (and the branded searches coming with that)
• Site classification (UGC, service/product, or pure info)
• Authority (mainly links)

If your content is semi-decent, obsessing over its details is a waste of time IMO. Better to focus on finding a way to get branded searches going or get your site reclassified away from being a purely content niche site.

Especially the pure info model I would forget about. This is going to be increasingly answered by SGE, YouTube, and SERP features. Sending a bunch of big backlinks I don't even see working much there anymore.

 

[Smith]

Better to focus on finding a way to get branded searches going or get your site reclassified

or have a solid branded niche site + own a subreddit/forum in your niche + have a site offering services/products... this is where my head has been going lately... I'm calling it 'niche domination'. It feels like a lot of fucking work. It's probably better to just buy traffic through ads.

 

[BakerStreet]

Yeah, kinda what I expected. Many SERPs will now consist of max 1 niche site (mostly the highest authority one in the niche), UGC (Reddit, Quora, and forums), sites that offer a service or product (shops, apps, tools, etc.), high authority brands, and sometimes parasites.

Add to that the "From sources across the web" box Google has been going crazy with lately, and other Google features that push results down, and it becomes quite clear it's not so much about the quality of your content or whatever magic on-page bullet people claim it to be. It's an overall shift in what is being served.

Main points are:

• Brand (and the branded searches coming with that)
• Site classification (UGC, service/product, or pure info)
• Authority (mainly links)

If your content is semi-decent, obsessing over its details is a waste of time IMO. Better to focus on finding a way to get branded searches going or get your site reclassified away from being a purely content niche site.

Especially the pure info model I would forget about. This is going to be increasingly answered by SGE, YouTube, and SERP features. Sending a bunch of big backlinks I don't even see working much there anymore.

Yes this is what I’m seeing too.

From looking at the keywords where I lost rankings, it seems that government sites have pushed informational sites down. For sites where I stayed at the sale traffic, the SERP is a mix of UGC, informational sites, and one or two government site.

To me and for my niche, people lost traffic not because of a penalty but because the classification of sites that rank in the top 10 had the number of informational blog posts that can rank in top 10 decrease. There’s this one competitor with a 200 word UGC box ranking. WTF?! Google wants a diverse set of answers in the top 10 now. They can get “the correct” answer with LLMs and the top ten organic results are supplemental to that. It’s sorta like how bingo wants results in many media formats and not just text.

My tentative plan is to run ads, have the ads finance link building, and continue with our avalanche strategy. Ads will be the bread winner however. I am mixed on reducing my content writers or keeping them at the same amount. Let’s see how the finances look like next quarter. This new update makes the capital required to start the SEO channel the same but lowered the returns on SEO. It sucks!

 

[Politico]

There’s this one competitor with a 200 word UGC box ranking. WTF?! Google wants a diverse set of answers in the top 10 now.

Ahh fuck DEI is fucking up the SERPs now too!

 

[Smith]

YouTube "SEOs" are churning out content about the Update like the industry is about to die...

This guy below posts a video about "niche sites" and whether they can still work in 2024... then he goes on a 15-minute breakdown of a BILLION dollar company that built their entire content strategy off the back of news distribution because their head of content was ex-CNN. They have 17 million backlinks and a DR 90 domain. They raised $123mm. They're now a public fucking company. Nerdwallet is not following a "niche site" strategy folks. They're a fucking behemoth.

Listen, I know everyone is at different stages of the game. Everyone needs different information and strategies to move forward. But these YouTube SEOs aren't helping anyone with their broad-stroke content about replicate the strategy of fucking Nerdwallet. It wasn't just content and site structure that made Nerdwallet what it is today.

Actually, this video (and the thousands of others from other YouTube SEOs) is why I stick to BuSo and seek advice from OGs. SEO YouTube/Twitter/Reddit are all losing their fucking heads over this update - at least on BuSo there are still folks in the game to win... and they don't all rely on Google to fill their fridge every month!

#Rant over

Here's the video in case you want to see how Nerdwallet structures its website:

 

[secretagentdad]

I am so disgusted that they expect me to go around cleaning up after a bunch of idiot spammers that they incentivized to spam me.
Where's the report domain as spammed to hell complaint form where I don't have to buy a bunch of 3rd party bullshit and waste all my time examining web vomit for days on end.

