Jake Cain Was Inside Google’s “Secret” Meeting with 20 HCU Crushed Bloggers. Here’s What Happened

This week Jared Bauman sits down with Jake Cain, a long-time blogger with a portfolio of sites, a former Niche Pursuits employee, and an attendee at Google’s recent Creator Summit.

In this interview, Jake shares his experience at the event, his thoughts on the topics discussed, and the main takeaways he left with.

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Jared starts by offering a brief overview of everything that’s happened since the HCU, and then Jake talks a little bit about his background, his experience running a portfolio of sites and the ups and downs over the last few years.

Jake has been invited to several Google events for publishers, and most recently he was one of the few content creators invited to the Google Creator Summit.

He talks about the tour they took around the Google Campus and the type of people that attended the summit—review, travel, gaming bloggers, and people like “us” as opposed to big brands.

Having been at several events recently, Jake notes how Danny Sullvian’s tone has changed and Google’s desire to highlight “authentic human voices.”

Jake did note that the 20 publishers that attended were able to effectively communicate the community’s fears and concerns and felt that nothing was left “unsaid.”

Jared asks what Danny had to say about HCU recoveries, future updates, and the existence of site classifiers, and Jake explained how the event worked, first with listening sessions with Google engineers.

He shared what he told the group when he was given the opportunity to present and then he shared what other attendees said, complaining that Google seemed to be penalizing sites for the types of sites they are as opposed to their content.

Other attendees said that Google should consider the effort that goes into creating great content, which largely contrasts with a lot of the AI-generated information now outranking that of publishers.

People talked about their content being labeled “unhelpful,” while Buzzfeed and Billboard are rewarded for their generic, non-expert articles. Some described the event as akin to a funeral.

The attendees broke into smaller groups by theme and were able to talk to the Search engineers. Jake spoke specifically about the importance of fixing any sitewide classifiers, and other topics that were bounced around included the use of verified publisher badges, informing via GSC to know that you’re “unhelpful,” and revenue sharing opportunities with AI overviews.

Jared then asks Jake if Google addressed specific questions related to things like ads and affiliate links, and direct or social traffic as a necessity after the HCU, to which Jake replied that Google didn’t reveal very much, perhaps as expected. 

Google did admit that it realizes that many helpful sites were pummelled and that wasn’t its intention.

Moving on, they discuss AI Overviews and the most disappointing portion of the summit. 

Lastly, Jake shared what his main takeaways are and what he’s going to do moving forward, and talked about what perspective changed for him, if any, after attending the summit.

Topics Jake Cain Talks About

• His experience with a portfolio of sites
• The impact of the HCU
• Arriving at Google Campus
• Who attended the event
• What the goal of the event was
• Attendees share their thoughts
• Breakout sessions
• Individual questions about Google’s comments
• AI overviews
• His plans going forward
• Final thoughts

Transcript

Jared: If you don't know this, Jake was the previous host of the podcast, and we're going to get really deep into a topic that is hot and fresh in the industry. The Google web summit from last week. For

Jake: those of you who are listening to this, you would be proud of the 20 people that were there. Your history with your portfolio of sites, just from a high level.

My best site was featured by Google as a publisher success story. So. That was super cool, and a great backlink,

Jared: right? Backlink from Google, I mean, y you should've survived anything! You could've survived the atomic bomb with that backlink! Is this a question of them not wanting to fix this? I had the same question.

I mean, I tend to believe they're not exactly sure how to

Jake: fix it.

Jared: If there was

Jake: anything impactful that Danny brought to the table, first thing he said was like, First of all, I'm sorry. You're not the kind of sites we're trying to penalize. You're the kind of sites we're trying to reward. You guys moved into breakout sessions.

What were those like? You're like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic unless you fix this. Do I have hope? Yes. Do I have faith? Q& A

Jared: with Pandu Nayak, the head scientist of Search. Honestly, that was the most. Disappointing session of the day. What have you been doing since the HCU has decimated things?

It's a good question. Something that you could say to people who are listening, who've been affected just like you. What changed for you walking away from this summit? I do believe that it's

Jake: complicated. Like a lot of people say, uh, just roll it back, just turn it off. Right. But it's like, you have the September update that rolls into the March update and like, I don't get how all that works, but I do believe like.

Jared: All right. Welcome back to the niche pursuits podcast. My name is Jared Bauman. Today, we are joined by longtime friend of the podcast, Jake Kane. Jake, welcome on board. Thanks for coming.

Jake: Hey, thanks Jared. Thanks for having me, man. Excited to be here.

Jared: Many of you longtime listeners will know Jake. Jake was a Niche Pursuits, uh, team member for a couple of years.

I know that's when I first got to know you is when you were working with the brand, with Spencer, with Jason Wilson as well. Um, actually met up with you at one point out in your, your neck of the woods. You went off after a couple of years, start your own portfolio of websites. And here we are today. And we're going to get really deep into a topic that is hot and fresh in the industry.

And it is the Google web summit from last week. You were there. You were one of about 20 that were there, and we're going to dive deep into everything that happened because that is super relevant for everybody here who's listening.

Jake: Let's do it. I took a lot of notes. I think, I think I'm ready for it. So I know a lot of people were, uh, I put up a thing in the Mediavine group last week.

I was at a different, um, Google event, which we can talk about a little bit, but, uh, just kind of asked me anything. And there, there was a lot of interest just because I know a lot of people have been talking about it. I'm having a rough year, myself included, you know, so a lot of people that are not at these events are kind of wondering who's there, who's saying what, that kind of thing, right?

So I just wanted, uh, while it was fresh in my mind, share a little bit about that experience. So happy to share that, answer any questions I can for sure.

Jared: Well, I can't thank you enough for being here. You know, I mean, we're going to get into some topics. I'm going to hit you with some, some various questions that I think the community has.

So we'll, Try to dive deep. I mean, it really did come out of that. Ask me anything you kind of just posted. I didn't know you were at this event last week, although I should have assumed you were there, given that you've been at other events in the past, just to catch everyone up, we'll do like 60 second kind of summary or overview of where we're at, and then we'll dive into it.

So obviously we have this helpful content update that hit in September of 2023. And then subsequently the March core update of 2024. And where we're at now is that a lot of publishers, a lot of content creators, a lot of small publishers. Have ended up having a significant amount of their traffic taken away by Google.

And the general response from Google, and specifically we'll be talking about Danny Sullivan and his role as a Google search liaison has been a bit distant, has been a bit bifurcated, has been a bit difficult to ascertain. And a lot of, um, uh, a website content creators and bloggers have not only felt their traffic disappear, but also felt like Google doesn't really care very much.

And so we get to this. We get to some hope that was given to us in the August 2024 update. Some sites saw some recovery, most sites did not see recovery, and those that did, probably saw 15 20%. We have some edge cases. Here we are in November of 2024. We've had a couple of events, but the most notable one I'd say, you went to two of them in the last couple weeks, but the most notable one is this web summit.

So why don't you tell us a little bit about what's going on? Um, your history with your portfolio of sites just from a high level, so people understand what type of content you're creating. What happened with your sites in the HCU and then maybe the last year that brought you to the, um, the web summit from last week?

Jake: Yeah. So I've been doing it, uh, for a long time. So I started in 2008, my first website, which I still own. Um, probably one of the only ones with kind of my face on it as ballpark savvy. com, which is about traveling to major league baseball stadiums. And so over the course of like 10 years, you know, I started some other sites.

Ended up selling a site, um, and that allowed me to start buying sites. And so I now run about a dozen websites that are probably about half of them in Mediavine, half are in, uh, Raptive. Um, so, but they just kind of are across the board. They're on sort of random topics. So like my approach, when I worked with Spencer, you know, I learned a lot about long tail keywords and those sorts of things.

