More Volatility in Rankings! Core Update Gains Disappear

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast!

This week Jared and guest host Morgan Overholt break down the biggest news affecting publishers and SEOs and cover the latest moves by Google.

After the news, they talk about some of their side hustles, and lastly, they share some weird, but useful, niche sites.

Watch the Full Episode

First things first: The big news the hosts tackle this week is that the Google Search ranking increases seen during the August Core Update are now seeing reversals.

There’s certainly no shortage of volatility in the SERPs these days, and this new setback has, unsurprisingly, caused concern among small publishers. 

While the traffic losses aren’t as bad at the moment as they were with the HCU, time will tell where this goes.

Jared notes that equally important to the reversals in traffic is the reversal in hope of small publishers. 

Do you believe the HCU classifier still exists? Is this really a decoupling of various algorithms? What do Jared and Morgan point out about SEO and diversification? Listen to the episode to find out!

Moving along, they share another open letter to Google, this time from former podcast guest Cyrus Shepard.

Jared reads the letter and they discuss Shepard’s main points, about ranking spam in favor of real expertise. 

Is it true that Google doesn’t know how to fix this? What do you think about the Forbes/McDonalds analogy? What does Morgan think of the letter?

The last news item they discuss is that Google has updated its spam policies document. Jared shares the new section Google added about site reputation abuse and gives a bit of the backstory.

What do they say about Google documentation in general?

And what conundrum does Google need to solve, according to Jared? And what does Morgan think about the situation?

When it’s time to talk about Shiny Object Shenanigans, Jared talks about his Amazon Influencer Side Hustle, as we move into Q4.

Jared reflects on his experience last year going into the final quarter of the year and shares how he changed his strategy this year.

If you’re in the program, it’s worth hearing his thoughts about this.

Morgan then goes ahead and shares some major news: she just crossed the $700k threshold on Upwork.

She shares her thoughts on freelancing and what it’s done for her and discusses whether or not she thinks it’s a race to the bottom, as many people say.

Moving along, they talk about their weird niche sites.

Jared goes first with Best Hashtags, which finds hashtags for social media posts. He does a demo and then shares some of the site’s more special features.

This DR71 site ranks for more than 300k keywords with over 2 million organic searches per month. 

What’s the growth trajectory? How is it monetized? How much money does Jared think they might be earning?

When it’s Morgan’s turn, she shares Thread Reader, one of those sites that people use every day but never really think about.

She explains how it works and then shares what surprised her when she dug into its traffic stats. 

What did she discover? How did the site fare in the updates?

And that brings us to the end of another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. We hope you’re feeling informed, inspired, and ready to take your business or side hustle to the next level.

See you next Friday!

transcript

Jared: All right. Welcome back to this week in niche pursuits news. My name is Jared Bauman, and we’ve got a couple of very interesting stories today. Number one, first and foremost, I think the big one we’ll be getting to is that Google search ranking increases that we saw during August core update. They’re being wiped out at least for certain websites.

We’ve talked a lot about the helpful content update sites that did see recovery. Well, we’ve now got a story that is not quite as positive. We’re also talking about September must be open letter month because we’ve got another open letter to Google. This one though is from a former niche pursuits podcast guest.

We’ll talk through that open letter that he sent and published and get some opinions on that. Got a couple other news items we’ll jump to. We’ve definitely got some side hustles, and I have to say that my side hustle today is going to be completely overshadowed by our guest host. And of course, we’ll get to some weird niches.

But speaking of that guest host, Morgan. Morgan Overholt is back. Morgan, welcome. Yay! Good to be back, as always. Good to have you. Good to have you. We got a, like you said, kind of an SEO heavy sort of podcast in terms of the news items that lined up today. And, uh, I know you swear you’re like a non SEO. I would argue maybe a little differently, but it’ll be fun to have your opinions and your takes on it.

Piazza is someone who’s perhaps a self described non SEO. You certainly have a lot of opinions about Google. 

Morgan: I’m like, I’m basically 

window shopping 

Morgan: SEO. That’s what I’m doing. 

Jared: I’m, I’m a, I’m a invested observer. Of course, SEO hasn’t been looking too good in the window these days. Uh, I’ll tell you that much.

You picked, you picked the wrong time to window shop, but I digress. Um, I’m looking forward to hearing about your side hustle. Uh, we got it booted up here, and it’s quite an astonishing little, uh, reveal you have for us, but we’ll get to that in a little bit. First and foremost, the big story here is, like I said, um, spinning out of the August core update, and that is that, um, I mean, it’s, it’s hard to really get around it, the, the, the news is that a lot of sites are, Are seeing reversals on the core update ranking increases.

So the, the sub, the storyline here by Barry Schwartz is Google search ranking increases during the core update, wiped out post update. Um, so a lot of volatility has been going on in the SERPs for quite a while now. Certainly the last couple of weeks, the core update ended on September 3rd. We’re recording here last week of September.

And so it’s been several weeks. You would have expected, if you look back in time, that we would have That historically volatility from the update should have probably settled down by now. Uh, Barry reports that there’s been a lot of changes happening on specifically September 6th, September 10th, September 14th, and September 18th.

Ah, however, here’s the, the, the tough part. A lot of that volatility has led to a lot of the sites that increased in the core update to drop and a lot of the sites that dropped in the core update to go back and increase again. And so we’re almost getting like a flattening of the, uh, algorithm effect. Of course, we take a real focus on the HCU and the effects on those HCU sites.

And here is a tweet by Brandon Saltamachia from Retro Dodo showing a decrease, um, here and saying helpful to not helpful, to helpful, to not helpful all in the space of the year. This is so confusing and Google really need to sort this out because there isn’t a lot to it. There isn’t a lot of independent sites left anymore, and I know many of us won’t be able to sustain another major hit.

Um, uh, Glenn Gay report on this as well. I know Marie Haines has been talking about this. I’ve got a couple quotes from them. But, uh, I mean, Morgan, you’ve been on a couple times as we’ve talked about this August core update and then the subsequent effects on the HCU hit sites. Not great news. I guess out of the gate.

Morgan: Yeah. Um, that’s the first thing I want to say, you know, a heartfelt Well, just my heart goes out to everybody who was really hoping and had you know Put all of that hope and prayer into like this update that things would change and you know We talked about all year that you know Maybe give it a year But kind of like panting penguin and we’d start to kind of see things reverse now it is important to note that these are not like Full reversals, at least from what I’ve seen, like most of the examples that we’ve looked at, it’s a slight reversal.

So we’re still up versus where we were like in July for the most part. Again, there’s like, you know, outliers and all this stuff, but most of it’s kind of like a bit of a dip up, back up to March levels and then like a dip back down, uh, you know, about, they, More or less lost about a third of what they gained, um, and it’s not looking like it’s tracking very well either.

Jared: It’s a good point because, um, you know, that article headline was a little sensationalized, at least from the screenshots I’ve seen, right? To your point, the, um, the, the reversals that have happened have been minuscule when compared to the gains, and then, In the grand scheme of things, very minuscule. When you look at like the, uh, the large scope of where sites used to be, it still hurts and it’s still the wrong direction.

And I think we’ve always talked about the sentiment behind the helpful content update and what it’s done to site owners. It’s destroyed their hope, you know, I think that’s, uh, obviously it’s destroyed the rankings for many and it’s destroyed revenue for many, but it’s also, since there haven’t been any signs of recovery, it’s kind of destroyed hope.

We got those signs of recovery. We got that hope back, at least for a lot of people. And now this. Almost immediate, right? Couple weeks later, reversal of sorts is kind of killing that hope a bit. I think that’s maybe where the sensationalized headlines come from, or maybe there’s some screenshots or examples that we’re not seeing at this point, to your point, I got retro Dodo up here, um, uh, for, in an AHRF chart.