 

[chubes]

I am so disgusted that they expect me to go around cleaning up after a bunch of idiot spammers that they incentivized to spam me.
Where's the report domain as spammed to hell complaint form where I don't have to buy a bunch of 3rd party bullshit and waste all my time examining web vomit for days on end.

Not only that, but "the disavow tool is a a waste of time and does more harm than good." Remember?

 

[devise]

My real issue is that Google isn’t telling us and other creators what we are doing wrong; they are replying with vague answers or sharing advice that goes completely against what’s showing up in the search results. There is no way for us to know how to recover from this because Google is lying to the faces of the people that make their search results great without giving them any help at all.

https://retrododo.com/google-is-killing-retro-dodo/

Glad Retro Dodo shared this.

 

[Smith]

Glad Retro Dodo shared this.

Interesting read. Not dissimilar from the HouseFresh article. I feel for these guys. Having a business on the brink of collapse fucking sucks. I've been there three times before and narrowly escaped each time... lots of sleepless nights and incredible stress. Not something I wish on anyone.

But, search is changing has changed. So, businesses that rely on search also need to change. Yes, it sucks. Change is uncomfortable and difficult to navigate. But it's necessary if you want to stay in the game.

My response to the HouseFresh article and how Google is promoting big brands over legit independent creators still holds. It's time to evolve. If you didn't read my response, please do and tell me why I'm wrong.

And if anyone from RetroDodo ever comes across this, here's how I (as a complete random person on the internet) would reposition and save the business...

I would take a hard look at the finances and figure out how to go as lean as fucking possible as fast as possible. Don't hold back, you need to be a savage if you're going to survive.

Then, it's time to evolve. Your goal can't be to get RetroDodo back to what it once was, because the game you were playing doesn't exist anymore... if you do that, you're already dead.

It's time for RetroDodo to innovate, develop, understand your customer base, and serve them with products and/or services that they're craving.

With readership, audience trust, depth of knowledge, and brand recognition, RetroDodo is in an incredible position to capitalize. Talk to the audience, game manufacturers, other stakeholders, and figure out where RetroDodo can add unique value. Do THAT!

It's like I said here....

The problem I see is that most people think they're in the SEO business... when in reality, they're in business and SEO is their preferred channel... which means they can use other channels too.

"I earn affiliate commissions when promoting products through SEO articles"
"I sell consulting services through SEO articles"
"I sell physical products through SEO articles"

It's time to start looking at other channels, other sources of revenue, and evolving our businesses to compete in the next phase of the internet!

To do this I've been diving deep into social platforms including YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, and actively practicing my traffic leak skills out in the wild. It's like I said, you have to be a savage if you want to survive!

 

[Darth]

It's time for RetroDodo to innovate, develop, understand your customer base, and serve them with products and/or services that they're craving.

With readership, audience trust, depth of knowledge, and brand recognition, RetroDodo is in an incredible position to capitalize. Talk to the audience, game manufacturers, other stakeholders, and figure out where RetroDodo can add unique value. Do THAT!

Would you have any more specific advice? I get that general strategy, but as I see it, most of these publishers reslly don't have anything else to give. Their written articles / content were their product. What new products could there be for a site like RetroDodo?

 

[BakerStreet]

Would you have any more specific advice? I get that general strategy, but as I see it, most of these publishers reslly don't have anything else to give. Their written articles / content were their product. What new products could there be for a site like RetroDodo?

They have a YT channel and can earn a living off of YT. The issue is that their video content is not to the quality standards that YT wants (

). They made it as if they were reading a review article out loud while filming the video. That's not how YT works. You gotta make it interesting and there needs to be a person in the video. a "you".

If I were them, I'd pivot to other platforms like YT, IG, etc and make retro content there. The 8 Big guy on YouTube makes retro computer content and has 1 million + subscribers last I check. He earns his living from that now. It is very much possible. They just need to make content that fits for the platform. They haven't adapted to new platforms yet.

In conclusion, they can still survive, they just need to adapt to new platforms and algos. The audience is still there.

 

[Smith]

Would you have any more specific advice?

Yea, that’s fair. I'll do my best below.

most of these publishers reslly don't have anything else to give. Their written articles / content were their product.

I disagree. I think they need to get creative. And they need to realize articles/content are not products, they are tools for attracting customers. Customers click ads, customers buy products, and customers subscribe to memberships.