And so that was. Often my approach is, you know, I would buy a site, no matter the niche, I would hire a writer that was really passionate or knowledgeable about the topic. And I would do the strategy and say, Hey, Here's the gaps, like here's what we're missing and we would go tackle the content and so Google would be, you know, 85, 90 percent of our traffic, um, using that approach.

So that's, you know, I quit my last job was working for Spencer. That's probably the end about six years ago.

Jared: And

Jake: I don't think so. I've been on it. Shit. I'm

Jared: kidding. I dig it. I had to get one ticket.

Jake: Yeah, no, um. So yeah, so that'd be, that was, that was a great day. So I've been, you know, full time self employed since then running, you know, kind of a portfolio of sites.

So it's what I do all day, every day. Um, and yeah, and the helpful, uh, content update, like the last year has been really hard, uh, on my sites. It's been a rough year. Um, things were going, you know, Extremely well, um, you know, just kind of with ad revenue, affiliate revenue, all those things. Right. And it's just like, started getting worse in September.

It got really bad, I think in March. Um, and it was weird, you know, having the perspective of having this many sites, obviously some are better than others, let's be honest. Right. Um, so I know who's creating the content. I know the level of effort, all these things. And it's like, if you would have asked me at the time, which sites are most likely to get hit by a potential update.

The sites that I thought were rock solid, these sites are never going to get hit, got hit the hardest, the sites that I would have said, yeah, I'd say there's potential they're getting hit, were totally fine. Um, so it was the reverse of what I thought, you know, having that many sites. So it's completely bewildering to me and still is frankly in a lot of ways.

Um, yeah, so it's, you know, I, to say that up front, like I've definitely been, and I think everybody that was at this event basically was there because they've been hit. I mean, that was. A very common theme, you know, 75, 80%, 90 percent in some cases, a hundred percent of our Google traffic is gone. So everybody in that room, um, has been hit really, really hard over the last year.

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Jared: And to kind of even double down on it, you've been successful enough previously that you actually won an award from Google. You were one of the featured people. I believe they call it a publisher success story. And I know Spencer did a video about specifically the people who've been hit.

Were featured in public success stories. It's almost odd that Google has heralded you. Yeah. And a champion of good content and then subsequently completely swept, swept the, we, uh, swept the rug out from underneath you. When it comes to these updates, it's almost like a double whammy, if you will, or, or salt in the wound.

Jake: I agree. That Spencer's kind of a jerk. You know what I mean? It's like he'll kick you when you're down. , you think things are going great, patting you on the back and then. Your site gets hit and he makes a YouTube video about it. No, I think he left my big site, uh, out of that, but so I, it was definitely a, one of the videos, like somebody else did that and I kind of just skim the notes and I saw my site and I was like, I'm not watching that, it was too painful.

Uh, yeah. Kind of highlighted. Yeah. Hey, here's publisher success stories on one side. So that's exactly right. A couple of years ago, um, my, you know, my best site was featured by Google as a publisher success story. So. You know, do some photos and all those things and they publish it out. They put it in like a little coffee table book.

I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's really cool. Yeah. Really, really cool. So I shared that on my personal, you know, social media and stuff. Cause you know, in our world, like a lot of people don't really understand what you do and that whole thing. So it kind of gave you something like real, like, look, Google says I'm doing a good job.

So. It was super cool. Um, and a great backlink, right? A backlink. I was gonna say,

Jared: I mean, I have to, I mean, in a world where Google is controlling search, a backlink from Google, I mean, you should have survived anything. You could have survived the atomic bomb with that backlink. Right. You would think.

Jake: I was even dropping, I dropped, I think, a couple other sites I own in my bio or something.

Then I started this link, you know, um, trying to take full advantage of that. But anyway, so that's what led me to get, Uh, invited to some of these other events, which they call Google publisher meetups. Um, and those are much more of, it's like a totally different side of the business. There's just so many, like all these parts of Google or like their own business.

Like, so they're so disconnected. So like that is more about, um, publisher advocacy. Like they'll talk about tools that are coming up, some networking. Like it's just, you know, kind of like content privacy stuff as it relates to like maybe affecting small business. So, um, yeah. So yeah, anytime they invite me to that stuff.

I'm like, yeah, I'm in. So I've, I've been fortunate enough to go to a few of those, but those are not connected to SEO. And so, but that's kind of how I got on the radar. I think for this event was they knew that some of the publisher success stories had been hit and they were starting to hear that. And so they reached out to us and we were like, Hey, we're, we're hearing this, like, you know, let us know.

And they gave us that feedback form and they were like, I promise you somebody who's going to read it. That Danny Sullivan was sending out or whatever. And so I filled it out with some like really specific examples, um, of what I was seeing. And then that's what I was, uh, told and I think others at this event.

Last week in California was that basically Danny, he said there was like 13, 000 submissions of that forum. He said he read every one of them. He said one person submitted it 1700 times. So, um, yeah, it was just kind of went nuts. Um, but anyway, he said he read every single one of them. Um, and then they kind of picked 20, I guess, of the most kind of compelling cases or whatever that they thought would be good to kind of bring out and maybe cut out the middleman and like.

Get you 20 people in a room with 20 or so search engineers and like let's figure this out So that was sort of the gist of how it came about

Jared: now Before we get into some of the details because we've got quite the agenda here This is one of the longest agendas we've created here for a podcast a lot of things to talk about But let's maybe just a really quick aside.

I mean you got a tour of the Google campus, right? like I mean before we get into all the meat and potatoes of the HCU and What was said about that? Like, was, I just have to ask really quickly. Was that cool? Like, what were the highlights?

Jake: It was cool, man. I, um, so do you remember the movie? Did you watch the internship?

Jared: Yep. Oh yeah.

Jake: With Owen Wilson. I mean, the

Jared: map on the internship and stuff.

Jake: Yeah. Yeah. So ever since I saw that movie, I mean, I just like, what a cool place, right? So it wasn't as cool as it looks in the movie. Like there was no driverless car that came by or anything like that. So I think my expectations were Hollywood level.

And it's super nice. Like, don't get me wrong, like sand volleyball court, like all of this stuff. So we got there the first day and, uh, yeah, Danny took us all on a tour. And then it was like, the next day it was going to be the whole, all the content. And so we started there, beautiful campus. One thing that was weird.

I've seen a couple of people point this out that were there. There was like nobody around. It was four o'clock on a Monday. And he even took us into, I guess what was like the main building where they have all their Google talks and stuff. And I mean. There was hardly anybody. It was like a ghost town.

Like it was kind of weird. And he was, he was like, is there something, is it, is it a holiday? Like what is going on? Like, it just, I was expecting more of kind of a buzz, you know what I mean? It was just kind of dead. Uh, but as far as facilities and stuff, I mean, you know, people at Google have it made, I mean, everything's free, like baristas, kitchens, you know, stocked fridges and all that stuff, like it was.

All of that stuff, right? So, um, I joked, in fact, with one of the search engineers the next day, I was, it was his first job out of college. And I was like, dude, never go work, work somewhere normal. That's not normal. Yeah. I mean, I've been lucky enough to see a couple of their, their buildings with those other events I mentioned.

And, uh, Yeah. Everything's, everything's top notch. So it was cool, man. It's definitely been on my list. Like when people that work in our industry, right? Like to go to the Googleplex is like, wow, you know, it's kind of like a nerdy bucket list sort of thing, but for sure it was cool. Uh, not quite Hollywood cool, but it was pretty neat to be there.

Jared: All right. So let's get into kind of the makeup. You said about 20 people just to get people some perspective. Um, you kind of told us a little bit about what you publish, what kind of content you do, but like what kind of people were there, what kind of creators are there. And again, I just want everyone listening to kind of understand the scope of what was there and maybe as they listen to the following questions and answers, like people thinking like, was somebody kind of like my site owner there?