If you’re listening online, we’ll walk you through it. If you’re watching, this is the two year look, but let me zoom in on the six month look. Um, we’re looking at organic traffic and, you know, to your point, Morgan, I mean, you know, started at early August at, Uh, 36, 000 organic traffic per month jumped, uh, by September 11th to 100, 000, so a 3X increase.

And now AHRS is showing it dropped back down to 81, 000. So that’d be a 20 percent drop off the high. Could still be dropping though. You know, we know AHRS reports a little bit in the rears on this. Still up though on the 30 You know, 3000 or so that it started with, um, one more to share with you here, um, because I think you brought up a really good point about the reversals.

I’ll pull up house fresh as well. I mean, you can’t talk HCU without talking these two brands, right? It’s like the eating a dead horse. Um, house fresh, that’s retro dodo. Shoot. Okay. Here we go. House fresh. Um, house fresh had the dramatic increase. So again, we’re looking at the two year graph here. And they dropped, um, in March.

They dropped in the HCU, well, they arguably dropped in the HCU around then, the core updates around then. Uh, and then dropped in the March update precipitously. Rebounded almost right back to where they were in the March update. And then if I zoom in to just the last six months, they started around 1, 800 organic before the core update.

Went up to about 36, 000, uh, in that September 11th timeframe, and now we’re down to 31, 000. And so there are drops. They’re not substantial, at least not in these examples and a couple of the other screenshots we’re seeing online. 

Morgan: Yeah, and depending on where this goes. I mean, as of the time of this recording, uh, so time will tell.

Bingo. But you know, 

Jared: Quickly. Yeah. 

Morgan: Honestly, Jared, it makes me nervous. Uh, I feel like you’re jinxing it right now. So let’s go find on a, uh, like a thing of wood to go knock on real quick. My 

Jared: desk, my desk. Yeah, 

Morgan: there you go. But it’s like you said, it’s kind of a reversal of emotion as well. And a reversal, a reversal of hope.

But you know, I can’t speak for everybody. I know that. There are definitely a lot of people who were devastated like I was back in September, um, or March, whichever one hit you originally in the HCU. Um, I would say a good portion of that crowd kind of like me were like, whatever, gave up. I quit looking at Google.

Even when recovery started happening last week, I did not rush to go change anything or to go look at any site and try to analyze what they did because I just knew some more shenanigans from Google would be afoot. And I no longer personally see Google. As a reliable source of traffic. Um, you know, it’s, it’s also like, I can’t help but think, you know, I know that there’s a lot of question about whether or not the HCU classifier still remains.

I feel like when I talk to, and I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts on this. When I talk to like a lot of SEOs, they always say the classifier no longer is a thing it’s baked into the core update, et cetera. But if the classifier is no longer a thing, this kind of feels a bit like that time. Actually the two times that I went on vacation and I swore to my husband that I closed the fridge door I’m like, of course I closed the fridge Why would I leave the fridge door open for two weeks?

And then I came back to a whole fridge full of a spoiled food Like maybe they just like somebody forgot and left something on a little too long It’s all I’m saying. I’m just if we checked the fridge door Google have we checked just to make sure 

Jared: I think they’ve checked but I think that to some degree the fridge door is Behind a labyrinth of a maze of algorithms upon algorithms upon algorithms to some degree that and actually, to your point, um, to your point, I wanted to highlight a couple quotes from Glenn, Gabe and Marie Haines that kind of play into what you’re talking about, which is, um, and I did amalgamate them all together.

So I should have kept them separate so that Glenn and Marie could have both gotten their notes of credit.

What’s happening right now being a decoupling of multiple algorithms, right? When you launch a core update, you have these algorithms plural working and updating in synchronicity. And so, you know, Glenn Gabe, I, I initially read something from him. He’s highlighting that, um, algorithm decoupling could be why some of this is dropping back.

Marie Haynes, I believe, was the one who talked about how, um, These could be as a result of user engagement signals. So again, not to overwalk down the road, but like, Hey, the sites surge a bit. They regain rankings. They’re now ranking top one, two, or three for some articles they didn’t used to be, but now user engagement signals have started to feed those, um, those, those, uh, those articles and, and recorrected perhaps some of their rankings, some of that doesn’t add up though, because then why would every single site that went up be dropping roughly the same, like That so every site has the same user engagement method.

Like, so there’s a lot going on there. There’s a lot of stuff coming out that kind of makes sense, but then you could kind of play devil’s advocate on. You’re 

Morgan: right. I mean, the pattern is there. Like even on my site, I didn’t gain as much as house fresh or quite as much as retro dodo. But again, I’m back out to my March levels.

Um, and I’m talking about my freelancer site and working over whole. com, the old one. I’m relaunching it under a different name, but the old one is still there. Um, you know, I, I’m also probably down 30%. Almost exactly to where, from what I had previously gained. So, yeah, it’s, it’s suspicious to me. Like, if there’s not some sort of classifier or something that’s sort of just like, you know, putting all those sites in one bucket and then hitting them the same, like you said, what would the odds be of the metrics being the exact same or the click data being the exact same?

The level of quote helpful content. Being the exact same across all those sites. Like my site looks nothing like house fresh house. Fresh looks, nothing like retro Dodo. I’m just saying. And I do think to your point, there’s some uncoupling going on here, Jared, and it’s me and Google were consciously uncoupling as they call it.

Jared: Now, yes, the relationship it’s, um, I’d say it’s been happening for a while if I read the tea leaves, but, um, you know, I will say as a counterpoint. That, and I, I didn’t, uh, I didn’t check all of them, but I have access, you know, access to a lot of Google Search console, um, uh, data from, from my agency. And I know that I had reported a couple weeks ago on, uh, you know, some sites that saw a lot of increases, right?

We even shared some screenshots from them and stuff. So I just went back to some of the ones right before we hit record here that I, I, I knew, um, had had some good gains and none of the ones I checked that I have access to had seen. Any measurable drops. Now, again, what we’re posting here is a rest graph, right?

Like charts and stuff. That’s not, that’s third party data. Um, and so, um, I was looking at Google search console, which is real actual data, didn’t see any drops. I didn’t have time to check all of them, you know, so don’t, it’s not a, uh, it’s not a statistically significant result, but it definitely appears like some sites are perhaps giving up some of their gains, but some are definitely not.

I think to your point, I think to our point. We would just like to see, um, an arc of improvement for site owners that have good sites and have made that investment. And, um, hopefully this is something where, um, the good sites will just continue to see the growth. Long term gain and we’re, we’re zeroing in on the short term.

We’re zeroing in on a week or two in September. Hopefully when we take a step back, some of these sites that are putting all their effort in and they’re actually putting their, their a game forward, you know, we know there’s volatility. We know that when it comes to search and rankings. No matter for a site that’s growing, you know, exponentially, there’s going to be little ups and downs along the way.

So hopefully that’s what it is, right? Like we can just hope, like you said, who knows? That could be different by the time this podcast comes out, though. 

Morgan: It’s gotta be a long game. It just has to be like, honestly, if there was is one silver lining for me personally, it’s that I feel like, I have grown by leaps and bounds through this entire thing.

Like I didn’t even think about SEO really like before the HCU head and basically destroyed my website. Then I became obsessed over it. I mean, I, I quit going to the gym. I quit eating right. I every waking moment, I was just sitting in front of my computer trying to recover my website. Like. Analyzing, pouring over the data, listening to podcasts, trying to buy as many audits as I could buy, you know, and, and to no avail.

Um, this time I was like, yeah, whatever, not paying attention to it. And so I, cause now I realize, Hey, look, it’s about a couple of things is focusing on the long game, not the short game and chasing these. Dang algorithms, right? Um, but also it’s kind of like accepting that again, like I said earlier, diversification is key.

