💀 Weekend Update: “Helpfulness” Strikes Again

GM nerds,

Welcome back to the newsletter that will never stop telling the kids about the good old days:

#NeverForget

Here’s what’s good this week:

→ “Helpfulness” Strikes Again 💀
→ TikTok Enters the AI Ad Performance Race👀
→ Google Hi-Jacks Your Traffic, Not Beating The Allegations ❌
→ more, obviously 💬

But first…

​This Week's Video 🗣️🎙️​

In this week's video, I share some innovative SEO business ideas that have the potential to generate significant income each month. I explore five specific concepts that can help you reach that $10K monthly mark. These strategies not only leverage existing services but also tap into various market needs, ensuring that your efforts yield profits without overwhelming your schedule. If you’re ready to think outside the box and explore new avenues in SEO, tune in.

​YouTube​​

What’s Going Down @ Google 📊

Looking for another reason to get mad at Google? Well, you’ve come to the right newsletter.

→ First of all, Google is testing a “Quick View” button made specifically to damage your traffic. Seriously, the button just gives out a snapshot of the content without making users click through to the page. Not beating the allegations, Google.

FWIW, Google responded, saying it is " experimenting with different ways to connect our users with high-quality and helpful information" and that this is a potential "new recipe experience" that will be "helpful for users and drive value to the web ecosystem."

HELPFULNESS strikes again.

→ As if that’s bad enough, here’s the argument that these AIO rip-offs are “not actually AI at all” but “a Frankenstein of plagiarized & summarized text lifted nearly verbatim from websites.”

→ AI Overviews also out here inventing phone numbers for businesses. And, BTW, still isn’t linking to any site hit by the HCU.

→ Meanwhile, branded queries are failing to bring up a single result that isn’t ad:

Oof.

Social Media Round-up 📲

→ Instagram just dropped a “Best Practices” feature for creators, aiming to give “personalized” growth guidance. The tips range from specific (“posting 10 Reels a month is key”) to extremely vague things that basically say “create content people will engage with.” Great idea, wish I woulda thought of that myself.

→ ICYMI: YouTube is expanding Shorts runtime limit to 3 minutes as of October 15.

→ In one of the boldest attempts at a re-brand we’ve seen in a while, Meta’s new vision for Facebook is trying to attract Gen Z by putting “greater emphasis on local community information, videos, and Facebook Groups.”

It's probably worth a shot. Ten years ago, 71% of teens were on Facebook. In 2024, it's down to 33%. Oof.

Prediction: even if the kids bite at first, boomers everywhere rage-posting about the new layout will remind Gen Z why they’re not into FB in the first place… their grandpas are all on there screaming at ragebait videos or whatever.

→ Oh yeah, and about Facebook… click through for an easy rundown on how to drive traffic using FB comments— from our friend @NicheSiteLady.

AI Insight 🤖

Speaking of social media…
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→ TikTok launched Smart+ and some other ad features at Advertising Week this week, officially “entering the AI Ad Performance Race.” Smart+ is the major announcement— basically, it’s “an automation tool for targeting, bidding, and creative selection. Advertisers can enter assets, budget, and goals, and TikTok says Smart+ optimizes ad delivery to meet KPIs.”

→ For you Pinterest-heads out there, the platform also recently released its own suite of Performance+ tools designed to help “any advertiser drive lower-funnel performance by optimizing targeting, managing budgets, or deciding how much to bid.”

→ Reddit’s keyword targeting expansion is a game-changer. Available for both feed and conversation ad placements, this keyword targeting update, teamed up with Reddit's new AI-powered audience expansion and placement expansion, should seriously help with cost per acquisition. And the AI-powered "Keyword Suggestions" feature accesses Reddit's insanely rich database in cooking up its suggestions.

→ The latest on SearchGPT is basically that OpenAI plans to simply integrate it into ChatGPT by the end of the year. Current buzz is that OpenAI's framework won't allow for ad revenue sharing, and that publishers can only monetize via clicks and traffic.

The guiding idea: "searchers today want answers, not just a collection of links."

Remembering when Google used to say stuff like that. We’ll see how it pans out.

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

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