Alright, hit the "Play" button, and let's get to it!

What new products could there be for a site like RetroDodo?

Here are a few off the top of my head with examples of how I and others have used them.

But, these guys need fast cash… and that means they need to cut expenses as much as possible. So none of these options will work unless they stop the bleeding. Period.

Also, some of these are quick and easy, others could take up to six months, and the pay-off, chances of success, and required execution is obviously different in each.

Option 1: Private membership for retro game collectors

written articles / content

- It's possible to turn content into something much more valuable than clicks.

Before you roll your eyes, hear me out…

I bought a site doing around 500k in traffic. It was totally random, personality-based, had no product to sell, and couldn’t grow. The only output was content, which meant it had ads and affiliates as revenue. That was it. It was making peanuts, a couple of grand per month. Didn’t even have a mailing list.

I decided to go the membership route after building a list and ramping up engagement, seeing which traffic brought people back most often and kept them on the site the longest.

I was aiming for a “readership membership” something in the $5 - $15 per month price point with many thousands of subscribers. The goal was to have backend benefits that would keep them around for six months on average. This was a digital membership with access to various info products, bonuses, and digital content. So, costs were fixed (and kept extremely low).

In the case of RetroDodo, I’d look at the user base and get a real sense of the segments… are the enthusiasts, collectors, gamers? Which one of those groups (if any) has a desire for something exclusive?

And then WHAT IS that exclusive “thing”? Maybe it’s legitimate reviews from experts, access to a complete resource of information on consoles, or MAYBE it’s access to a private community.

After you know the answer, the question is how big is the audience and how much would they be willing to pay for the longest period possible to get access to that exclusive “thing”?

In my example above, I landed on a membership centered around a library of regularly updated content, exclusive one-off content, an advertising-free version of the site, and other digital “perks”. It’s been a while but I think the launch price was $12 per month. At the time of launch, the email list was over 50k subs and we had warmed them up (and built up the offer) so much that we had a very healthy conversion rate.

Option 2: Marketplace for retro gaming products & cards (include their sister site)

...anything else to give

- Let's give away (sell) their expertise and trust!

This might be a stretch goal. Not because I don’t think it can be done, but because I don’t know the economics of these consoles and whether they could support the operating costs. But, I’d seriously explore this as an option.

Basically, I would reposition the site as the go to marketplace for retro gaming consoles, games, collector cards, and collectors items. This would include providing authentication services, buyer and seller support, and whatever other bells and whistles retro game lovers want.

I have not done this personally. But I would look at one of my favorite websites for inspiration, which is https://bringatrailer.com/.

Bring a Trailer is the car auction site for car guys. If I meet someone who has bought a vehicle off this site, they qualify themselves. It tells me they're not a self-indulgent wiener, but a connoisseur.

I do not doubt there is an army of retro gaming addicts out there who want unboxed consoles, games, etc. And, they’d be willing to pay a premium for them if they come from a trusted source...

The problem is, how can they trust random sellers on eBay, Amazon, etc? They can’t. So, give them a place where they can buy what they want with a stamp of approval from a trusted and reputable site. They’ll pay for it.

Option 3: Launch a Members Forum

What new products could there be

- Make the community the product!

They have 287k subs on YouTube. People are listening/watching/commenting.

Let’s take those people off YouTube and bring them to a place where they can actually continue the discussion. Make it free to register but include additional premium options. Maybe include a private area for paid members for a few bucks a month.

The bonus of doing this is that it will also help their site. A big inflow of UGC in specific topics will make their relevance undeniable. People typing in RetroDodo to Chrome when they want to go and check the recent chatter will be a positive signal to Google.

One really good example of this was RTings, which I shared earlier in this thread. They are an affiliate review site. But the forum, which is on the same site, has more comments than BuSo. Here’s a quick breakdown I did of them for reference.

Option 4: Monetize the shit out of YouTube

They have a YT channel and can earn a living off of YT.

- They can earn a lot more than a living if they do it right.

As I said above, and elsewhere, I’ve been digging further into YouTube. Based on my research and knowing a few creators with decent sub counts, I expect RetroDodo could bring in $5k to $15k for a 60-second ad placement in the middle of their videos.

If they do two videos a week, eight per month, that could be $40k to $120k per month... even on the low end, that's not too bad. How much are they making right now?