Google might not be that end all be all that I sort of feel like we’ve sort of hailed it as for, uh, for the past several years of being this steady. Uh, steady state of traffic or the steady source of traffic. You know, honestly, the social media, it’s hilarious. I feel like traditionally has been that traffic source that people say, Oh, the algorithms, Oh, it’s unpredictable, whatever, but social media for me has gotten me through all of this.

So just anyway, your weekly reminder, diversification, long game people. 

Jared: Always diversify and the counterpoint. I, I work websites who don’t even know what the word, whose owners don’t even know what the word HCU means that doesn’t even come up. Yeah. Because they are in an industry where none of this happened.

As a matter of fact, they saw gains from that. You know, they went up. You know, they were plumbers doing plumbing. I’m using that example tongue in cheek because Google used it, ironically, but plumbers saw gains in the HCU, you know? They went up. Local businesses went up. SAS went up. Ecom went up. And these people don’t even know what the HCU is.

So, SEO still works vibrantly in some industries. It’s just this little one we find ourselves talking a lot about this kind of content game. Um, Diversification has been put in the forefront. We both shared examples like of you shared about, you know, one of your websites that you’ve gotten completely back in terms of revenue to where it was prior.

I shared a week or two ago in the podcast about getting a website that was destroyed by the HCU revenue wise back to where it was from other traffic sources. So it’s totally possible. Take some work. It’s a bummer. It’s a tough lesson to learn. But, you know, at the same time, that’s what life is kind of full of.

Morgan: Mm hmm. Recoveries are possible, just not the way that you, uh, perhaps would have traditionally defined them. Yeah. Recoveries in revenue, uh, recoveries in traffic, but maybe from other sources. 

Jared: Well, we’re sticking with Google here, and we’ve got an open letter. We talked about an open letter with, I mean, I don’t know, was it last week or was it when you were here last week?

We had Brooks on. It must’ve been, I can’t remember. 

Morgan: There’s one every week. I was going to say it’s open letter month 

Jared: here. It’s a, it’s open letter month here. This is by Cyrus Shepard. He was a guest on the podcast probably a year and a half ago. Uh, he’s been pretty vocal about Google’s ups, Google’s downs.

I mean, he’s even been a Google quality Raider for a period of time. Um, and he posted this a couple of days ago on LinkedIn. I’m just going to read it. It’s not that long. So bear with me rather than trying to summarize something. That’s not that long. I’ll just read it out loud. Uh, an open letter to the folks in Google search.

Listen, I know you receive a lot of criticism. No matter who you rank on top, folks are likely to complain. I also know you’re fighting an army of spammers and over optimized content that threaten the quality of search results. I get it. But, let’s also recognize that consistently ranking a site number one will lead to commercial spam on that site and worsening results.

Whether it’s Reddit or Forbes, those are two hot, hot ticket items right now in the, in the conversation. Whether it’s Reddit or Forbes, folks will see easy money and now you’re fighting another moving target. Do we think Forbes should rank number one for best crypto exchange alongside best CBD gummies along with best headphones and thousands of other best keywords?

Does the brand, quote unquote, of Forbes equate to product expertise? When we look at these pages, we don’t see the evidence of personal experience or expertise that you demand of smaller publishers. There’s very little evidence that they’ve actually used many of these products. For being honest, these results seem worse than the quote, unhelpful content you fought to produce.

What gives? Yeah. When we see Forbes and Reddit over and over again, it doesn’t feel like Google is searching anymore, but instead you gave up to serve the McDonald’s of search results with two to three items on the menu. Here’s what we’d love to see instead. So this is what Cyrus is proposing. And, you know, I’d say if anybody has a voice there, he’s one of the ones.

Uh, increase site diversity. So we see different sites with more focused expertise. Number two, apply the same content standards of quote, helpful content to big and small sites alike. You know, the standards that I’m talking about and number three, reduce any punishment of sites with small brand footprints.

I understand your intentions here, but not every well researched site has a real world presence and turn down the signal for big brands as it encourages bad behavior. We talked about that, about that last week about, do you really have a go to resource for toasters? Finally, in conclusion, I’ve seen what you were doing helpful content.

I applaud much of it. I think you can improve Google search. If you apply these principles more broadly while relying less on the brand, which has become. Less reliable over time and he’s got some screenshots to boot So I guess it was a little longer than I’ve previously anticipated, but I still think it’s a good read It’s kind of summarizes 2024.

Morgan: I read it like three times and it was before I found out we’re gonna cover on the podcast 

Since then maybe six I Might have been able to do it from memory 

Jared: Instead of Beijing Netflix. This was your this was your evening routine 

Morgan: It was cathartic. I mean, I just, yeah, it’s, it’s everything that I feel, everything that I think a lot of people are thinking.

I mean, now, to play Devil’s Advocate, first of all, poor McDonald’s. A little harsh for McDonald’s, I’d say, 

Jared: but 

Morgan: Hey. 

Jared: Uh, I mean It’s a badge, you know, it’s like, it’s like Kleenex. It’s like a badge of honor, you know? 

Morgan: Alright, alright. But, yeah, I will, I will pose this question if I were to play Devil’s Advocate, just to like Let’s have a, let’s have a thought, right?

Let’s throw something interesting into the conversation. If not Forbes, that’s allowed to rank for spam, then who, right? What, what is your preferred source of spam? That’s, that’s my only question. And I think perhaps that might be the question that Google too, is grappling with right now. So yeah, I don’t, I mean, well, 

Jared: we’re going to talk about this in a second.

Our third story of the day is regarding parasite SEO, right. Uh, in that whole topic and about how Google was. Going said, Hey, we’re going to destroy it all. And then the date came and passed and it was like, Oh, you haven’t destroyed it. And it was kind of like, kind of coming out of late. Like, yeah, we don’t really know how to destroy it algorithmically.

And going back to what Cyrus said, he said, he’s like, Hey, um, well, let me go back even further. Google has told us with EEAT, which was introduced to us almost two years ago. EAT even further back than that, that, Hey, we can evaluate for expertise. We can evaluate for these certain components. experience.

These are things that we’re looking for and our algorithm is tuned for. And so my argument to you is what should rank above the spam that Forbes is doing other things? Well, stuff with experience and stuff with expertise. And if you can figure that out, if you’re telling us that you can figure that out, then why are we seeing Forbes ranking for best CBD gummies when they don’t have anyone who’s really actually used that there is someone who has?

Um, and maybe Google just actually can’t figure it out. 

Morgan: Yeah, I mean, you know, that’s the question, right? Is it that they don’t know how to or they don’t want to as well? Uh, that’s, that’s my thing, right? So, okay, going back to the, the question I said, right? And, and to the point that you made, like, um, you know, is Forbes really the go to source?

For these family type articles, uh, you know, at the end of the day, there’s probably way more spammy queries for things like best CBD gummies, or I forget what the other example was. Uh, any of these spammy queries that we basically see, there probably is some sort of reputable source for some of them that takes a spam way down.

But for the most part, they are probably way more overloaded with a lot of other parasite SEOs from even less reputable sources than Forbes. I, again, I am not arguing for the state of this SERP. I think that they could be doing way better. I think honestly, per. Personally, I think Google knows how to do way better and they are not doing it.

For instance, they said they can’t do it. Well, they know not can’t. I don’t think that was the word I said that they don’t plan to do it algorithmically at any, uh, anytime soon we’ll say, but they could, we know that they can do things algorithmically. The problem is that they’re just more. Casual about doing it to small publishers, then big guys who could maybe, you know, sue their pants off or complain.

Like, I don’t, I don’t have a, I don’t, I don’t have the ability to go up against Google as a small independent publisher myself. Now Forbes. I think they got a reason to be afraid. 

