Never Forgive Them
HouseFresh disappeared from Google Search results. Now what?
Claude Summary - HouseFresh's Battle Against Google's Algorithm and Big Media Dominance
Key takeaway
HouseFresh, an independent publisher, has experienced a dramatic 91% loss in search traffic due to Google's algorithm changes, which favor big media sites and product listings, prompting them to adapt their strategy and fight back against what they perceive as an unfair digital landscape dominated by manipulative SEO tactics.
Summary
HouseFresh published an exposé in February 2024 warning readers about untrustworthy product recommendations from well-known publications ranking high in Google search results.
The article explores tactics used by big media publishers to outrank independent sites, including:
Dotdash Meredith's alleged "keyword swarming" strategy:
- Identifying small sites with high rankings for specific terms
- Publishing vast amounts of content to push competitors down in rankings
- Leveraging their network of websites to dominate search results
Forbes.com's expansion into pet-related content:
- Publishing thousands of articles about pets to build authority in the space
- Creating statistics round-ups to encourage backlinks
- Using this content to support pet insurance affiliate marketing
Legacy publications being acquired and repurposed:
- Example of Money magazine being bought by Ad Practitioners LLC
- Shifting focus to intent-based personal finance content surfaced from search results
- Expanding into unrelated topics (e.g., air purifiers, garage door openers) for affiliate revenue
Use of AI-generated content by major publishers:
- Sports Illustrated and USA Today caught publishing AI-written content under fake author names
- Outsourcing to third-party providers like AdVon Commerce for commerce content partnerships
- Layoffs of journalists while increasing AI-generated commercial content
Google announced a "site reputation abuse" spam policy update, effective May 5, 2024, aimed at curbing manipulative search ranking practices.
HouseFresh experienced a 91% loss in search traffic following Google's March 2024 core update.
The author criticizes Google's current search results, noting:
- Prevalence of generic "best of" lists from big media sites
- Abundance of Google Shopping product listings (e.g., 64 product listings for a single query)
- Lack of specificity in addressing user queries (e.g., budget-friendly options)
HouseFresh disputes various theories about why they've been demoted in search rankings, including:
- Use of affiliate links
- Conducting keyword research
- Not being an established brand
The article suggests Google Search may be "broken," potentially due to:
- The merging of Google Ads and Search objectives
- Changes in leadership, with the Head of Google Ads taking over as Head of Google Search in 2020
HouseFresh plans to adapt by:
- Focusing on exposing scam products and critiquing big media recommendations
- Expanding their presence on various social media and content platforms
- Leveraging Google's emphasis on fresh content to maintain visibility
- Using Google's own broken results to get their takedowns in front of people
The author expresses frustration with the current state of search results and advocates for a more open and diverse web ecosystem.
HouseFresh remains committed to producing quality content and fighting for visibility despite the challenges posed by Google's algorithm changes and the dominance of big media tactics.
Through this strategy, Dotdash Meredith allegedly identifies small sites that have cemented themselves in Google results for a specific (and valuable) term or in a specific topic, with the goal of pushing them down the rankings by publishing vast amounts of content of their own.
“IAC’s vision for Dotdash Meredith — to be a flywheel for generating advertising and commerce revenue — is finally starting to pan out.
[…] More than 80% of Dotdash Meredith’s traffic and digital revenue come from its core sites, such as Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, and Southern Living, that deliver a form of what one might think of as commerce-related service journalism.”
— Allison Schiff, managing editor of AdExchanger
To give the pet insurance affiliate section of Forbes the best chance to succeed, the Forbes Advisor team pumped out A LOT of content about pets and built A LOT of links around the topic with statistics round-ups designed to obfuscate the original sources in order to increase the chances of people linking to Forbes.com when using the stats
All this hard work paid off in the form of an estimated 1.1 million visitors each month to the pet insurance section of Forbes Advisor
This happened at the expense of every site that has produced content about dogs, cats, and other pets for many years before Forbes.com decided to cash in on pet insurance affiliate money.
They successfully replicated this model again and again and again across the huge variety of topics that Forbes covers today.
Step one: buy the site. Step two: fire staff. Step three: revamp the content strategy to drive new monetizable traffic from Google
“As a journalist, all of this depresses me,” wrote Brian Merchant, the technology columnist at the Los Angeles Times. He continued, “If journalists are outraged at the rise of AI and its use in editorial operations and newsrooms, they should be outraged not because it’s a sign that they’re about to be replaced but because management has such little regard for the work being done by journalists that it’s willing to prioritize the automatic production of slop.”