There are platforms out there that act as your agent and set fixed rates that a lot of the medium-sized creators are using (I can’t remember the name right now but I’m sure Google can tell you).

Instead of having all the staff focused on writing articles, get them focused on writing scripts, increase video output, testing thumbnails, and then get one of them turned into a full-time ad salesperson for YouTube.

Option 5: Partner or exit to a relevant company

publishers really don't have anything else to give

- Maybe it's time to team up with a bigger partner.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but one of my favorite exits of the last five years was when Hubspot purchased The Hustle newsletter.

Long story short: The Hustle was a newsletter focused on young entrepreneurs with +1mm subs and Hubspot bought them because they wanted to sell their services to young entrepreneurs. So simple, it's brilliant.

This was a company with a service/product that bought a trusted media outlet for the target audience of the service/product they were selling. This needs to happen more often.

I don’t have this angle completely flushed out for RetroDodo. But, I would be looking at the products they are currently reviewing and the audience they are attracting and then finding overlap with major companies for both.

Maybe it’s a console manufacturer, a specific game, or a big brand in the space. And yes, I know this is counterintuitive since they are dying in terms of traffic, but there is brand value here and with a lifeline, they could focus on more relevant channels like @BakerStreet suggested above.

How I’d choose an option...

Who knows if any of these will work... who knows if RetroDodo has enough gas in the tank to try any of them?

I certainly wouldn't bet my financial future on any of these options without first taking a good hard look at the business, my family responsibilities, and what kind of future I want for myself and my family.

And based on the article that @devise shared, RetroDodo has 10 seconds left on the clock and they need a miracle… when you need a miracle in business you need to make sure you're willing to go all the way, and you need to be ready to pursue every and any option aggressively.

If they're going to give it ago...

I'd probably get aggressive with all of these options right away (and any others the team comes up with) and build them out for three or four days, take a day off, come back and reassess and get really fucking critical on each of them. Select the best two and start moving them forward.

After two weeks I’d look at which option has the best chance of success and then go 100% on that.

But, while all of this is happening I would be cutting ALL expenses, turning off the fucking lights, and bringing expenses down to ZERO. This is critical because whatever option they choose, they need to give it the longest period possible to start having success.

Bonus Comment: Books are stupid (as a product)

I’m bringing this up because RetroDodo has a book and is getting ready to publish a second one.

You should only write a book in two scenarios…

Scenario 1: You want notoriety (read: your ego demands it) and you want to go on the speaking circuit.

Scenario 2: You want to give it away for free <— the only acceptable reason.

I’m saying this from experience. I have sold books through my businesses. They don’t make enough money. Considering the effort that goes into making them and selling them, they are NOT worth it.

If you are cashed up and can afford an expensive lead magnet then definitely go for it. RetroDodo is not cashed up. Books are too slow and not profitable enough for a business like this.

If I were RetroDodo, I would cancel the publishing of the new book, tell the publisher I’m about to go bankrupt, get them to sign a release and give me the electronic rights, turn the finished book into an ebook, and sell it for whatever the expected profit margin was on the physical which I’m guessing is between $5 and $10 depending on the price point.

This would be a quick cash grab that could help them keep the lights on a bit longer while they pursue other more sustainable options.

Anyways, that's all I've got this late at night.... anyone else have any ideas?

 

[JOoa0ky]

https://retrododo.com/google-is-killing-retro-dodo/

Glad Retro Dodo shared this.

Unfortunately, it's just simply business.

Businesses much much larger than retrododo go kaput on a daily basis.

The most recent that comes to my mind is SVB (Silicon Valley Bank)... Feds raised interest rates so much to the point that the entire bank collapsed.

We can't foresee the future but it is still your job as the CEO to anticipate and prepare for these unforeseen events and navigate your business safely through the violent waters of the seven seas...

The music doesn't play forever, once it stops... what would you do?

 

[BakerStreet]

Unfortunately, it's just simply business.

Businesses much much larger than retrododo go kaput on a daily basis.

The most recent that comes to my mind is SVB (Silicon Valley Bank)... Feds raised interest rates so much to the point that the entire bank collapsed.

We can't foresee the future but it is still your job as the CEO to anticipate and prepare for these unforeseen events and navigate your business safely through the violent waters of the seven seas...

The music doesn't play forever, once it stops... what would you do?