Jared: Well, I actually think the Forbes to McDonald’s analogy is really, really good. Um, and, uh, and, and whether good or bad, like, I don’t think there’s really anyone, certainly not many who go to McDonald’s saying like, Oh yeah, man, I go here.

Cause that is the best hamburger I’ve ever had in my life. I mean, I’ve never had a better one ever. I’ve gone to all the gourmet places. I’ve gone, it’s the best burger. Come on now. You go there. Cause it’s safe. It’s easy. You know what you get and you know what you’re going to get is going to be good enough to eat.

You, there’s no risk. There’s no, you have them everywhere. They’ve mastered the convenience. Right. But you don’t go there. Cause it’s the best hamburger. And I do wonder, cause we love to post all the screenshots when Google gets it really wrong with, you know, glue on your pizza and all this stuff. Right.

And I wonder. To some degree. And to your point, if at the end of the day, you sit in a room of Google algorithm executives, and they’re looking, they’re like, well, we know that this guy has actually tried these best CBD gummies. And in this case, it’d be really great if we published that one. But what we really don’t want to have is a PR nightmare.

Every time we publish somebody who is not safe and we’re not sure about, and we get it wrong. And so it’s safer to just trust 250, 300 big brands. And even though we know you’re not getting a good experience, what we’re pretty sure of is that you’re not getting a bad experience. 

Morgan: Yep, and I kind of think it’s what’s going on here, you know, and unfortunately there could also be we’re blaming the Google algorithm for this and I do think there’s probably some, you know, obviously manual or manual, but obviously, uh, preference as far as Google is concerned, two sites like Forbes, two sites, like two sites like credit, we’ve seen enough data to, to pretty much say that safe now, but it is also possible that again, kind of playing devil’s advocate here.

I hate, I hate playing devil’s advocate for Google, but like, There also could be a bit of trust going on at play here as well. Like you said, it is not only a safe brand in the eyes of Google, but it’s also a safe brand in the eyes of the public. Like I was trying to, uh, in one of those conversations that like your hairdresser tries to start up, you know, cause you’re just going to be in the chair for several hours, getting your hair did, you know, and they’re like, Oh, what are you doing for?

Oh, right, right. That’s just 20 minutes 

Jared: in and 

Morgan: out. So jealous. But the hairdresser’s like, what do you do for a living? Right. And you’re trying to explain like what you do for a living or whatever. And you kind of get into it. And, you know, I was kind of talking a little bit about Google and stuff. And she was like, yeah, but you know, I always just kind of click on like things like Forbes because I know I can trust the site and I’m like, Oh, dagger, dagger.

And I’m like, but can you really? Cause the average Joe does not really understand what’s going on. You know, so I think there also could be some of that at play. Like, you know, I’m just saying, 

Jared: yeah, you know, we’ve talked long on this podcast, but this little world we live in is really so small. Right. And like, when you look at what the general public and how they will use a Google, we’ll use a search engine.

We’ll even trust information, the internet, like, and you start to think about the larger entity of Google. Like, you know, I hate to say it makes sense because it doesn’t, it does, but you start to see why different choices are made. And again, to put full disclosure on it, we’re just spitballing here. We’re responding to an open letter.

We’re talking about why can’t we get the Forbes of the world to rank for the topics the Forbes of the world should rank for. The topics that they’ve earned trust in and that they are reputable for, and then just let other sites rank for what they’re reputable for. It’s a tough one. I agree a hundred percent.

It’s a tough one, but Hey, they’re the, they’re the, they’re the, they’re the, they’re the team with the best engineers in the world. So, you know, I’m going to hold it to them to figure it out. And by the 

Morgan: way, I didn’t say this, I’ll skip to the bad part, but like good job on the letter. I mean, Cyrus, this is like beautiful.

Like. Chef’s kiss on this, like everything that you said, asking for more diversity. I’ve, I’ve said the exact same thing to Google in my form feedback. Um, you know, holding people to the same standard. I mean, gosh, you’ve got to see these sites being held to the same standards as everybody else. Um, you know, and reducing the punishment on these small publishers.

Again, have we left the fridge door open? Have we forgotten and take it not and not taking that classifier off because it definitely still feels like at least to me, and I would say to a lot of other small businesses that. Google’s foot is still firmly on our heads. 

Jared: Well, it’s probably a good time to wrap it up with this topic of parasite SEO.

This is kind of a sub of a sub, right? We’re talking about this world we live in. This Google world we live in is no one really gets into the SEO side of things, except for, you know, whatever, several tens of thousands of us. But even inside of that world is this topic of site reputation abuse or parasite SEO, depending on your preference of what you want to call it.

Uh, a lot of people call it. Parasite SEO. It’s kind of taking advantage of a large domain and piggybacking off of its domain strength to suit your purposes as a third party. Um, and recently, so this article was published today at time of recording. And so Wednesday, uh, Google has updated its spam policies, documentation, a documentation, um, why the change Google wrote quote, we review and refresh our documentation periodically.

There’s update as part of that process. What, what, what is new? The big change is that Google added a new section to the site reputation abuse policy. And again, quick recap, May 2024. We were supposed to see sites that are letting their domains be, um, abused, i. e. allowing third party parasite SEO. We were supposed to see them penalized.

That came, that went, nothing happened. We did start seeing some manual actions getting distributed from May onwards. And then during the interview with Danny Sullivan, I believe that was where it was, he said, Yeah, we don’t really actually have a algorithmic solution. I don’t want to misquote, but basically not going to be solved algorithmically for a while, to your point.

And so here is what was added to the new section in their spam policy documentation. Quote, Close oversight or involvement is when, and so again, they’re defining something. They’re just, they’re defining close oversight or involvement. So if adding the description to this, um, to this, this term, close oversight or involvement is when the first party hosting site is directly producing or generating unique content.

For example, via staff directly employed by the first party or freelancers working for staff for the first party site. And they go on, it is not working with third party services, such as quote white label or quote turnkey that focus on redistributing content with the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings.

So, you know, um, some clarifying statements. Uh, I like that at the bottom, Barry wrote why we care. Perhaps this gives us something to at least move into discussion on some believe that when Google makes updates to its search policies, penalties or new algorithmic actions or manual actions may soon follow this may or may not be the case.

Um, and you know, basically. I think that, you know, they’re trying to further identify and clarify what they mean when it comes to stuff they’re not able to adjudicate on algorithmically. 

Morgan: Hang on a minute, Google. Let me fix this for you because I think what you meant to say at the end was, as it pertains to small publishers only.

There, I fixed it. That’s, that’s what you meant to say, right? I mean, this doesn’t move anything for me. I don’t know. To be honest with you, the Google documentation is about the most obtuse document that I’ve ever read in my entire life, and I’ve just stopped living by it. Like, you know, I think that it’s more meant to, it’s a, it’s basically like the HR covering their own butts of the documentation world rather than anything that at least publishers like me should read and do it.

Jared: Yeah. Um, I mean, you know, it’s, it’s long been ignored by most SEOs. Um, but at the same time, you know, a lot of people have asked that Google does a better job of telling us, you know, Hey, what do you actually want in the SERPs? Like, what do you want us to prepare and publish? Um, that’s been asked for. We’ve kind of featured that story on the news.

Uh, of course, you know, the more you share, the more people can take advantage of, perhaps why we’ve even gotten here to this day where there’s this reputation abuse happening. Um, you know, it’s part of the bigger conversation. It’s part of what makes Forbes, uh, not a great result, right? Like it’s part of what allows Forbes to be a bad result when they have this reputation going for them.