Like, you know, I run this kind of site. It's this big. It's, it's this type of, it's, it's, it's content. It's e com. It's like, just to give people a perspective of what kind of people were at the table, who was sitting around the room and what kind of site owners were there.

Jake: Yeah, for sure. Um, And I'll try not to mention anybody by name, um, through the course of this.

I mean, you know, whatever they, they, they had some, some ground rules about privacy or whatever. So we're allowed to, you know, share what was said. They said, you know, anything from the podium, but as far as just, just trying to protect people's privacy from both the Google side and, and the folks that were there.

But, um, yeah, I mean, it was mostly, you know, full time people that are full time in this business. Um, there were several travel sites there. Um, some people that were kind of a few that were in the, like the gaming space, um, and then a bunch of people that do different kinds of reviews. So like gear reviews for certain types of specialty, you know, type items, things like that.

Like, um, I think like clothing, things like that. Right. So there were some very much like review focused sites as well. And then a few that were just kind of like, I was thrown into like the general category when we did a little breakouts. So there were a few just kind of randoms, but definitely, um, several sites and all those categories that I just mentioned.

Um, and there were some people who were not full time, so like, you know, their site is part of what they do, but they also do this kind of thing, but I think most people in the room, that was like, that's kind of their thing, right? Like it's their business. It's their livelihood for sure. So like losing 80, 90 percent of it, you're like, You're on the brink.

Um, so I felt like that was most of the people in the room.

Jared: Okay, were these people prior to the hcu like getting millions of page views a month or were there some smaller publishers and like The hundreds of thousands of page views per month are these like big brands we'd know so if you like mentioned their websites We'd be like, oh, yeah that's a big brand or were there some smaller publishers that were like mom and pop maybe a bit more like some of Maybe you and I, I,

Jake: I would say more like you and I like, uh, more along the lines of mom and pop.

Definitely not big brand, right? Like it's not like a household name at all. Maybe if it's a, if you're into that, you know, gaming or whatever, I might, I'm not, but I might say like, Oh yeah, I've heard of that. Right. So right. I got the sense that they were, you know, a lot of sites that were successful. I mean, I'm totally guessing, but you know, sites making six figures, um, annually, I would guess, you know, that kind of thing.

Uh, but definitely it's not like you're in the room with Forbes and these sorts of guys, right? Like it's the, the goal of it was to be small independent publishers. So it was a lot of one man show or a very small team. Like that was kind of the, the, the, the gist of what I got was in the room. Yeah. Okay.

Take care.

Jared: Okay, so, um, it sounds like from what we've talked about and from some other articles that I've seen come out, like Danny Sullivan's launched or kicked off the event, spoke for a while, I've heard about this talk he gave, and again, if at any point you feel like there's something valuable or relevant that is off course, just go off course, this is very open ended in terms of how we're talking about it, but certainly we want to kind of hear If there was anything impactful that Danny brought to the table, whether it was in that conversation or another one, but I know he spoke for a good bit of time at the front end of this event.

Maybe you could bring us up to speed on some of the things you thought were poignant that he said.

Jake: Yeah, for sure, man. I, um, something I said to you before we started recording, I, You know, I, I've seen Danny Suleman three times now, uh, including twice in the last two weeks. So I was at the, one of the publisher meetups in Chicago.

I did this thing, uh, but then a year ago, right after HCU had first rolled out, I was at a Google publisher meetup in Texas, um, with Danny. And one thing I'll say is that his tone from then till now has completely changed. At the time when HCU was a month old, um, Danny was, these are my words, you know, a lot more just dismissive.

Hey, we're just surfacing helpful content. You know, you can probably recover in a short amount of time. Like, you know what I mean? Like this, this isn't that big of a deal. Whereas this year, Danny, I mean, he started out by apologize. Both, both events I went to his first thing he said was like, first of all, I'm sorry, like, I'm sorry you're here under these circumstances, um, basically just said to those in this room in California, he said, we know your subject, your subject matter experts, um, harming you guys was not our intent.

We want to make search better. Uh, and so something he said and that, and then we heard many times throughout the event is that they want to highlight authentic human voices. Um, they kept saying, you know, those words. And so essentially what they were saying was like, you're here because we know that's you.

Like you're not the kind of sites we're trying to penalize. You're the kind of sites we're trying to, you know, Reward. And so that's how he started out was basically just saying like, it's not your content. Like we're not saying you're, you know, you are, you guys are creating hopeful content. We recognize that we want to figure out how to getting back to like fixing that.

So that was sort of how he started and set the tone. And then, um, he was very insistent, um, and even said like he took it kind of personally, like that this is not. A PR event, um, which is something that, you know, comes out and obviously anytime you get to the comment section of anything, right? Like that's what a knee jerk reaction and to each their own, like, I don't know.

But his point for that was like, look, if this was a PR event, we'd be taking group photos. Like we're not taking any group photos. Uh, we'd be live streaming this, we'd be promoting it, like telling everybody, Hey, we're having this event. And so they didn't say like to us, you can't talk about it, but they just said, look, we're not going to be like announcing it.

I mean, so like, if you guys want to tell friends about whatever, fine, so we didn't have to sign an NDA or anything, but look, we're doing this, like, we want to get you in touch with search engineers, we want to get better, this is not a PR event, so, he, that's how he kind of stood out the day, it was just like, set the tone for it, and, uh, yeah, so that, that kind of kicked it off, and then he spent, you know, he probably spent about an hour, um, Talking about, you know, just how search works and how it's changed and all those sorts of things.

So nothing super revolutionary there, but, uh, just kind of setting the stage for what we're getting into.

Jared: Maybe we can get into some of those things, because I know Danny made some comments about recovery. He made some comments about future updates, how it, you know, how it, how it works. A lot of people who are hit by the HCU are curious because Google has gone on to say, we won't have any more helpful content updates.

It's now rolled right into the algorithm. It's baked into the algorithm. And so people are even wondering, like, well, what does it look like to recover from the HCU? Like, how is it possible if it's now just recovering from the general algorithm? Um, I could throw a couple other. Uh, tidbits at you just so you can kind of tackle them how you see fit, right?

We've got this idea, and by the way, I've been a big, I don't want to say proponent, but I've certainly have not seen any reason to dispel this myth, which is that there's this classifier that has gotten placed on top of sites that have gotten hit by the HCU. So again, if this is the right time, based on some of Danny's comments at that front end, like recovery.

Algorithm updates, core updates, baked into the core update, site classifier. Is this a good time for us to get into some of those things? For sure.

Jake: I

Jared: mean,

Jake: so I can just kind of take you through like the, kind of what, what happened next. I mean, I know at one point somebody spoke after him, um, and I forget her name, but she was a little bit, I guess, higher up.

In the search group or whatever and she kind of lay like in her, I mean, she was being sympathetic, whatever, but then like in her thing, she said, you know, the refrain that we all hate to hear, just keep creating helpful content. Oh boy. And there, there were some people in the room. I'm telling you, I'll say this.

So let me say this too, before we get into the next section, right? There were 20 people in the room, 20 of us left with 20 different opinions, you know what I'm saying? So like, I just want to say, I'm of course not speaking on behalf of anybody else. I've seen some of the articles out there on Twitter.

Pretty harsh. And I'm not saying like any of them are wrong. Right. So again, we all just kind of have our perspective. I'm just sharing mine. So, um, but there were some people that came like ready to go, you know, and you could tell that before it even started. Right. And so I'll say that for those of you who are listening to this, and some of you were in my media vine chat last week who were like, man, I wish somebody would tell us somebody at Google this.

