🤖 June 2024 Algo Update is Already Mid-Rollout

GM dorks,

Welcome back to the newsletter that was born ready for yet another spam update nobody asked for:

Let’s go.

Here’s what’s good this week:

→ Adapting to the New Search Scene ✅
→ 5 Ways to Up Your Amazon Ads Game📈
→ June 2024 Algo Update is Already Mid-Rollout 🤖
→ more, obviously 💬

But first…

​This Week's Pod 🗣️🎙️​

In EP70 of TWIDM, James De Lacey and I provide a comprehensive guide on how to effectively scale cold email campaigns for business purposes. We also cover key strategies, such as personalizing emails, segmenting the target audience, and using automation tools. Come through.

​YouTube​

​Apple Podcast​

​Google Podcast​

​Spotify​​

What’s Going Down @ Google 📊

→ The June 2024 spam update started rollout on June 20 and word is that it’ll take about a week to fully kick in. It’s specifically targeted at “sites violating some of the Google search spam policies” and is not - as some thought it might be- the algorithmic element of the site reputation abuse update.

Here’s the status dashboard keeping track of the update’s progress.

And if you’re wondering how digital marketers are responding to the update so far, the piece “Google Spam Update Sparks Relentless Discontent” may answer some questions.

→ A study by Amsive shows that “there was a shift from affiliate and product review websites to both eCommerce and user-generated content (UGC) sites for various keywords in top ranking positions in Search results.”

In case you haven’t noticed, in practice, that means that keywords that used to lean toward product reviews and affiliate sites are now bringing users to e-commerce shops and user-generated content (aka Reddit threads and YouTube videos).

Guess it’s good to see it in a formal report tho. lol.

Anyway, they also suggest some strategies for product review and affiliate sites to work through the change, including:

- “digital media”
- “more social media posts and engagement”
- “video content, (including YouTube Shorts & TikTok)”
- “podcasts”
- “engaging with audiences in relevant forums”

Worth considering.

→ One of Google’s talking heads on when to fix 404 errors: 1) “the URL SHOULD return content and a 200 status code,” and 2) “the URL was indeed not supposed to return content… the URL COULD be useful to users.” AKA “you don't need to fix all 404 errors: fix those that actually will help users.”

Social Media Round-up 📲

→ Meta is now officially testing automated A/B testing for business pages, automatically making multiple versions of your Reel and testing them to see which performs better with audience.

→ I’ve always liked making fun of Meta apps copying TikTok, so it’s only fair to pay attention when the reverse happens. TikTok is trying out an image-sharing app called “Whee”, letting users “capture real-life photos that only your friends can see, allowing you to be your most authentic self.” AKA— Instagram… or, at least Instagram before it tried to become TikTok.

→ YouTube will now allow users to edit videos longer than 6 hours. Interesting, but if 6+ hour videos are part of your content strategy we might have some bigger fish to fry.

→ ICYMI: TikTok is officially fighting back on its “unconstitutional ban” in the USA. You can read its opening brief by clicking through.

AI Insight 🤖

→ Shopify’s AI merchant assistant called “Sidekick” is now on the scene, helping sellers on the platform with all sorts of tasks, including discount code production, generating store reports, and even thinking up ideas for blog posts.

→ Keep an eye out for Moonshot, China’s Top AI Startup (valued at $3B) that may be arriving on the scene in America and beyond soon with products like “an AI role-playing chat application called Ohai" and " a music video generator called Noisee.” Other reports say that Moonshot has no plans to do so, so we’ll see how it pans out.

→ Perplexity AI’s CEO has fired back at accusations of plagiarism and unethical crawling: “Perplexity is not ignoring the Robot Exclusions Protocol and then lying about it.” You know things are going well when you gotta say that publicly.

5 Strategies for Upping Your Amazon Ads Game

→ This article gives a solid overview of the state of Amazon Ads in 2024, looking at changes to targeting options, ad formats, analytics & reporting tools, the integration of AI, and more. In doing so, there's a lot of good info on how to maximize sponsored brand ads and succeed on the platform.

The best part, however, is a section of specific notes on how to build a sustainable strategy of success on the platform. Here are 5:

1. Regularly update your product listings
2. Leverage seasonal trends and events
3. Utilize negative keywords
4. Enhance customer reviews and ratings
5. Implement retargeting campaigns

For more on how to move fwd on these, click through.

Jacky Chou​
Founder of Indexsy
hello@indexsy.com
Let's Connect on Twitter👇

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