And so it’s all kind of tied back to like, if your site is getting hurt by the helpful content update. Right. Because Reddit is now showing up higher because Forbes is now showing up higher because they’re trusted more. And yet the very people that you used to be in competition with as a small publisher are now just showing up in Forbes, albeit through a third party source, and it’s not getting taken care of.

It’s almost like the backdoor way for a lot of these small publishers, but at the same time feels like if they ever get it right, you’re going to be even doubly punished. It’s an interesting conundrum for Google to solve. It doesn’t, you know, Spencer and I have long gone on about how would they possibly actually solve it.

Um, we kind of brainstormed about it, but it’s interesting to see them updating it because, you know, I, I think maybe that’s the thing I would zero in on is typically in a world where Google doesn’t want something to be brought up, they try to make it go away, but yet it keeps coming up of late. Danny quoted and talked about it.

They updated their policy to give more debt, like for something they don’t want to be talked about, or maybe historically when they don’t have a solution, they would want to go away. It sure is coming up a lot. 

Morgan: That is true, you know, and there also could be a force at play here that I don’t acknowledge quite enough.

Um, just because I, I really think as a whole, there needs to be more responsibility from all stakeholders involved. Right from the liaison to the search team, to the programmers, to the management, et cetera, to the C suite. Right. But there could be a gap here between the people who are trying desperately to communicate, um, and then an entirely different team who’s doing something totally different.

Almost detached. You know, it’s a really big company, so I could totally see that. Maybe that’s why there’s never really quite that alignment. It seems not only in the, the, the results that these sorts of things are producing or the lack thereof in this case. Um, you know, and like you said, drawing attention to things that maybe the search team doesn’t really want to be drawn attention to.

So I do kind of wonder if like this head really like understands what this head is doing. I will tell you, Oh, I brought a prop actually. Hang on. 

Jared: Oh, my goodness. Show and tell has started. 

Morgan: I will tell you when I, when I was last at, um, uh, the company for my small publisher conference wearing my Google hat guys, uh, with my, with my website, by the way, embroidered on the back.

Boy, that’s fancy. It’s nicer than 

Jared: I’ve ever gotten. 

Morgan: That was back when they still thought I was helpful, but, um, you know, I will say during my many visits to multiple Google headquarters, like that was one thing that they did used to push on us a lot or try to remind us of is how detached the different departments were, right?

They tried to be very like Switzerland about the whole thing. They’re like, yeah, we didn’t really talk to them. We didn’t really talk to them. Now, I don’t know whether or not that’s sort of, you know, it’s kind of cool. Trying to cover themselves or whether or not there’s some truth to that, probably somewhere in between.

So for what it’s worth. 

Jared: Yeah, you know, it’s tough because we had this open letter where you and I were very vehement about, Hey, there is a solution here. Like actually reward experience, expertise. Yay. You’re right, Cyrus. On this side of the coin, it’s like, yeah, there’s got to be a solution, but I’m not smart enough to even begin to figure it out here.

So. Well, uh, that’s the news it’s time to move in to side hustles and boy, do you have a story for us? But you don’t get to go first I do Because if you went first, no one we want to hear my story So I’ll talk first and then we’ll just I’ll just mic drop when you can mic drop and we’ll call that a day I’m gonna talk today about Amazon influencer for a couple reasons.

Um, I haven’t talked about it in a little while and And It is going into Q4. This is our last podcast before we officially hit Q4. Now Q4 is October, November, December. And if you are in any sort of e commerce space, you know that Q4 is when stuff sells, uh, the data always changes every year on how much as a percent moves in Q4, but it’s always much higher than the other, uh, individual quarters.

Now I shared this with my newsletter on weekend growth last weekend and Amazon’s sales this year are up 10 and a half percent over last year. Now that might not sound like much, but when you are the largest e com store in the world to be up 10 and a half percent in one year is ridiculous. That’s insane.

The growth. Um, and, uh, and I, so I just, I wanted to kind of juxtapose what I’m doing right now with the Amazon influencer and maybe offer a little bit of perspective. So if you look back and I did, I pulled up some of the transcripts from last year in September of Spencer and I. Talking about the Amazon influencer program, and we were very negative on it because August and September, we had gotten some really bad results.

I started in May, so my first results were June. They were great. July, wonderful. August dropped a bit from July, and then September was even worse. Well, you want to know what? That’s exactly what’s happening this year in 2024. Hmm. After July, August results, not as good and September’s results are trending even a little bit lower.

And so last year, what happened is I got pretty bummed out about it. I mean, I wasn’t like crying myself to sleep or anything, but I lost motivation to make as many videos. I was like, I don’t know if this is even going well. I even was quoted in one of the podcasts as saying, like, I’m just going to wait it out and see how Q4 is before I really go hard on this again.

And then Q4 went nuts. There were, I was having three, 400 days. I think Spencer had over a 500 day. And we were like, Oh man, this was amazing. I wish I’d made more videos now back in August and September. So I made 17 videos this morning. I will have made over a hundred videos in the month of September. I’m not happy about it because the results, the earnings are down, not down terribly.

I should come in for September, just under 3, 000. My peaks earlier in the year were 4, 000 or so, but it is down a bit, but I’m, I’m, I’m humble brag, 

humble brag, 

Jared: only 3, 000 still good, still good, but I got a lot of videos now at this point, but, um, you know, that, that, that article from Amazon about Amazon’s earnings coupled with.

Reminding myself how I felt last year and then how the end of the year went. I’m, I’m really trying to stay doubling. I’m trying to stay focused on producing videos, even though I feel the same as I felt last year at this time. 

Morgan: Oh, that’s hilarious. You would figure like with all of your experience, you know, the websites and I’m sure affiliate sales that, you know, certain things, man, Q4, it’s a shopping season.

And I kind of feel like traditionally speaking, a lot of people even sort of tend to save their money, you know, leading up into it because they know that Christmas time is going to be, or whatever holiday you celebrate. You know, any gift giving holiday for that matter, very expensive, you know? So that’s kind of the traditional, I feel like trajectory of, of those sorts of retail purchases.

So it surprises me and I think that’s so ironic that you guys were so down on it last year. We, sometimes we mentioned these things and I want to go back and find the podcast. We get 

Jared: emotional too. 

Morgan: If only the same would happen for Google. I would love to be like, remember how stupid I was on that other podcast like last year?

Jared: Yeah, yeah. We look, we’re able to look back on it positively now. Um, no, it’s true. Last year I told the story consistently about a pair of AirPods that I wanted. And I was like, well, Black Friday’s like a month away. I can wait until then. I already had that same thought. I’m like, oh, my wife needs new hiking boots.

Well, it’s it’s almost october. Like we’re not hiking that much in the winter I’ll just buy them on black friday when they’re half off. I know this brand that we like does a sale I’ll just buy them on black friday. I need to buy them today. We we do need them But I can I can wait a little bit. I wonder how much of that mentally is going on.

So Um, yeah, so I mean earnings aren’t terrible. Don’t get the wrong idea. They’re still good They’re just not great and I just wanted to maybe call out and recognize now that I’m a seasoned veteran, right, this is my second September in the program, that I’m a seasoned veteran. If you’re in the Amazon influencer and you’re feeling a little bit discouraged, maybe listen to uncle Jared and listen to last year’s results and maybe 

Morgan: around children gather around, 

Jared: gather around the fireplace here.

Maybe dig deep and find it within you to keep going and keep producing that videos. Cause I know in November, December, I regretted not making as many videos as I possibly could during this time of year. So 

Morgan: that’s a really solid reminder. Actually. Yeah. I probably need to do the same because to be frank with you, the Amazon influencer program was almost too easy.

You know, I was really hardcore in it for about a month and a half. And then I just started kicking back and collecting checks. So I’ve not been doing like a whole bunch. 

You’ve already kicked your feet up. 

Morgan: Shockingly reliable. I mean, I’m not making thousands of dollars, but you know, 800, a thousand a month.