This is why I think all businesses nowadays should follow Apple's precedence. They survived the rough 90's by having 3 years of operating expenses on hand as cash. They learned that you need cash reserves if you want to survive the rough times. That's crazy for a company their size nowadays but they keep that as part of their culture.

Seems like Dodo was setting themselves up for failure, by not keeping so much cash on hand. I'm guilty of this too since we have 6 months runway but we're cutting everyone to part time to extend the runway. And I'm selling two rentals to reinvest in my company. I don't think I'll pay myself from this company for awhile as I'm going to do the Apple thing and get a 3 year runway up. I also have two jobs too to cover my expenses and build up my personal cash savings.

Cash babe. Lower consumption or payroll and expenses and build up your cash reserves. That's the only way to survive turbulance.

Edit: quite funny they chose that brand name and now might go extinct!

 

[CCarter]

5 mins of research while laying in bed...

What's wrong with this picture:

RetroDodo.com (reported tanking)
DR 51
Backlinks: 164k (95% dofollow)
Referring domains: 12k (93% dofollow)

SERPWoo:
DR 57
Backlinks: 2.7k (70% dofollow)
Referring domains: 971 (70% dofollow)

CNN:
DR 93
Backlinks: 236M (84% dofollow)
Referring: 1.1M (94% dofollow)

BuSo:
DR 59
Backlinks: 2.9k (44% dofollow)
Referring: 279 (48% dofollow)

TheWorldTravelGuy.com (reported tanking)
DR 61
Backlinks: 9.9k / 84% dofollow
Referring: 2.5k / 87% dofollow

FindLoveAndTravel.com (reported tanking)
DR 53
Backlinks: 3.6k / 64% dofollow
Referring: 1.4k / 81% dofollow

--

It should be obvious why RetroDodos are tanking.

There is an un-natural amount of dofollow backlinks going to them, 95% dofollow - who can achieve that level? Even a CNN can't do that. Then throw in they are the weakest domain in terms of DR from above, obviously the backlinks are weak, from websites with no traffic.

A lot of the reported websites tanking seem to all have 80-90% referring domain as dofollow, which is not natural. Now new record breaking of 93% thanks to RetroDodo.

Looks like someone has spammed them to death or they did it to themselves, and poor @Grind is running on TwitterSEO show over and over the exact same pattern- but no one wants to listen because the proposed set of work is too hard.

The first thing any SEO should have done is look at their backlinks and said, "something doesn't look right". I did it within 5 mins.

 

[bernard]

If I were RetroDodo.com I would question how I could take my brand into the physical reality.

Arrange retro gaming events first of all. Set up competitive retro gaming tournaments. Sensible Soccer, Street Fighter 2 Turbo etc. I bet a lot of nostalgic millennials and Gen X would sign up.

I would sponsor organisations to the preservation of retro gaming, I would give micro-grants and fund games on Kickstarter etc.

If you did this kind of stuff, not only would it create a real audience, it would also give you the kind of unique links that I think are what gives the mythical EEAT.

 

[GeorgeG]

I think there is a mix of reasons why sites drop from these updates.
1. Links
2. Content shift
3. Mix of both

I have sites affected by both N1 and N2. I can give a blueprint on how to identify if it is your content or your links.

On an existing post that does not rank well, go copy the N1 result, run it trough Claude to summarize it and write it as for a featured snipped. Publish and reindex in google. If you have a ton of backlinks, you content should be updated and ranked for the new content in max 24 hours, but for me its about 3-4 hours.

If google does not indicate the change or it is too slow, its most likely links.

 

[NotaLawyer]

A few things I noticed when looking at the domain. Like @CCarter mentioned the unnatural link profile was a red flag. Dig in further and if we filter by "dofollow" and referring pages with traffic (I'm using ahrefs), I'm seeing a crazy low percentage of links coming from pages with actual traffic & supposedly passing equity.

So they have a lot of links coming from pages that don't get traffic themselves. That's not great.

Then if we look back to which pages pre-HCU were getting traffic they've been redirecting pages like crazy including retrododo.com/subnautica-3/ which was once one of their top traffic pages and it's now redirecting to the homepage. They made some stupid onsite decisions, which likely cost them.

Start with their backlinks, move to technical SEO issues, then start looking at content changes and it's not surprising they're dropping. One speculation is that they originally got impacted because of a poor link profile, made a knee jerk reaction thinking it was content-based, started messing around with redirecting a bunch of pages, changed core content on critical pages, and now in a complete nosedive.

