📉 Why Google Keeping 3rd Party Cookies is a Sign of Weakness

GM dorks,

Welcome back to the newsletter that sees another report asking “Is Social Media The New Google?” and thinks:

But then also analyzes the report anyway, b/c that’s kinda the gig:

Anyway, here’s what’s good this week:

→ Google Walks Back Cookie Phase-Out 👀

→ The Top 4 Social Media Metrics of 2024 ✅

→ You Guessed It: Is Social Media The New Google? 🤔

→ more, obviously 💬

But first…

​This Week's Video 🗣️🎙️​

In this week's video, I share my approach to filtering out low-quality PBN services. I cover the specific indicators of quality, such as the importance of checking samples, indexed domains, and outbound link quality. And by analyzing these aspects, I can better gauge the effectiveness of a PBN service and determine whether it's worth investing my time and resources. So tune in for more details on how to navigate this complex environment effectively.

​YouTube​​

What’s Going Down @ Google 📊

→ Google is walking back its plan to phase out third-party cookies, letting people “make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing” instead. AKA— display ads are here to stay.

For more top-tier analysis on the matter, here’s my take on why "Google Keeping 3rd Party Cookies is a Sign of Weakness."​

→ Sundar Pichai’s Alphabet 2024 Q2 Earnings Call. Click if you wanna see him dodge the question re: how AI overviews are impacting CTRs and monetization.

→ Speaking of Google’s earnings, they’re huge. Alphabet made nearly $85B over the quarter, constituting a 14% increase YOY. Search and AI are being credited for the gains.

→ Here’s a report on Search volatility this week. TLDR; there’s been a spike and people are noticing, and- in case it’s not obvious- it’s more than likely that testing for the next algo update is responsible for this.

Social Media Round-up 📲

→ Hootsuite’s Social Media Benchmarks report for Q2 is full of solid tips and useful data. Social media benchmarks, FWIW, are industry-specific "norms or averages for specific metrics like social media engagement and follower growth."

According to the report, the four key metrics of 2024 are:

- page/profile impressions
- audience growth rate
- post engagement rate
- posting frequency

Each of these has a specific formula that you can apply to not only your own social media game, but your competitors', too.

As well as providing platform and niche-specific benchmarks for reference, the article offers strategies for using social media benchmarks to grow your social media game, including a big one: "Replicate winning strategies from leaders in your industry." For three more strategies and + other generally good info, click through.

→ This Forbes report asks “Is Social Media the New Google?” and shares some interesting insights re: Gen Z and its social media usage. The TLDR is that "they’re more likely to search for certain topics on social media platforms, while being more likely to turn to Google for others." But it's worth diving a bit deeper. Compared to Google, Gen Z is:

-12% more likely to search for Gift Ideas on TikTok
-15% more likely to search for Hair & Makeup
- 44% LESS likely to search for Local Services (Google-centric local SEOs can share a sigh of relief)

Meanwhile, here are a few other stats that jump out:

- “57% of People Said They Search for Information on YouTube in the Same Way They Would on Google”
- “There Is a 25% Decline in Using Google for Search Between Generation Z and Generation X”
- “24% of People Said They Find New Brands on Social Media Daily”

→ Also, re: AI, all Meta platforms now have AI photo-generation tools. Basically, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp feeds all offer advanced image generation and editing capabilities.

AI Insight 🤖

→ Meta execs have confirmed that they’ve received a “request” from the EU to pause future AI model training on data.” In response, Meta is threatening that the EU will “get left behind” in the AI race due to over-regulation.

→ Considering all the hype around OpenAI, it’s a bit surprising that it might lose $5B this year. Paying for training data alone "could balloon to as much as $3 billion this year."

→ Also re: paying for training data, researchers really do think it’s vital, as using synthetic data (AKA data created by AI systems to train LLMs) “could lead to the rapid degradation of AI models and a collapse over time.”

→ Bing is testing a new search generative experience. Does anyone care? We’ll see, I guess?

→ Speaking of Bing— in a real “shots fired” moment, Microsoft has confirmed that Reddit has blocked Bing Search crawling its site by updating its robots.txt file. Oops.

→ Bain & Company recently released a report on “How B2B Sales and Marketing Leaders Are Getting the Most from Generative AI” and it’s worth a look. There's a lot of data to back up these insights if you check out the report, but here's the TLDR:

1) Think Strategically and Ambitiously
2) Don't Lag
3) Don't Optimize Existing Processes
4) Balance Build With Buy

If you’re curious about WTF they mean by any of these, you know the drill. Click through.

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

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