I mean, it’s like, whatever it is, you have ROI, like still like two 50, maybe tops, I mean, you’re making, 

Jared: you know, four figures some months. That’s just amazing. 

Morgan: It’s wild, but no, it’s a good reminder. I need to get to it. 

Jared: Let me put it this way. If you don’t make videos now, you will have a moment. I’m almost a hundred percent certain where you regret not doing it around the first week of December.

And I just hope for all of our sake that you’re co hosting that week. 

Morgan: You know, well, luckily I do have this on my side. I will say I’m definitely like an early holiday shopper. Like I like to have everything done usually by like Halloween. So hopefully, um, I can use all of that to my benefit this year, buy everything and have it reviewed in time for.

Everybody else who shops late on black Friday and yes, you’re doing 

Jared: cyber Monday. What do they call it? That’s what you’re going to be just hold up filming all the stuff you got in the mail. 

Basically. 

Jared: Well, I got a screenshot here to put up, but I don’t want to tease it too quickly. Your side hustle. Um, Please take us away.

Morgan: Yeah. So, I mean, I gotta say, like, I’m definitely, I’m a bit like everybody else. I feel like are half the people that either guest host or have a full hosting gig or a full episode on this podcast. We’ve got so many side hustles. We don’t know what our main hustle is anymore. Right. I will say this was my main hustle for a very long time, but in recent years, more of a side hustle.

Y’all, I hit a really big milestone yesterday. Like literally last night, just noticed it. I’ve crossed the 700, 000 earnings threshold on Upwork. Um, for all the un, for, for anybody that’s unrequited, unfamiliar with this platform, um, this is a freelancing marketplace. It is actually the largest freelancing marketplace.

It’s nearest competitors are Fiverr, freelancer. com, et cetera. Um, back when I originally quit my job, I technically rage quit my salary job back in 2017. Walked in one day, decided I’d had all the fun I could possibly stand, said, uh, bye, I’m out. I had to find a way to make money really quickly. It was my brother in law that told me about Upwork.

com. I already had some freelancing experience because I’ve always freelanced on the side since I was literally a teenager. So I was like, Hey, that sounds lucrative. I know what I’m doing. I’ll just sign up for this platform and figure it out. It was a really slow go in the early weeks, early months, but honestly, by month, about three or four, I was already earning, uh, the same on Upwork alone as I was in my last salary job.

And it’s only exploded since then. Wow. Even, and I, and I gotta say like this whole freelancing thing and Upwork specifically is not where I get like all my freelance income anymore, but. I have to say, it’s been so nice to have this in my back pocket the whole time. Like this saved me through a pandemic, you know, this, this saved me, you know, more aptly from the HCU, like so many people lost a hundred percent of their income overnight.

I still had this entire second business that’s provided the safety net for me. And I’m so very grateful. You know, for the freelance industry as a whole, but also for Upwork where I’ve obviously made a significant portion of that income over the years. But yeah, 700, 000, it’s a pretty big, uh, pretty big accomplishment, at least in my mind.

Jared: It’s a huge accomplishment. I mean, you know, uh, you know, that’s earnings, right? So like you got to figure that’s your earnings. That’s your take home. That’s your, you know, obviously spread over a number of years, but. I mean, I did a little math. I don’t know how accurate this stuff is. I know Upwork, but more from the hiring side, cause you hire a lot of people, a lot of people from the agent for the, for the agency, we hire freelancers.

So who knows? Maybe we’ve worked together at some capacity without even realizing it. But, uh, if I’m doing my math, right, you got over 700, 000. Let’s use that number. You’ve got 252 total jobs. So you’re, you’re, according to that, you’re earning almost three grand a job. And then you’re, you’ve worked 8, 410 hours, um, putting you at an average hourly rate of 83 an hour.

Morgan: Yeah. I mean, it’s funny cause a lot of people always assume that Upwork is a real race to the bottom, right? And just for clarity, for all the non visual listeners out there, um, I’m now at 150. Um, an hour. So that average is kind of being brought down over time from when I was new on the platform and charging a whole lot less, but really Upwork is just a game of like a constant iteration, um, constantly going for bigger fish, constantly going for bigger money, constantly raising that rate.

And once you really get rolling, the sky’s been the limit. I mean, 150 an hour seems like a decent, you know, hourly rate to some. And by the way, you don’t have to work hourly in Upwork. That’s just the one I have posted on my page. My, my, my profile, but there are people on the website, like my friend, Adam Palmer has earned over 2 million on Upwork.

His hourly rate is 750 an hour doing digital marketing. 750 an hour. Wow. I mean, it’s wild. So when people say that Upwork is a race to the bottom, I don’t know. I’m always like, I think it’s just you that’s doing the whole race to the bottom thing. You know, Upwork can’t be blamed for that. You got, you gotta like change your mindset.

Um, that’s what I was told to do when I first joined the platform back in 2017. And I got to say it totally paid off, you know, kind of like, kind of like what we, uh, kind of like what I’ve experienced in every business, uh, since then, or every business that I’ve, you know, entered into. Um, I, I tend to listen more to people who have been successful and tell me all the reasons why I can or how to accomplish the things I want to accomplish versus all the people who say, ah, here’s a list of reasons why this doesn’t work.

And I got to say, that’s really a served me very well in life. 

Jared: Well, if you’re struggling, uh, you know, Content creator, or, you know, you’ve been hit hard by the AC or something like that. You kind of have access to Morgan perhaps in the YouTube comments here or there. Maybe Morgan will pop in and answer a question or two.

Congratulations on the accomplishment. That’s huge. That’s such a large number, you know, um, so many ways to get there online, right? So many ways to not have to do that nine to five, if that’s your goal. So many ways to have side hustle income, you know, maybe you’re, you’re quite happy where you’re at, but you’re looking.

To add an additional 250 a week, an additional thousand dollars a month, an additional, you know, you want to make a down payment in the house. You want to take that vacation. You want to pay for Christmas. That’s kind of my side hustle story. Um, like just the sky’s the limits, freelancing, a thing we don’t talk a lot about here in terms of niche pursuits, but what a, what a, what a model.

Morgan: Yeah, and also think about this, guys, if you do, if you do have a staff right now, like, let’s say you are a company or a website that’s been hit by one of these major updates, and you’re worried about laying off staff, you almost intrinsically have an agency right now full of people who can do employable tasks that you could just sign up for Upwork, start looking for jobs.

And all of a sudden, Start the money flowing again. So I’m just saying it’s, you know, it’s, it’s definitely a viable option. I know not a lot of people wanna go work for clients. They get used to work in a hundred percent for themselves, but I will tell you it’s still better than having a regular employer 

Jared: for all you, even on his 

Morgan: worst day 

Jared: for all you long-term listeners.

Uh, I’ll have the story out right now. I asked many months ago for Morgan to come on and share her story on the Wednesday interview pod section of the podcast about this freelancing success, and she flat out told me no. 

Morgan: Well, I think, no, I think, was that the freelancing, no, I think that was the Smokies.

com thing that I told you no. I would come on for Upwork. I would come on and talk about freelancing. I need to go back. You can re invite me. 

Jared: I think I need to come back and find a screenshot. I’m going to go back and find a screenshot there. So I’m vindicated. It 

Morgan: might, it might’ve been your memories better than mine.

I just, I’m so nervous. I didn’t want to talk about blogging. Cause I figure any gains that I get will just be taken away from me again. So like, but call freelance, I’m feeling more confident. 

Jared: Ah, we’ll see. We’ll see. We’ll don’t be surprised if you’re listening and we get that interview going live in the next couple of months.