People said it like you would be proud of the 20 people that were there and the things that were said, I mean, everything I could possibly think of was covered and like with authority. Um, so know that like, if you're thinking like, I wish I would say this, people just said it like straight to Google for sure.

Um, so definitely to the publisher community, I guess you'd be proud of that or, or whatever, however that makes you feel it was real. Um, so anyway, the, the lady had said that and somebody raised their hand right away. It was like, Honestly, you saying that feels like a slap in the face to come here and tell us to keep creating helpful content.

And it was kind of awkward, you know, we're like 40 minutes into this eight hour thing, but you know, and there was no, like, you know, it was still back to like, Oh, we're sorry. That kind of thing. Right. But it was like, yeah, nobody was letting them slide with kind of the company lines throughout the days. Um, there were definitely people that are ready to, to call them on some of that stuff that we've been listening to.

Yeah. And it was good. So, I mean, the next session after that, after Google kind of said their piece, like, apologized, here's what we're trying to do, here's how search works, here's why it's Really complicated, which I believe, like, I understand it is very complicated, right? So they kind of laid that groundwork and then it was like, Hey, we want to hear it from you.

And so what they had told us ahead of time was there's 20 people. Each of you are going to get three minutes and that's not the only three minutes you're going to have all day, but we're going to start with a listening session. And so there were about 20 Googlers in the room. Um, all of which were connected to the search team at some degree.

Um, and then they had it like on a live Google meet or whatever. And they were close to 30 people signed in on that. Um, that we're watching live. So maybe up to, you know, like 50 Googlers that were listening. Um, but yeah, and then we just kind of went around the room, passed a mic around and uh, basically my, I mean, I can give you kind of what I said.

I won't take the full three minutes, but just to summarize, you know, I was just basically like, look, you know, some people think I'm drinking the Kool Aid because I actually believe you. Like, I believe what Danny said in the sense that I still want to believe. That Google really does want to give the best results to searchers.

Like you want to deliver the best experience. Like I believe that. And I said, I, you know, I spent time, I probably named drop Spencer. I always joke with Spencer. I'm like, anytime I go to anything, I always named drop Spencer Hall. I was like, Oh yeah, I've heard him. So I was like, yeah, I spent time on some podcasts and things.

Like I would tell other people that, you know, like I'd be kind of in a position to try to help other people. I'm like, look. Just create great content and like Google, this is what they do. Like they're going to figure it out, right? Like the best content is going to win in time. And I was like, up until a year ago, like I felt like you guys actually were doing a pretty good job of that.

And I've been doing it since 2008, but I said around a year ago, I said, it feels like something's broken is the only way I know how to describe it. And I said, I'm going to give you a couple of examples. And I shared very specific examples from two of my sites that are, you know, again, I would say they're my best sites, content writers that know their stuff, yada, yada, who clearly.

Have a sitewide classifier. And so every time I got a chance to talk, I talked about the Sitewide classifier. Um, why? Yeah, I mean I did, because I think it's in the helpful content documentation. I don't know if it uses that exact wording, but it can say it like from 2022 it says it could be a sitewide something.

Right? It's there. I

Jared: think you called suppression, but Yeah.

Jake: Yeah. So it's, it's a thing, right? Yeah. And so, but then I share the examples of like, I mean, it's, it's insane. It's stuff where like. You know, we've written a review of a product that's not competitive at all. Um, firsthand photos, the whole deal. Like, I mean, there's two or three people on the internet that have reviewed this product, right?

Like we're page one for years with that, you know what I mean? And now you can search that exact product review and add our brand name to it. And we're on page three and it's like, you'll come to Reddit threads about other products. I mean, some stuff that's like not even, you know, it's clearly not firsthand, whatever, just.

Terrible results. And so I was just like, that's the stuff to me that just says something's broken. Like we can all look in this room and say like, that's not how it's supposed to work. You know? And so I believe there's smart people that work at Google. And so I think that you guys are going to figure out like, okay, something happened.

We went too far, whatever. We're going to fix that. So I think it'd be better. And like, thanks for having us here. You know, I was, I kind of took that approach of like, look, we appreciate it. Like y'all taking a day to talk to us. Like Happy to share whatever we can, cause I think you guys are going to fix this.

And that was kind of my tone. But, uh, yeah, I mean, some of the other people, I took a few notes, actually, I can give you a couple of quotes or near quotes that I thought were really good. Because again, people were bringing the thunder in there, man. Like it was crazy. Um, there was one guy who owns a travel site that I had heard of.

Um, he was super passionate, super well researched, but they're like, you know, what you would want out of a travel site, like literally they don't write about anywhere they've not been. They've got like a team. Of employees, I guess, basically are freelancers then like specialize in this area and they do everything firsthand.

And they basically have had like a 95 percent drop in traffic over the last year from Google. And, um, he mentioned that he feels more like it's the type of site than the quality of site, which is something else I've heard, like Google kind of targeting, you know, made for ads kind of sites or whatever, and basically just said, look, if you search things to do and.

Whatever the results right now are horrible. They're horrible. Like he's like, it's not even just about us, but like trip advisors, landing pages, or AI generated for all that stuff. And they're on page one for everything. Uh, and then, you know, somebody brought up an example in that same vein. It's like, it was like a luggage storage company or something, and they're page one for top 10 things to do and whatever, you know, in Michigan or something.

And it's like, really? Like, you know what I mean? The luggage storage company is now your expert, right? And we've written all this firsthand stuff. And. We're buried. And so, um, yeah, a lot of people just shared a lot of, uh, specific examples. He even suggested, which I thought was cool, cause he was just talking about the level of effort that goes into their content and you feel for these people, man, and he's like, and you've got all this just boilerplate nonsense stuff in front of you, some of it's AI generated.

He's like, I think you need to add another E to EAT and make it for effort. It's like the level of effort that goes into the content says a lot about. The quality of the content, you know what I mean? And he's like, it's so clear to see like this other stuff is just this thin crap, you know? And, um, so anyway, I thought that was really good.

Um, another person was like, you know, Hey, look, talked again about just being called not helpful. And like what a slap that was. And basically he's like, you know, all of a sudden we're not helpful. And they talked about the great pains that they go to, to review their product. They're like now billboard and Buzzfeed, like they're the experts in this like pretty, Ditch focus, like specialty product.

That's like, give me a break. Like, that's not even what they do. Right. Um, so yeah, I mean, I could, I could go like this. There were a couple of others like, uh, there was one person and this, I mean, it was sad, like there was a girl there that's, I think she was a travel blogger. Um, and she was one that says she gets zero traffic from Google now.

Um, and so she, I mean, she's on the brink, you know? And she was like, you know, it's, I have such like mixed emotions being here. She's like, cause if this was a year ago, she's like, You know, I would have been going around the Google campus. Like this would have been like a dream come true, you know, then like taking selfies, she's like, yeah.

And she was like, and her words were, she's like, I feel like I'm at a funeral. She's like, I don't know any other way to describe it. You know what I mean? And it was kind of true. Like it felt there was like a heaviness, like in the room as people were sharing their stories, cause it was, yeah, it was no bueno, man.

Uh, what, one other person, this is the last one that I'd kind of wrote down. It was somebody else that was like, um, they, they shared their, you know, similar struggles, everybody has a similar story. Um, you know, all of a sudden we went from all this stuff was great to now nothing on your site is helpful, um, which all leads back to the site went classifier and she was like, you know, I'm getting off easy.

Like I didn't lose my car, we haven't had to sell our house and I know people that have, you know, they've had to do that and we haven't had to, to go to that level yet, you know, so, um, yeah, there was definitely like you could feel for a lot of people that took on, uh, the challenge or whatever of sort of speaking on behalf of the small publisher community that we would consider ourselves a part of.