Here’s a recap so far:
Digital media conglomerates are developing SEO content strategies designed to out-publish high-ranking specialist independent publishers.
Legacy media brands are building in-house SEO content teams that tie content creation to affiliate marketing revenue in topics that have nothing to do with their original areas of expertise.
Newly created digital media companies are buying once successful and influential blogs with the goal of driving traffic to casino sites.
Private equity firms are partnering with companies like AdVon to publish large amounts of AI-generated content edited by SEO-focused people across their portfolio of media brands.
And here’s the worst part:
Google’s algorithm encourages all of them to rinse and repeat the same strategies by allowing their websites to rank in top positions for SEO-fueled articles about any topic imaginable. Even in cases when the articles have been written by AI and published under fake authors.
The Man Who Killed Google Search
The relentless pursuit of growth and revenue by Google's ads and finance teams, led by Prabhakar Raghavan, has compromised the quality and integrity of Google Search, leading to the ouster of Ben Gomes, who prioritized user experience over profits
Under Raghavan, Google has become less reliable, less transparent, and is dominated by search engine optimized aggregators, advertising, and outright spam.
Google is the ultimate essential piece of online infrastructure, just like power lines and water mains are in the physical realm.
In April 2011, the Guardian ran an interview with Raghavan that called him “Yahoo’s secret weapon,” describing his plan to make “rigorous scientific research and practice… to inform Yahoo's business from email to advertising,” and how under then-CEO Carol Bartz, “the focus has shifted to the direct development of new products.” It speaks of Raghavan’s “scientific approach” and his “steady, process-based logic to innovation that is very different to the common perception that ideas and development are more about luck and spontaneity,” a sentence I am only sharing with you because I need you to see how stupid it is, and how specious the tech press’ accolades used to be. This entire article is ridiculous, so utterly vacuous that I’m actually astonished. What about Raghavan’s career made this feel right? How has nobody connected these dots before and said something? Am I insane?
Sundar Pichai, who previously worked at McKinsey — arguably the most morally abhorrent company that has ever existed, having played roles both in the 2008 financial crisis (where it encouraged banks to load up on debt and flawed mortgage-backed securities) and the ongoing opioid crisis, where it effectively advised Purdue Pharma on how to “growth hack” sales of Oxycontin. McKinsey has paid nearly $1bn over several settlements due to its work with Purdue. I’m getting sidetracked, but one last point. McKinsey is actively anti-labor.
Panic Among the Streamers
Netflix could buy 10 top quality screenplays per year with the cash they’ll spend on that one job. They must have big plans for AI.There are also a half dozen AI job openings at Disney. And the tech-based streamers (Apple, Amazon) already have made big investments in AI. Sony launched an AI business unit in April 2020—in order to “enhance human imagination and creativity, particularly in the realm of entertainment.”
When Spotify launched on the stock exchange in 2018, it was losing around $30 million per month. Now it’s much larger, and is losing money at the pace of more than $100 million per month.
But the real problem at Spotify isn’t just convincing people to pay more. It runs much deeper. Spotify finds itself in the awkward position of asking people to pay more for a lousy interface that degrades the entire user experience.
Boredom is built into the platform, because they lose money if you get too excited about music—you’re like the person at the all-you-can-eat buffet who goes back for a third helping. They make the most money from indifferent, lukewarm fans, and they created their interface with them in mind. In other words, Spotify’s highest aspiration is to be the Applebee’s of music.
They need to prepare for a possible royalty war against record labels and musicians—yes, that could actually happen—and they do that by creating a zombie world of brain dead listeners who don’t even know what artist they’re hearing. I know that sounds extreme, but spend some time on the platform and draw your own conclusions.
The algorithmic anti-culture of scale
Ryan Broderick's impressions of Meta's Twitter copycat, Threads
My verdict: Threads sucks shit. It has no purpose. It is for no one. It launched as a content graveyard and will assuredly only become more of one over time. It’s iFunny for people who miss The Ellen Show. It has a distinct celebrities-making-videos-during-COVID-lockdown vibe. It feels like a 90s-themed office party organized by a human resources department. And my theory, after staring into its dark heart for several days, is that it was never meant to “beat” Twitter — regardless of what Zuckerberg has been tweeting. Threads’ true purpose was to act as a fresh coat of paint for Instagram’s code in the hopes it might make the network relevant again. And Threads is also proof that Meta, even after all these years, still has no other ambition aside from scale.