We’ll see. I might’ve convinced you by now. Congratulations again. That’s a, that’s amazing. What an accomplishment. Glad you. inspiration for some people, people who are either struggling with Upwork and needed that kick or people who have written off Upwork or never even heard about it as an opportunity for them to freelance.

So, uh, and that’s what we try to do here. I mean, you know, we joke about it, but this side hustle section really should just be an inspiration for you. We share these ideas, successful and by the way, some failures. Uh, so you can kind of learn, listen, and hopefully get inspired. Now, often not as inspiring are our weird niches.

Sometimes inspiring, sometimes just weird. Um, I have not looked at yours yet. 

Morgan: It’s sometimes depressing and you’re like, why didn’t I think of that? Yeah, 

Jared: that’s true too. Yeah. This first one might be one of those. Um, the one that I’m going to share, um, this was shared with me. Another one shared by Suzanne.

Thank you. Um, I always appreciate it when I get some, uh, shared that’s wonderful, but this is one that, um, I’ve used before and we might, Have a theme here today where we’re featuring, um, uh, weird niches. I’m just looking at yours that we actually use in the real, in the real world. Um, uh, this, uh, this weird niche is best dash hashtags.

com. So best hashtags. com is the, the, the, the, the brand is best dash hashtags. com. Um, and it’s exactly what you think it is. It’s about. Finding hashtags for your, uh, social media posts, your, you know, whatever you need hashtags for. Um, so I was just talking about the Amazon influencer program. So let me type in Amazon influencer here and see what it comes back with.

Um, and, uh, uh, while I’m talking, Oh, here it is. I’ll pull up the results. So I’ll just share them with you. So basically it just goes through and it gives you the best hashtags to use. Um, I’ve used a lot of hashtag websites before. Um, I feel like hashtags aren’t quite the thing they used to be maybe 10 years ago or 5 years ago.

Um, They still help, but I think, you know, they were certainly all the rage maybe 10 years ago when I was running my last company and what I like about all of them just give you like hashtags. Right? And you just hit copy and you can dump them in. But what I really like about this website is that it does a lot more than that.

Um, you know, if you scroll down, it gives you a lot of stats here that I think are really helpful. So it says, uh, top 10 Amazon influencer hashtags, and it gives me percentages of which ones are the most favored. Go figure, hashtag Amazon influencer is 41%. I don’t know what 41 percent represents. What is that a percentage of?

Um, it’s used 41 percent of the time or something like that. I don’t know. Amazon finds hashtag Amazon finds. I wouldn’t have known that hashtag Amazon deals. Um, uh, and you know, it kind of goes on to, to, to share, you know, basically more, um, uh, stats and data. So popular. We, we talked about easy versus difficulty hashtags and on and on and on.

I won’t, I won’t go too far. Let me share some, um, something from age refs here. And again, Riverside is still not allowing me to switch my screens. So if you’re wondering why I’m a little janky and sharing this stuff, here’s the age rafts screenshot. So this is not a small site. That’s why I wanted to share it.

This is a DR 71 it’s getting, it ranks for 393, 000 keywords. It’s bringing in 2. 3 million organic pages a month, estimated by Ahrefs. And you can see we got the two year view here. Um, and aside from a couple of dips, it has grown substantially. It’s, uh, basically doubled in two years. Um, and Morgan, to your point, look, I see a lot of little downturns.

You know, going back to our first news story, maybe that’s just what we’re up against here. See a little downturn, but if you take a step back, all up and to the right. Um, but you gotta figure, I mean, this website is littered with ads. And I just went back to it to try to bring it back up. And I got an interstitial.

It’s got ads on the right and the left sidebar. It’s got, I believe I saw a video ad. Um, it’s got a header ad. It’s got a footer ad. It’s just littered with ads. I mean, at 2. 3 million, and we know Ahrefs tends to underestimate. This site has got to be making so much money. 

Morgan: I love it though. Like I’m going to be honest, like we talk about a lot of weird niche sites in this podcast and some of them, you know, all of them are interesting in their own way.

Right. Some surprise me, like I said, some depressed me cause I think, Oh, I should have just made that myself. I could have been a rich woman already. Some of them, but a lot of them, I think, yeah, that’s not really going to be something I use. I’m going to use this all the time. I love it. Seriously. This is actually something I, I love.

No, I, this is new to me. This is going to be so much easier. I mean, I feel like I’m the last one to the party. So I, my excitement is probably blown way out of proportion, but this is brand new to me and I’m excited. I, this is something I struggle with. It’s going to save me seconds every day. Oh, 

Jared: I downplayed the weird niche segment, uh, the whole thing leading in and here it is the one time I share something that you’re all about using.

Morgan: I mean, it’s even forgivable those interstitial ads, you know, I mean, this is, this is one of those things. And again, I don’t want to keep going back to HCU in every single segment, but you know, we are talking a lot about like how click data does play a role in that, right? And that a lot of people say, Oh, Oh, it’s made for ads, right?

Made for ads. It means like it, you know, Google doesn’t like ads. Obviously Google doesn’t really care about ads as whether or not the ads are stopping people from using the website or impacting your other metrics. That’s what’s happening. And here, this is actually being so, 

Oh my gosh, I hate the word helpful anymore, but it’s being 

Morgan: helpful that I need to find a new word.

I need, I need to look at a thesaurus and find another word for helpful and just remove that from my vocabulary. But I will say this site is so functional, um, that you kind of forgive it for it’s, it’s adsense. 

Jared: Yeah, it, it, I mean, it’s so true. Like, you know, I know we, speaking of Cyrus, he had run a study on, uh, HCU hit sites a while back and we featured that and the number one correlation he found was ad density, certain ad units, footer ad units.

And I remember, uh, I remember footer ad units being one of the highest correlated with dropping in the HCU. And here we have. A site littered with ads. I mean, to the point of making the user experience much more difficult or much worse. And it’s, it’s thrived, you know, it’s thrived and it’s thrived because people like it.

It’s helpful. And they come back to it. 

Morgan: You could also argue though, just to say that probably the average user on a site like this is looking at hashtags, probably a little bit more tech savvy. So maybe they know how to sort of get around and close those annoying ads and close the interstitial versus like for me on, you know, one of my websites where the target demo is like 60 plus, I’m not going to be able to get away with interstitials no matter how helpful my content is because my demographic is not going to be able to close that out.

Yeah. Yeah. 

Morgan: So that could also sort of be working in their favor here too, just audience alone, but good for them. 

Jared: I mean, given that everyone’s going to at least generate a second page, because if you go here, you’re going to put a word in to generate a hashtags. You’re loading at least two pages. Given how they’ve structured the page, I imagine a lot of people are going to scroll down like I did.

Give what I know about ads. I mean, they are just, their RPMs have to be pretty good. There’s so many ad units. Wow. I just, I mean, I can’t even imagine how much they’re making per month. It’s got to be absolutely off the charts. Unbelievable. Well, well done. 

This is one of those that like, I almost probably could have employed somebody to do this pretty easily.

So, but yeah, really 

Morgan: good for them. A little bit of jealousy, but a lot 

of excitement. 

Jared: Yeah. Um, I’ve, I have yours up and I, I mean, I have used yours many times before in the past. It’s almost like a blast from the past, a deja vu. So go ahead and kick it off. I’ll pull it up on the screen. 

Morgan: So I am curious. Can I start with a question?

Um, since you have been a prolific user of this, have you ever actually put this into any of your fancy SEO tools to see what’s up before 

Jared: I have not? No, no. Um, I always, it was just one of those ones I always used. And, um, I don’t spend as much time on this specific platform anymore, as you know, because I’m terrible at responding to your, your DMS as quickly.

Um, but, but I think that’s part of the reason is cause I just haven’t been on there as much. I haven’t used it as much. 