Um, I think people did a really good job of that and we're kind of like, Hey, look, this isn't just 20 people. This is like tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people that we're, you know, You're speaking on behalf of, you know, so, um, it was, yeah, man, it was, it was pretty powerful

Jared: stuff. You guys moved into breakout sessions.

What were those like and what was different about those in terms of maybe what was covered or your access levels to Google and the things that were covered in those?

Jake: Yeah. So, uh, we broke into, I think it was four groups. So they had like a travel group, product reviews group, something else. And then we were like in the general group, uh, but it was like a whiteboard session.

And we had like four or five people with us. Two or three Googlers and I mean you're you're talking to the search engineers I mean, so I was impressed with those people from Google because they're asking good questions They're taking feverish notes guys with laptops out like writing down everything you're saying, right?

So it definitely didn't feel like you're just talking and they're like, oh, okay, you know what I mean? Like it It felt like

Jared: That's going to be one of my questions, which, on one side of things, it doesn't matter, this question I'm about to ask you, but on the other side of things, I think everyone listening, me included, feels like it does matter.

Like, those engineers you were talking about, did they have, did they seem to have some empathy for what they were dealing with, the gravity of what their algorithm they touch every day does to people, publishers, and businesses? Because their coding has the ability to completely change the face of people's lives as you're going through.

Thank you. Um, I just, I wonder if they had that gravity of the situation. It sounds like to some degree they at least had some, some finger on the

Jake: pulse. I felt like the people that were, you know, the boots on the ground kind of people, and you don't know who's exactly does what. I felt like they very much did.

And in fact, somebody asked Danny with the whole, you know, the, the three minute thing the day before, like, Hey, should we tell our story? Like this is how we've been affected, like financial sob story kind of thing, or should we tell like examples? And he was like, you're in a room full of engineers. She's like, these people are not.

Public facing employees, like he's like, they're nervous in a lot of cases because they're not used to like having one on one space to face. Right. And so he was like, I would share examples. He's like, cause that's what, you know, they're engineers. Right. And so that's exactly what I kept doing in these. And so they would write down these examples.

So when I got a chance to talk on the small group, I said, I'll go first. I said, let's talk about the site wide classifier. And I told him, I say, you know, people at this event, if I, I apologize if you're listening to this and I talk to you one on one. Cause I, at some point I told you my examples. I was like, yeah, I know what you're saying.

Listen to this. So started there because to me, Jared, this whole event is like everything that pretty much everybody said, like kind of came back to that as like the root cause to me. So to me, and this is what I says, like, if you don't fix that, nothing else matters. So like some of the other stuff that came out, like, it sounds nice.

Like, yeah, that could be good. Like some Google search console ideas, right. Things like that. I'm like. You're like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic unless you fix this, you know? And so I just wanted to make that really clear. We have one shot. So every time I got a chance to raise my hand, I was like, let's talk about the Sunway Classifier because that was the big thing to me.

So that came up in our group. I'm sure it came up in other groups as well. Um, it's just some other ideas that came out of that. They were basically just asking like, Hey, give us ideas. Like, if you were us, like, how would you make it better? You know? And so some people talked about like a verified publisher badge, right?

Um, like having a process, like, The idea almost sounded like kind of like a real business or brick and mortar can do like a Google my business kind of thing, almost like a similar type verification, like, Hey, we're legit sort of thing for publishers. Um, other people talked about how like YouTube has tools for creators, um, to like, let you know, like give you more feedback basically.

So definitely ideas came up around, Hey, if we're not helpful or whatever, like having more stuff available in like a Google search console to let us know, so we can like. We're just totally blind in this. Right. So all of a sudden you're not helpful and you have no idea why. Um, and then I mentioned in the group, um, like the Facebook bonus program, it was just kind of throwing it out there, like not with a specific recommendation, but I said one thing that, cause AI came up a lot, right.

And the AI overviews. And so I was like, you know, right now, like, For Facebook, you know, if you're not familiar, essentially you can get paid for keeping people on the platform, which is their goal. And I was like, with Google, it seems like that's where you guys are moving with this AI stuff. I was like, but the concern in the room is you're basically just stealing our content.

So like when you steal our content and you show that on the results, the only person making money is Google. You know, at least these guys are kind of aligning our incentives. Facebook wants to keep you on the program. We're good. Pay people who help keep you on Facebook. I was like, maybe there's something there.

Like if you use my stuff in an AI overview, I can opt in to a revenue sharing that gives me a reporting that says you've been using AI overviews this many times and you made X, you know? And so, so anyway, it was just kind of a brainstorm of stuff like that. Um, you know, just some, some tools and things. So that's, that's kind of what the, the small group thing was about.

And then they sort of brought everybody back together and, you know, Kinda shared what came outta that.

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Jared: I want to take a little bit of a break here and ask you about some things that have been talked about as it comes out of the HCU.

And if you could just let me know if there was anything that was addressed by Google as it relates to this. And feel free to say like, yeah, that came up a bunch and they had no answer. I think that's fair, legit answer. But I'm just going to throw some different, I've been taking notes. Uh, by the way, this is off our agenda.

So if you're wondering. Yeah. But I've been taking some notes as you've been talking about things as the host of the podcast through this whole HCU. And having to kind of navigate that with our listeners and field their questions and try to make sure we come up with a podcast every week that adds value to their lives, even though at times it's felt like a funeral, to be honest.

And these are the things that I keep hearing us talk about and consistently. And, um, It's this idea, and a lot of this we've already mentioned in passing, so I'll just touch on it. Specifically, did Google respond to any of this? As it relates to having websites that do monetize mainly with ads and or affiliate websites.

We've seen case studies come out from Cyrus Shepard. Ads and the correlation between the HCU being the, I think, four out of the five Highest correlated fit indicators coming out of HCU sites being hit was ad related affiliate links, um, same kind of thing. They decimated the product review space. Did they address anything as it relates specifically to ads or affiliate links?

One thing I remember

Jake: is not, not in like a session or anything. Uh, maybe just as an aside, like occasionally they'll share an example of like, Well, you go to this site and this ad pops up here and like, you can't get to the content. So maybe in the context of like user experience, but I think the examples they usually give are kind of extreme, you know what I mean?

Like for overused ads, uh, outside of that, not really, they didn't specifically talk about that. Okay.

Jared: Uh, the idea that they're rewarding it through the HCU and subsequent updates, they're rewarding real businesses. So like plumbers writing generic 300 word articles about how to change a fitting are getting rewarded because they're actually plumbers.

Versus people who write awesome informational content, research the heck out of it. This idea that you need to have a business. And people have gone on to start businesses. Travel websites, I know for a fact because I've consulted with them, have gone on to start travel agencies simply to show they're a real business.

To get around this HCU classifier, anything on that from Google?

Jake: So I know for sure, people brought this up because it was in multiple examples. I think I shared one earlier, right? Um, with people that are doing that. So for sure it was brought up from the publishers. I don't remember them specifically.

Like addressing it, you know what I mean? Like saying other than they would acknowledge it many times. It's not perfect. We need to get better. We know you guys should be ranking. You're not that kind of thing, right? So, but yeah, I don't, I don't remember them saying anything specific

Jared: about that. Okay. The idea of direct traffic or social traffic as a necessity for surviving the HCU.

In other words, if you relied on Google for all of your traffic, which so many of us in this community, right? Driven our, have driven our sites through SEO, through organic traffic and without search traffic, sorry, without social traffic or Specifically, more highlighted direct traffic, right? The idea of a brand, that brands drive direct traffic, and that direct traffic kept you safe through the HCU.

Was that addressed at all?

