Welcome to Part II of Edition No. 51 of my weekly newsletter, providing practical analysis in the world of digital content strategy.
Friday Five
I. Twitter No Longer Exists (By Name)
II. Google’s Latest ‘Reviews’ Search Update Underway
III. LinkedIn Gets On the Verification Bandwagon
IV. Bard Has a New Updates Page
V. One Year of Fee-Less Twitter Subscriptions
VI. Other News of Note
As you probably noticed, I’m changing the format of the weekly roundup to the “Friday Five,” providing analysis only on what I (subjectively) choose to be the most important updates of the week in the world of content creation.
This will allow for a more focused (and digestible) analysis of what matters most. I’ll continue to share links without analysis beyond the top five at the end of the newsletter.
ICYMI: Conversions Can Now Be ‘Single-Counted’ in GA4
I. Twitter No Longer Exists (By Name)
Based on a court filing related to a lawsuit brought against the company formerly known as Twitter, Elon Musk’s social network is now part of Nevada-based X Corp. (Twitter was based in Delaware.)
@SpacTrader110 uploaded this image to – you guessed it – Twitter:
🛠 Why does this matter?
After completing the Twitter takeover in October, Musk claimed this purchase would “accelerate” the creation of an “everything app” that would be named—you guessed it—after the letter X. Such a “super app,” Musk has stated, could resemble something like China’s WeChat, the combination messaging/social networking/payment app that boasts a billion users; Twitter’s functions would play an important role in this megasize app.
I recommend reading the full Slate article to get a clearer idea of the speculation about Musk’s big plans.
This is, of course, speculation, but there’s compelling evidence to support the notion that this merger is a step in the direction of a Musk-owned super company. A super company that, if it ever panned out as he envisions, would probably be highly scrutinized by the government.
But it also makes sense. Musk has a diverse portfolio of companies, whether they involve going to space, driving an electric car or traveling underground. A social network he controls, if it survives this tumultuous post-acquisition stage, would be a highly valuable way to not only promote, but also enhance his other products. Exactly how he would do so remains to be seen.
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II. Google’s Latest ‘Reviews’ Search Update Underway
Google announced Wednesday its latest algorithm update, this one focused on “reviews about products, services, and things.”
It then linked to documentation on what it means to write high-quality reviews.
There are many bullet points to consider, but this one stands out:
Provide evidence such as visuals, audio, or other links of your own experience with what you are reviewing, to support your expertise and reinforce the authenticity of your review.
You’re probably familiar with the E-E-A-T criteria Google uses as part of its algorithm. Well, this addresses the first (and most recent) E: Experience.
The reviews system works to ensure that people see reviews that share in-depth research, rather than thin content that simply summarizes a bunch of products, services or other things.
🛠 Why does this matter? There’s a whole cottage industry of people building SEO-targeted affiliate sites to peddle products they have never even tried. Why? Affiliate money.
By working with e-commerce sites, like Amazon, they can get a cut of every sale that originates from their website. This is a lucrative business.
It’s also full of black-hat wannabe content creators who are out to make a quick buck. And hey, more power to them. They found a way – made much easier by the onslaught of AI tools now available to assist with content creation – to make a lot of money by gaming Google’s algorithm.
But Google doesn’t like when people game its algorithm. So now in order to rank high – if this update does what Google apparently intends for it to do – reviewers will actually need to create first-person reviews of things they have actually tried.
Now, there are reviewers out there who do a really good job at this, take their influence really seriously, and already produce amazing reviews. They should be really excited about this update.
Everyone else, though, is either going to have to massively overhaul their business model, or find a new line of work.
But this won’t only affect affiliate-focused sites. Places like NY Times-owned Wirecutter – or any other reputable news site that reviews products – should reap the benefits, too, if they’re doing things correctly.
So yes, even news sites that have a product-/service-review arm should pay close attention to their Search Console data for the rest of the month.
One more important note:
Assuming improvements have been made, content that was impacted by a reviews update might not recover until the next update is released. However, note that our automated assessment of review content is only one of many factors used in ranking content, so changes can happen at any time for various reasons.
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