Morgan: Hmm. Well, I’m kind of going for that theme, right? Like, uh, cause sometimes I can’t always find some random niche site that like nobody’s ever heard of before. That’s a super quirky or obscure, but I would kind of, I’m kind of going for a theme lately of, Hey, let’s maybe take another look at some of these websites Some of us are using every day or see every single day and I’ve never really thought twice about this.

My friends is the thread reader app. com and if you have ever spent any time on Twitter in the past few years, you have seen this. This is basically like one of a few different companies who basically offer a way of tagging the company or providing the company with a URL that contains a tweet, whatever, and it creates more or less a webpage with that entire tweet.

So like, let me. more accurately describe this. So like last night, for instance, this is a test when I announced my big 700 or sorry, 700, 000 milestone on Upwork. I tweeted out a thread on purpose because I knew I was going to cover this. And I, I, I kind of piecemealed my announcement in a multitude of tweets.

And then I tagged ThreadReader app. And it created more or less an article that put all of those individual threads or all those individual tweets together. 

Now, 

Morgan: what’s interesting about this is, again, and this is why, one of those reasons I thought, you know, I really want to take another look at this. I can only assume, since I don’t have a tool that shows me, the, uh, Prolific amount, or the amazing amount of social media traffic this, this website is getting that obviously is its main traffic driver because of the very nature of the app.

Right. But I wondered, huh, self, I pondered, could this also be getting like source traffic, organic traffic as well? And I was right. Now, again, this is not going to look like your numbers from the last website at all, but check this guy, check this out just for people searching for this app. And a lot of this is brand traffic, 46, 000 keywords and 15, 000 months in just organic alone.

And like I said earlier, probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Coming directly from social coming directly from Twitter. Cause I don’t think there’s a single day that passes that I don’t see somebody using this app in the thread section on Twitter. So these guys, and again, littered with ads, like you said on the last one, uh, these guys have got to be making some money.

Jared: Well, I’ve got some bad news for you as it relates to, um, their recent stance on this website. Uh, if regarding search, by the way, because to your point, I mean, this is a social Uh, uh, software, right? Like it’s it’s it’s for a social platform, specifically Twitter. So to your point, like, it’s kind of like, well, you know, any Google traffic is kind of gravy, right?

But what’s interesting to your point is that they they did. Um, as we look at the helpful content update, it’s almost like nothing happened. They skyrocketed in that November, 2023 core update continued that rise all the way up until the tremors that we were starting to see in early July of this year.

And, um, they did not fare well in this August core update. Google has officially determined that this threat app is unhelpful. 

Morgan: You know, I did kind of wonder because I was looking at some of the historical data, and it’s always hard to tell exactly what’s going on with this stuff, but it did look like at one point in time, they were actually ranking for individual tweets.

And, but I couldn’t find that when I tried to actually dive in. I’m not saying it didn’t exist, you know, because I didn’t spend like all day trying to figure that out. Oh, you’re 

Jared: exactly right. Look at this. Yes. Yeah. 

Morgan: It looks like that’s what they lost. So and now it’s mostly brand traffic. 

Jared: That is very interesting to point out and we could really nerd out.

You said the beginning that, you know, we’re talking about SEO stuff today and we certainly are, but we can nerd out on this, but that’s very interesting that they did tend to lose a lot what they lost. Here’s some losing profiles. So you know, like Harry Lipman, Twitter, and they used to rank up again, not high though.

You know, that was spot 13, but they did rank for this user, but they also lost a lot of those threads. And that’s interesting. You could argue that, you know, why not rank the Twitter source there, but that’s an interesting point. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. They still own some of their brand. Yep. 

Morgan: And that’s what it seems to mostly be like, uh, it looked, it looks like Twitter has officially taken its own traffic back in the SERPs.

Jared: Kind of, kind of agree with that, to be fair, kind of agree that, you know, we’ve been arguing that brands should own their own search traffic. So I can’t really argue against that. 

Morgan: Yeah, that’s a fair one. I’d say, 

Jared: uh, let me see. Okay. Let’s pull up your thread here. I’ve got your thread. This is, this is one from last night, right?

Oh, 

Morgan: there you go. Yeah. Yeah. It’s the one I did last night. Yeah, I’m only about five minutes to see how it would look.

Yeah, no, I was, I’m trying to pull double duty, you know, doing my freelance stuff, my Upwork stuff, my Niche Pursuits podcast stuff. So I, but no, as you can see, I basically made my announcement. I, uh, added a picture, which is also really cool that these apps can actually grab the screen grabs or pictures or any kind of multimedia that you post in your tweets as well, pulls it into that article.

Uh, yeah. So it’s kind of fascinating. Now, again, I’m no lawyer. Um, I would say it’s interesting from like, I don’t know, is there a copyright problem here? I don’t know. I’m just asking the question. Uh, I would probably be nervous to have founded this company. Uh, but extremely helpful. I would say, I mean, honestly, I, it’s kind of surprises me that Twitter doesn’t have, or do they have a app that does this?

Jared: I remember that there was something, there was some, one of the reasons I stopped using it or using as much, I remember I, and don’t come in this cause I, I don’t remember exactly what it was, but there’s something I have to do with a Twitter API, right? There was a Twitter API changed and a lot of companies that were reliant on it changed overnight.

Um, and a lot of that ended up getting pulled back and stuff. But I remember something happening with the Twitter API with this company. 

Morgan: I did notice that when I was looking at this last night, that, um, Twitter’s old documentation actually referenced a company that did this, but when you click the link now, that link is dead.

So I kind of wondered what had happened there. So maybe it was an API issue. Yeah. But overall, I would say it would say extremely helpful, but going back to the previous example, again, uh, Also, they have kind of something working against them as well, which I would definitely see bringing that click data, uh, down and some of their stats down in the eyes of Google, this is definitely a website where you’re just clicking on it one time, reading the article and then bouncing back to Twitter, right?

This isn’t going to be something where you’re clicking around and seeing different things. So by its very nature, by its very model, a little bit flawed, again, in the eyes of Google, that’s just because, you know, whatever. And in my eyes, I think you should totally be able to go to a website one time, uh, stay there, get what you need and then bounce and not be penalized for it personally.

But I don’t think that’s the way the SEO world works 

Jared: to your point. I mean, I’ve been talking on the podcast of late about taking some of my original content. Um, Tweaking it a little bit to fit the pro the platform and then republishing it on medium, right? And so i’m looking at this and i’m like, oh my gosh This makes it so easy to literally copy and paste this into medium Um, you would need a little bit more of a substantial introduction You might want to cite a source or two give people a little background on um on what um, Uh, you know, Upwork is and stuff, but to some degree, you’ve got the, the, the, the, the, the, you know, the, the, the meat and potatoes, if you will, of a Medium article here, and something that would be interesting on Medium.

Ooh, good point. I’m going on vacation tomorrow, but I’m thinking when I get back, that could be my next article. 

Jared: I like it. I like it. That is a great share. And to your point, something that people could use every day if you’re not using it, it’s good. Weird. We’ve got two weird ditches that might go right into some listeners, everyday tools that they’re going to use.

This is, um, dare I say a very helpful podcast episode for people. 

Morgan: I need a thesaurus. I’m going to get myself one on black Friday and then review it on Amazon. 

Jared: You should come armed with several new terms. We can all start to use. I think that brings us full circle. Um, that’s the news this week. Obviously a lot of different things.

We talked about Google related. We talked about the helpful content update sites. As they continue to come out of the August core update, other sites included, but our focus has always been on those. We talked about a couple other Google topics. Congrats on your success with your side hustle turn full time job, turn back to side hustle in the full turn of events.

Um, and then some great, really helpful, weird niches. So until we talk again, Morgan, I’m sure you’ll be back, but everybody have a great weekend. 

Morgan: Bye.