Jake: The only context I remember on that is, you know, there were some in the room that had like incredible social followings and presence. And they kind of used that as an example, like somebody had like 2 million followers on Pinterest or something. Or something of their like. You know, look, we, we see that you've got 2 million followers on Pinterest, like that kind of tells us that people think you're helpful sort of thing, like just to reemphasize the point.

Uh, but, you know, not really like as far as direct traffic, that sort of thing. And, and just to be honest, I mean, to those questions, um, and they said this out of the gate and as you can imagine, they were basically just like, look, we're not going to be able to give anybody specific advice. Um, and frankly, you know, the times I've been with Danny Sullivan, even this event, as far as the stuff coming out from Google towards you.

is very unsatisfying to use a Google word because it's like we can't really say anything like even when it comes down to is this how it works like those kind of questions so like all the things you said definitely came up and what we said but the responses are really non responses um And I think it's like, you get it, right?

Cause they're like, look, we, we really can't say like, and so they kind of said that up front, like, we can, you know, is this a factor like that kind of stuff where they're just like, we can't really say, you know what I mean? And then they would give something that felt very generic. Um, so it's kind of frustrating.

Maybe let's address

Jared: that elephant in the room. They can't say or they don't know. Like, are they even aware of what the algorithm exists and looks like now? Are they aware of how to fix it? Is this a question of them not wanting to fix this? Or is this a question of them, this is a runaway freight train, it's been going down the mountain for a while, and everyone's just jumping out of the way?

Jake: It's a great question. I had the same question. Uh, I mean, I tend to believe, and I think, I don't know, maybe some people have, I'm sure some people have a more informed opinion than I do. I kind of think that, They're not exactly sure how to fix it. I don't think they, obviously they didn't say that, like, hey, we don't

Jared: know how to turn this off, right?

Yeah, they didn't want to fix it. I don't think anybody in there knows how to fix it, um, for a variety of reasons. I don't know that, I was at the event, but

Jake: Yeah, like, so, I've gone to other publisher events, we, you know, we have Friends, people we know who have been pretty much completely unaffected, like, you know what I mean, that are small independent publishers like us who are doing fine, you know what I mean?

So that's good. So like, I don't personally buy that narrative of like, Google hates small independent publishers and they wiped all of them out. Like, I do think there's something to, and again, speaking for a guy who's gotten crushed this year, you know, I think that a lot of the people you hear from on social media and stuff are like, they're devastated, right?

You're having to make hard decisions and all these things. And so that's kind of an awkward time that if you're in the Mediavine group. You're not going to be posting screenshots like, ah, I crushed it again. Like new, new personal best. You know, it's like a weird time there. Cause you don't want to be like dunking on your fellow publishers.

Yeah. And then I see it too. Like when I search anecdotal results, when I want to get depressed, I go and I look and I see these sites that are, you know, smaller than mine that are seem to be doing just fine. I'm like, okay, some people are still winning Reddit's up there and all these things. Like there are still some people doing well.

So I think that speaks to at least what they say. I give some credibility of like, our goal wasn't to wipe out all small publishers. And my hope is from this event and what they said and what I think they were trying to do. And the reason I have hope is because we were talking directly to like search engineer people that actually do the work.

It was kind of nice to give specific examples. My hope is that they were going to use kind of our sites. It was Google say, okay, here's 20 people that we know are like legit. Like these are the good guys. They didn't say those words. These are the good guys. Like they're going to come give us like really specific stuff.

And hopefully we can use that to create some, whatever you want to call it, but kind of update this thing with some more signals to say, okay, what are we missing here? Cause we know, and they've basically said this way too many good sites got wrapped up in this update. Right. They got treated as unhelpful content.

Danny Sullivan even said he wishes they could go back and rename it because he's like, you know, don't Google doesn't define how helpful you are, all these things. Right. And so they've said that. So that's kind of what I, what I took from it. And some of that's just my opinion. Is that they want to just like, they're a little bit lost on it.

Like we don't know why some of the, a lot of the good guys got caught up in this thing. I believe they do actually want to fix that. And I think that hopefully this was a way for them to like, all right, now let's go figure out however the heck we bake that into the algorithm, whether they can do it or not.

Totally different question. I really don't know. Yeah. So I saw somebody that was there posted on Twitter and I felt like they summed it up. Well, Now I, I just set that up and now I forget exactly what they said, but they were like, do I have hope? Yes.

Jared: Do I have faith? Not really. You know what I mean? I wasn't giving a shot of faith at this one is what you're saying.

Like they didn't do anything to build my faith up, but my hope maybe.

Jake: Yeah. Like I'm still, I'm still hopeful for better or worse. Like it's not, you know what I mean? Like I've, I've moved on. I know we're going to kind of get into this, but like for me personally, like I've moved on to just, like, I haven't been creating content for Google.

There's a number of sites. I'm not really creating content at all. I'm just kind of in a holding pattern. But everything I'm doing is about, you know, Pinterest. Um, I've done some Facebook stuff, so that's, for me, it's been a year of like getting really lean with costs, um, and then also adding traffic sources and additional revenue sources.

So Amazon influencer stuff, you know, stuff that's just unconnected from that. Like that's where I'm at right now is just trying to like, you go into a little bit of survival mode, um, and then my hope is, I think they want to do kind of the right thing that they figure this out to some degree, but it's probably not going to ever come back to where it was.

Bye. Figure it out to some degree. And then in the meantime, rather than just sitting there being mad or sitting there, like doing what I've always been doing and publishing one article every week with SEO optimized, like. Wasting my money on that. Hopefully I come out. I'm in a stronger position, right?

Cause I've done all these things. I've had, you know, I've kind of had to get, get creative. And then now Google comes back a little bit too. And so that's what I tell myself, Jared. So that's what I hope that happens.

Jared: Yeah. I mean, you're exactly right. Like, I feel like we're probably going to go over on this one.

I'm normally pretty good about keeping these suckers. Yeah, sorry to doubt on, but no, no, it's not your fault. This is good. I do want to get into the second half of our agenda, but I want to touch on one more thing as it relates to this topic. Ron, you've touched on a couple of times, so let's just, this is a double whammy for people because the HCU is decimating, but going into the HCU, going into 2023, the first eight months of 2023, actually, all we were talking about as content creators was AI and what was Google going to do with the SGE and how they were going to steal our results and steal organic traffic, and we were blindsided by the HCU because we thought.

AI was what was coming to eat our lunch. Um, to some degree it has, we have AI overviews now. And to your point, it is taking up a lot of our answers, straight theft from our site, that's my, that's my, uh, down and dirty on it, but was there any mention? You already said there was, but Hey, I'll just ask the high level question.

Like what was mentioned about AI overviews? I mean, this sounds like it was very much focused on the helpful content update, but you can't have a conversation about content these days and not address what AI overviews is doing to content creators.

Jake: Yeah, no, that's a good question. And actually, um, so it ties into the last session of the day was, uh, a little bit of a Q and a with, it was the highest ranking guy that showed up.

I think his name is like Pondu something. I may be butchering his name, but he was like the head. Yeah. I have that agenda

Jared: here. What was that? Um, Uh, here we go. Q& A with Pandu Nayak, the head scientist of SEARCH. That's him.

Jake: Uh, yeah. Honestly, that was the most disappointing session of the day. Um, and I think most people kind of agreed with that after the fact.

To me, he felt very disconnected from everything else we had heard. So like all of like kind of the good points that I mentioned earlier, sitting down with like a, you know, an engineer who's in there grinding it out and they're like taking notes, like tell me more, you know what I mean? And you feel like, wow, I'm really being heard by somebody that's working on this.

This felt like the opposite, uh, back to like very basic comments of how it works. Uh, and then Danny had kind of like collected, you know, stuff from us to try to consolidate most common questions, whatever. So the first thing he asks him, and he said it really, really well about the site wide classifier. So he kind of asked that on our behalf and lays it out what it means.