Death by a thousand cuts?

 

[BakerStreet]

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/perplexity-ai-seo/513039/

Interesting report. Perplexity overlaps with SGE. Seems like both algos like big brand sites. Informational results are less likely to appear in Perplexity whereas ecomm still has a chance. If you're a small time information site, the future is not good for you as LLMs can replace you.

As everyone here's saying, better move on to a product or ecomm or another channel.

 

[CCarter]

Going back to some of the sites we looked which tanked in this thread:

ThatFitFriend.com (tanked):

DR: 35
Backlinks: 85K (98% dofollow)
Referring: 6.5K (95% dofollow)

--

gearpatrol.com:

DR: 81
Backlinks: 3.0M (95% dofollow)
Referring: 22K (83% dofollow)

--

garagegymreviews.com:

DR: 67
Backlinks: 507K (98% dofollow)
Referring: 12K (93% dofollow)

--

And this one is the one that was A.I. spamming for 6 months and got away with it and made bank, until it was manually removed from the SERPs - NOT an UPDATE:

equityatlas.org:
DR: 35
Backlinks: 13K (7% dofollow)
Referring: 641 (39% dofollow)

--

If GearPatrol and GarageGymReviews aren't taking a hit now they will at some point if they don't clean up their backlinks.

We talked about ThatFitFriend.com and that one has broken 2 records of dofollow percentage 98% for backlinks and 95% for referring. That's a massive RED FLAG if there ever was one.

Then look at the A.I, spammer at equityatlas - they bought a very clean domain with low dofollow ratio and made a lot of money for 6+ months.

Looks like SEO just comes down to links, internal and external, at the basic level. Who could have known...

 

[Smith]

Looks like SEO just comes down to links, internal and external, at the basic level. Who could have known...

I'm following @Grind's process now... it seems crazy that it can be this "easy"... I'm trusting his process and putting everything I can into it to make it work.

But, even if SEO is "just" links and sites like RetroDodo can recover their lost traffic, the fact remains that the SERPs are changing... and SGE can easily replace sites pushing out informational content like @BakerStreet shared above.

So, whether these sites evolve today, or in six months, they still need to evolve... or they need to be comfortable with a significantly smaller market share in their respective niches.

 

[devise]

It feels like Google wants to push everyone to YouTube.

I guess I need to jump on the YT bandwagon with AI Video Tools.

Also I disagree those are bad videos.

They have a YT channel and can earn a living off of YT. The issue is that their video content is not to the quality standards that YT wants (

). They made it as if they were reading a review article out loud while filming the video. That's not how YT works. You gotta make it interesting and there needs to be a person in the video. a "you".

If I were them, I'd pivot to other platforms like YT, IG, etc and make retro content there. The 8 Big guy on YouTube makes retro computer content and has 1 million + subscribers last I check. He earns his living from that now. It is very much possible. They just need to make content that fits for the platform. They haven't adapted to new platforms yet.

In conclusion, they can still survive, they just need to adapt to new platforms and algos. The audience is still there.

 

[Grind]

Looks like SEO just comes down to links, internal and external, at the basic level. Who could have known...

Eli

So, whether these sites evolve today, or in six months, they still need to evolve... or they need to be comfortable with a significantly smaller market share in their respective niches.

Bingo. Google has fired the warning shot. They no longer want to share distribution of informational traffic with webmasters. PAA, Knowledge Graph, now SGE and ranking commercial pages for info queries.

The writing is on the wall.

Figure out how to provide Google's users with something Google can't and the money printer will continue to brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....

 

[Politico]

I guess I need to jump on the YT bandwagon with AI Video Tools.

Also I disagree those are bad videos.

I'm just gonna say this... As a certified YouTube junkie (on it all day everyday), I can tell you that basically ALL AI videos that I come across are easily spotted and immediately skipped.

Also, may just be me but I've never seen a monetized AI video.

I'll go a step further and even say I'll completely skip over the old stock image + voice over videos too.

They're immensely unhelpful, essentially drivel, and always a waste of time and a frustrating realization once you've clicked.

If you're trying to build a brand, I'd recommend putting in real life effort to making your videos. But at the same time, I can't knock the AI hustle so do what you will