Google's Core Update Shakedown

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Episode Introduction
• 0:50 Google's Core March Update Impact
• 3:41 Content Quality and SEO Penalties
• 6:05 TikTok Ban Discussion
• 9:00 Social Media Strategy Insights
• 12:40 Episode Closing and Newsletter Invite

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of the NerdBrand podcast where I guess we're going to be talking about some. You know, google completes its core March update rollout and you know we'll find out about some other stuff to talk about. You know, like maybe we'll sit and ponder hypothetically, like what's going to happen with TikTok and things up next. Hey everybody, welcome back to this episode of the NerdBrand Podcast. We're going to take a look at what's going on in the world of Google. A while back, I talked about how they released a core update and the world is coming to an end as a result. Oh, my god, everybody's running around the hero farm. That's the sound. That's how I sound. On Friday, um, anyhow. So the core updates rolling out and, um, you know what, what, what it it? What, what is it? Um, so it began on March 13th. That's really not a good way to start this.

Speaker 1: 1:24

Google. If you're listening, by the way and I have not checked to see if that is a Friday, but if that is, then somebody at Google is violating their old slogan tagline of don't be evil. For those of you that didn't know that then that was their actual slogan Anyhow. So there has been widespread impact from this obviously observed. Um, so there's been, uh, some volatile search engine results, um, a search engine result pages, um, that come up when searching for things. It's different one time another. Uh, it seems like, um, home services keywords showed a ton of movement. So if you're in that sector and you're like, what happened to all my traffic? Um, that happened. So, uh, you know you're, if you're in that kind of, uh situation where you're um home improvement or you're in some sort of plumber, electrician, um, that kind of a thing, I would say you're probably going to be seeing that there's been a recalibration of forum content. So this has been pretty significant.

Speaker 1: 2:34

I've got an article here that says After approximately 18 months of heightened visibility for forum websites following Google's mid-2023 Hittin' Gems update, many forum sites are now experiencing substantial drops in visibility. So this is something that a lot of people don't think about. But what is a forum? Well, first of all, for those who don't know, reddit would be one. Okay, so Reddit gained a lot of visibility, and many other forums they benefited from the algorithm change in 2023. But now all of that's going away. All of that's diminishing now in visibility for search terms.

Speaker 1: 3:12

So you know, you've got other patterns besides forum content devaluation, you have programmatic content penalties. Therefore, that is, sites creating a large volumes of programmatic pages, those designs specifically for SEO rather than user value. So if you're out there making a website and your goal is to rank number one or two, I don't know do something like that for the sake of SEO. Yeah, you're going to get penalized for that. Now, that is something that is. I've harped on that before many times. You've heard that, jason, you always criticize content because we all engage with content. Turn on your Netflix and on your shows and you're engaging with content, and so the value of that is definitely being weighed now more over other content in order for visibility.

Speaker 1: 4:11

Cross-sector impacts are another pattern that's identified, um. So it's affected retail and government and forums and content publishers. So it's, it's, this is across everywhere. This isn't just a specific sector or set of data that this algorithm impacts. So professionals commenting on the update they have noted and this is a quote from this article potential connection to Google's broader efforts to improve search results, diversity and combat low value content. So they're saying it out loud like guys your blog posts are garbage. Your web copy needs polishing. It will always need that, by the way, I'm not just being mean. It's always a thing, because the world spins every day, thank God, and things change. So you're going to need to probably maybe go back over that stuff and retool it, rekey, maybe, bit, maybe rewrite you never know. And if you're doing AI generated content, integrating, that is fine, I say, but if it is 90% of what you are putting out there, no, google's not going to like this.

Speaker 1: 5:18

So, with the update completed, a lot of professionals they're still in the process of assessing everything on this. It doesn't happen overnight. This is March 27th. We're only talking, you know, two weeks later. So, um, if you're managing content, uh, or a forum, um, you're, you're, you're just going to see site like performances drop, you're going to as far as traffic. So those are some of the things that are going on in the land of Google's um.

Speaker 1: 5:46

With that in relation to a follow-up of a, um, what I did earlier in the podcast, uh and so, uh, I hope you enjoy that. And now you can continue your drive to work or whatever you're doing when listening to this um and be like, oh, so, but there's that. So what else is out there that one could think about that? Hey, you know, um, my business is really trying to figure out how to grow its revenue. Well, yeah, ain't we all? So? So let's talk about um. You know well I'm going through a list here that I have um TikTok ban or we can talk about. Well, let's just look at it this way Um, social media has come back pretty strong, I think we can agree, but in a way where it is more social than it is a marketing tool.