And basically he just was like, that sort of stuff happens at the page level, like kind of just denied it. So I raised my hand. I was like, I just want to clarify, you know, what happened. I was like, I think you said. It happens on a page level. I sort of maybe I misunderstood. I was like, let me give you an example And so I went back to the example that I told everybody this whole time we can add our name to it And we're on page three and we're like one of three people in the world.

I stopped Right, so how did that go from being number one? To all of a sudden we're number one for nothing, a page one for nothing, you know, whatever. Right. And so again, it was kind of like, ah, just a very kind of wishy washy answer. But then later on AI came up. So there was a guy in the back. Uh, it was the same guy that was in the travel space.

That was just like, I told him later, I was like, dude, that was fire, man. Like he was on it. Uh, he may be, maybe he was like an attorney or something. I don't know. Cause, uh, he's back there. I guess the Google at Q3 earnings call was happening while we're at this event. Same debt wise. And so he like tuned into this or something during the break.

So he's back there quoting stuff from the Q3 earnings call, and he's like, raises his hands. Like, I got to push back on something you said, because again, he was saying some of the stuff, you know, we want to, uh, authentic human voices, like search is a totally different thing. Like we want search to be a human experience, that kind of stuff.

And he was like, I just, just listened to the Q3 earnings call. And he's like, your CEO said that AI is our future, like had these exact quotes that was all just. AI everything, right? Which seems to be what you hear at the high level of Google. And he was like, and you're telling me, you know, that that's not true, that search is going to be about these human voices or whatever.

And he was basically like, why should we create, keep creating content? He's like, why would any of us keep creating content? He's like, when your leadership is saying this, no matter what you're saying. And again, there was no real good answer to that. You know what I mean? But everybody I think of the room was kind of like, Yeah, you know, uh, so yeah, definitely hit him like hard on that.

Um, but I would say again, the answers coming back from Google were very unsatisfactory, right? They're like, you know, oh yeah, we'll, we'll turn that off now. You know what I mean? Like, so it's, maybe it's, maybe it's a bit of an awkward spot for him. I don't know, but yeah, people were letting him have it about that for sure.

Jared: Let's transition if we can. Um, let's talk about next steps. Uh, and those next steps, by the way, to your point, uh, feel free, maybe this is a two part question, what have you been doing since the HCU has decimated things? And maybe a second part of that question, or maybe wrapped into the first part, is what will you be doing differently, or what insights did you pick up from last week and the summit?

That are going to also add to what you're doing differently

Jake: going forward. Yeah, it's a good question Uh, so, you know, I kind of answered that for myself. I jumped the gun a bit there But I mean that's where i'm at, right? So like you go once I saw the example I shared right you can do this You can add our name to it and we're on page three Something's broken like there's nothing I can do to fix that So that's what I determined like eight months ago and so the thing I would say to people like I feel like there's some frustration and right rightfully so like I think when people hear You Danny Sullivan quoted as saying, keep doing what you're doing.

And we're going to catch up, which he said almost exactly that, at least at the Chicago thing, I think what he means by that, I think what some people take that as is like, if they're used to publishing two, three times a week or every day or whatever, like Danny Sullivan wants me to keep publishing two, three times a week.

So they, their AI can steal my content and give it to people. Of course you want them to do that. And whatever, maybe that's what he means. But. When he explains it more, that's not really what he's saying. Like he's more saying like, go, you know, if you're creating helpful content, like we know you guys in the room aren't for other people, like don't go dismantle your site, don't go pay for some really expensive, like SEO audit, like don't do some like rash decision.

Like, I think that's kind of what he means by keep doing what you're doing. Like stay the course, like try to stay people first and like, we're going to. Like let Google catch up as hard as that is to hear. I think that's more of the advice. So, um, even somebody asked at one of the events was just like, Hey, are we going to be penalized?

Like we had to lay everybody off. Like, and we're not really creating content right now. Like if it takes six months to figure this out or whatever, like, or is that going to, you know, Limit our ability to recover. And he said, no, um, he's like it, you know, basically like you don't have to be publishing content on this schedule to be helpful, whatever.

So, you know, take it for a grain of salt, whatever. I'm just telling you kind of what he said. Uh, so anyway, that's the way that I take that stuff. So again, I just stopped publishing content completely for Google. And that was my whole strategy before it was long tail keywords. You know, the, the Spencer Hall's method of old, I guess.

Right? Like. Uh, all that stuff. And it was working great for a long time. I quit my job six years ago because of it. You know what I mean? And it's like, and then it wasn't working. So I'm like, why would I keep doing that? So I'm not doing that. So everything I create is to get traffic from somewhere else.

Right now I'm having the most success with Pinterest. Uh, that's been going pretty well. Um, so that's kind of where I'm at. Uh, I've been doing, you know, Facebook bonus programs going okay, trying to get tuned up with the Amazon thing. So I'm just trying to be diverse in income sources. Diverse in traffic sources and they just keep the things as lean as I can.

Right. So I see it as survival mode. I still do think it'll come around to some degree because it does feel broken. I don't think it's going to be this broken forever. So I think when that day comes, hopefully I'll be in more of a well rounded kind of stronger position. Um, a couple other things I heard just from other people at the event that were kind of inspiring.

Um, one guy in particular, he was reviewing. Uh, like footwear or something, and he got into e commerce throughout this and started selling like manufacturing socks and is crushing it. I mean, over, you know, got really good at Facebook ads and all of these things. And like, now he's just like, at one point he was devastated that his review site was crushed.

And now he's just like, I don't really need it anymore. Um, others that told stories about creating more video content and just like, forget Google. I'm just going to YouTube, um, that are having some success there. You know, so people that are definitely like pivoting, right, which desperation will make you do, uh, one other one that I was going to look into, I have not heard of somebody mentioned the Yahoo, I think it's called the Yahoo creator program, um, is what it is, which they said maybe something similar to MSN, like where you can kind of apply and sort of get in and they feature stories and do like a rev share model.

So just like another place to distribute your content. So I don't think that they were making huge amounts of money there, but. I'm just kind of the belief like, I don't know, every little bit helps, you know, when you're, when you're trying to survive a little bit. So, um, that's sort of where I'm at. Uh, and in a lot of ways I've been, I've been fortunate because I do have a portfolio of sites.

Um, at this point, all of them have been touched to some degree and it was able to, to spread it out a little bit. Uh, I know a lot of, you know, a lot of people out there, they're, they're just running one site. And if you get one site and it's down 90, 95%, I mean, that's. That's hard, man. So, I, I certainly have, have sympathy, and I know it's, I know it's tough times, but, uh, yeah, dude, I'm just trying to hang in there and hoping for better days, like, doing, doing what I can, so.

To wrap up,

Jared: everyone who's listening right now saw the title of this podcast, knew what we were going to be talking about. They all came into this with their own personal stories of what the HCU has or hasn't done to them. Certainly, if it didn't affect them, they came in with a lot of tangible stories from friends and colleagues and other people and they came in with a certain set of expectations or at least feelings about how this has gone for the last couple of years, right?

About a year plus now. They've listened to this podcast now. I don't want to get overly poetic, but I mean, if there's something that you could say to people who are listening who have been affected just like you, Almost maybe a summary of how you walked away in a sentence or two feeling differently.

What changed for you walking away from this summit that you didn't have going in? I've heard you talk about hope. I don't know if you got more hope from this or if you had that hope going in and it was just reinforced. I've heard you talk about, you didn't really have a lot of answers. Um, and, and other things, but like, maybe what has changed from a sentiment side or from a feeling side for you prior going to this and afterwards?

And again, I just think a lot of people are wondering, like, where do I go with some of the information that came out of what you shared and where we're going now?

Jake: Yeah. I mean, I, you've heard a lot of people say like, Danny Sullivan's a really nice guy. And it's true. Like he seems to be a genuine, like really caring person about publishers.

I, he's in a, I feel for the guy. He's in a tough spot. You know what I mean? Like, uh, man hard, you know, cause, uh, and he was emotional, you know, at both events. Um, you know, he kind of started as a blogger, whatever. And so think of him what you will. I think he's genuine, but a lot of people have said, Hey, nice guy doesn't pay my bills, you know?

And that's true. And I think he said it and after going this, I do believe it that some, at least some other people at Google really do care and really do want to get this right. Um, I do believe that it's complicated. Like a lot of people say, uh, just roll it back, just turn it off, right? But it's like, you have the September update that rolls into the March update and like, I don't get how all that works, but I do believe like, That sounds simple, but it's probably not that simple.

Um, so like the worst thing in the world is like, yeah, give us a few months. We're working on that because it's been a year, you know what I mean? So I think my advice to folks is like, if you can, uh, like, if you still want to do this, like, You have to get diverse and how you're getting traffic. I don't think it's ever coming back like it was I do think it will come back better to some degree.

I could be totally wrong, you know what I mean? So I think I wouldn't tell anybody who's starting a blog right now Like hey go what I would have told you two three years ago about you know keyword research and like long tail keywords all that stuff like I feel like i've everything I used to know is totally different or gone or broken, right?

so like I wouldn't start there. Like I would come into something new or something working on just like, okay, multiple ways I'm getting traffic, ideally multiple ways I'm earning money, right? Like that sort of thing. Like that's where my mind goes of what I would say to people. I would say if you're just sitting around like doing the same thing, like I'm going to keep publishing content the same way and that's like Google's going to come back around and that's what you're doing.

I think that's a bad idea. Like I'm, I'm saying I have hope, but I'm proceeding on a day to day, like. I don't have hope. Like it's like all the skeptics are right. Google doesn't care about you at all. They're never going to fix this. They don't know how to fix this. You may be right. Like that might be true.

So that's not a business strategy to say like, Oh yeah, they're going to figure it out eventually. Right. So I've been going on, like I need to survive assuming it's only going to get worse and not better. Right. So that's where I'm at. And that's what I would tell other people to do. And then if it does come back, it's going to be like gravy.

It's going to be a bonus. And so that's what I would say is like. Don't just keep pumping out content thinking Google's going to come around like it may never come around. If so, from this event, they were very clear. It's not like it's going to get fixed next week. You know, we're talking months, not weeks, that kind of thing.

Right? So if that's what you're doing, I wouldn't do that.

Jared: Well, if you are wondering what to do, not to a shameless plug, but I mean, basically the last year of interviews we've had in an interesting spot. Yes. It's been all about stories about people who have pivoted, tried pivoting, tried this, tried that.

Pinterest traffic, Flipboard traffic. I mean, uh, the whole gamut of things. You know, to your point, it's, it's almost ironic, the full circle. Like it's ironic that I asked you a question about, does Google really just want us to create a brand? And in many ways it's like, well, maybe we should want to create a brand because you know, the more we can diversify our traffic sources, the more we can get talked about outside of Google.

The more likelihood we probably have of getting resurfaced in google someday if they ever do fix this and get it, right. So Yeah, uh full circle if you will, but hey, um, you know, jake I can't thank you enough for coming on This is a bit of a dicey topic. Let's be honest Um, I don't know if you felt like you're in the hot seat.

I feel like it almost every week when I'm sitting here talking about this sort of stuff. Like it's triggering. Yeah. Densitive. It's hard.

Jake: And you know what's interesting? Sorry. Sorry to cut you off Jared. Like when I put that thing on the AMA thing on the Mediavine, like, which I, that's the first one I posted on there in years.

Right. I just thought, Oh, this will be interesting. And then like, somebody asked a question. I was trying my best just to like, either give my opinion on it, what I heard, or I think Danny would say this, like that kind of stuff. Yeah. And then like the replies would be like, I was Danny, well, what about what you did here?

You know what I'm like? I didn't do anything. I'm just trying to tell you what I just heard, you know? So this may be one of those. Right. And like I said, yeah, I saw some of the, uh, the stuff that came on Twitter or whatever people that, first of all, the publishers that were at the event were amazing. Like we had a great time, like it was worth it just to meet the people that we met.

That's always, you would probably agree like to go to any cop publisher meetup type event. Right. Meeting other people in the business. Like I would say, that's one thing I would say if you're able to do that and like you're kind of working on an island, it's definitely worth it. You always pick up a thing or two, you know, it's just good to have people you can kind of talk shop with.

So if nothing else, that was great. Uh, some people left depressed, super mad and like screw Google. Some people probably left with a little bit of hope. Everything in between and that's all right, I'm not saying my way is right, I'm just trying to give it to you how I heard it and kind of how I'm, how I'm moving forward with it.

So I always tend to be an optimist, so some people might say I'm crazy, but uh, yeah, I got a little glimmer of hope still.

Jared: Well, uh, I appreciate you coming on and thank you so much for joining us. It's been a while since we've talked to you on the podcast. Yeah. Oh no, in fact, if you don't know this, Jake was the previous host of the podcast.

A lot of people don't know there was a gap of how many, maybe six, eight episodes you hosted? Ten? I don't want to shortchange it.

Jake: Uh, I only did a few by myself, but I did some like with Spencer back in the day. So I'm sure they still get tons of views.

Jared: Well, I mean, I don't even know. I, I, uh, it's, it's a longstanding podcast.

I think we're hitting 13 or 14 years now.

Jake: You do a great job with it, man. Seriously. Well, I got you on the air. Like, you should, you've, you're a very good interviewer. So, I, uh, I definitely, when I, on a list of every single episode, I can't lie to you and say that, but the ones that piqued my interest, I threw on the headphones and go on a walk and, uh, you do an excellent job with it.

So, nice, nicely done.

Jared: I appreciate it. Right back at you. Thanks for coming on board and sharing with us. I think we all got to learn a lot from it, certainly. There's been a lot said about this, and to your point, like, it's triggering for a lot of people. It's hard. It's, it, it has to do with people's livelihoods, has to do with people's passions, it has to do with what pays the bills, what pays the mortgage, what buys the car, what 10 percent up, 10 percent down.

We're talking about complete life changes. Um, it's been really hard. Thanks for joining us. Um, and again, I, I think that we learned a lot in the, in what we didn't learn and in what we did learn, right? We learned a lot from a high level about all sides. Where can people follow along with you as we close out, if they want to?

Maybe reach out if they want to talk to you more, if they want to just kind of continue to follow along what you're doing.

Jake: Uh, yeah, I don't do a whole lot of just like public, especially like about what I would do for work kind of stuff. Um, I guess you could look me up on, on Twitter. I, I don't post a whole lot outside of just, I'll post stuff maybe about my kids or something, not really professionally, but I don't care.

Like if you want to DM me there, uh, it's at Jake Cain seven, uh, C A I N is how you spell Cain. So certainly feel free to send me a DM there. I'd be happy to respond to questions.

Jared: So basically Jake's anonymous and you're never going to hear from him. So consider this hour, your lucky hour. Right. I stay pretty private.

Good for you, man. Hey, thanks for coming on

Spencer: board. Seriously. Until we talk again, really appreciate it. Hey everyone. Thank you so much for listening to the niche pursuits podcast. I just wanted to remind you that if you are ready to start building smarter, faster, and easier internal links. You should check out Link Whisper.

You can get 15 off Link Whisper when you use the coupon code PODCAST at checkout. Head over to linkwhisper. com and use the code PODCAST in order to save 15. Thanks again for listening.

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