Speaker 1: 6:45

So if your social media strategy is again kind of like your SEO strategy just to get clicks, just to get you know, if you're not talking to people because that's where people are, then it's probably not performing well, because that content is no different than what they're going to find on your site that we just talked about. So you know that messaging rather. So the Trump administration wanted to have somebody buy it out back. In the first term the second term, um before Biden got in, I think it was they were going to ban it and they were going to ban it. Now they're not going to ban it. Nobody really knows Um.

Speaker 1: 7:22

I think that um, there's some there. There's just going to be hurdles with banning something like this, no matter your political leanings, I feel, because the support for a thing is like TikTok took off. I think everybody can not deny the fact that when TikTok came onto the scene, it just exponentially took off in users and in growth. And in fact, at one point I don't know if it's still people to other sites OnlyFans in order to make money and facilitate transactions. And so you have billions of dollars here it's not millions, billions and an economy that has contained itself all through an app and in ways that I think Zuckerberg could have only wished Facebook did, even though they do a pretty good chunk. Um, it's. It's really something else.

Speaker 1: 8:32

But as of right now, pew Research Center survey found that 34% of us adults support banning TikTok and that's about 50% down from March of last year. So about this time last year, 50% of people were like get rid of it, burn. Now it's like maybe not so much so, viewing it as a national security threat. That's down 10% from May of last year. And then you know opposition to the ban that's risen a little bit about 10%. So basically, one-third of Americans are undecided and the support for ban is obviously higher on Republican than Democrat. But 12% of users want a ban, which is, I always found that interesting that the users want a ban, compared to 45% of non-users. That just seems a little odd to me.

Speaker 1: 9:26

I look at this thing through another channel to broadcast a message I'm not bought in personally, and I know this may be political, but I'm not bought in personally that the Chinese really care what I TikTok about. And if you're wondering wait, wait, wait, jason, did you just say you TikTok? I'm like yeah, I know, I know that sounds really bad and probably not the way to say it because I'm old. So we're just going to move on from that. And if you're going to be looking for an account that I have, that's my personal one good luck. No, I'm not inferring that I personally do that. I ain't got time for that man. I got to watch my shows, so anyways. So the solutions and paths forward are going to be completely gray in area If it becomes something that's owned by a US-based company. There's no telling what we're going to find. That'll happen. There's a deadline, however, on October 16th of this year, that somebody needs to figure out this company that he was hoping would do it. They obviously said no, they bought LinkedIn, kind of funny. So now it's Oracle and Oracle is proposing, I believe, a deal.

Speaker 1: 10:50

So, yeah, for those of you that use TikTok for growing your business and for spreading the word about your brand, you know if you're like, should I? Should I not also understand? It's very hard to use that channel. Now that more and more people are on it, it doesn't really probably have the viral impact that it used to, unless you're a very creative individual, very photogenic and also, um, just all around, uh likable, and have a solid product. Uh, other than that, it's going to be, you know, throwing paste on the wall and hoping to see what sticks, and you definitely don't want to do that. Uh, as an agency, do we offer help with this? Hmm, kind of depends. I mean, uh, we're fine helping you with the strategy, but it's your phone, not mine, and, honestly, when it gets down to that, when you have something that is so personal and so individual and so transactional in a one-to-one way, tiktok's probably not really good for a business that's maybe got several employees.

Speaker 1: 11:50

I would say that you really would have to definitely try to examine what kind of strategy you want to implement, whether if it's influencers or if it's your own company showing itself. I think that there's probably something out there for everyone with regards to TikTok. But what I've noticed is that business pages on other channels, frankly posts just don't get seen as much in visibility as organic posts coming from actual people, actual profiles, personal profiles from actual people, actual profiles, personal profiles. So take that into consideration as you try to go out and say like, well, what can we do? Because everybody's on the tiki talks and I want to be on it. Maybe you don't need to be, maybe that's just not where you need to be. So not everything at once is necessary, and ignoring certain channels without having tried or tested something is also not a good idea. You should go ahead, try, test it, see what happens. As long as you got something interesting, you never know, it might actually work out for you.

Speaker 1: 12:46

So, anyways, if you enjoyed this episode of the NerdBrand Podcast, go to nerdbrandagencycom slash podcast and we have a form on there. Please fill it out. Subscribe for our newsletter. We're building a list and we want to send some emails out about episodes and some things going on at NerdBrand, because everybody's like it's so quiet over there and the reason is well, there's good reasons. Collectively, there are one, two, three, four, maybe five. Nerds, maybe four and a half it's something to explain later, nerds, maybe four and a half. It's something to explain later. So other than that, we uh, we wish you guys well, have a great week and tune in next week to the next episode on Friday, and I'll see you then and keep your nerd brand strong.