by abhinavstarts on 4/3/24, 6:26 PM with 58 comments
by sjs382 on 4/3/24, 8:36 PM
I actually subscribe to RetroDodo on Youtube and noticed that I don't view their content anymore. This has less to do with any "algorithm" but rather the fact that their "voice" seems to have changed (both figuratively and literally... a lot of their videos have a new "host" altogether) and that they're directing more energy at different things (books, discussions about the industry, more gimmicky videos, etc) that aren't giving them the same return.
The founder used to post about gaming-related "SEO plays" (some wikipedia for Pokemon or something if I remember correctly?) on his personal YouTube channel. With this in mind, I get the feeling that SEO has become more of a focus than what brought in his audience in the first place.
by edude03 on 4/3/24, 7:02 PM
On the other hand, more and more these days I see articles & videos that I (possibly unfairly) summarize as "My content deserves to be prioritized by 'the algorithm' and $BIG_CORP is against me".
I'm not a full time content creator so again maybe that factors into the mentality - but I honestly don't understand why so many people seem to believe that their content not doing well by some arbitrary standard means some force is against them. To me it seems more like building your brand organically, publishing via "open" platforms (and yes, I'm aware that's getting harder and harder) and encouraging your supporters to interact with you on platforms you control would be much more sustainable than expecting 'the algorithm(s)' will provide you with your expected growth.
I don't even use google, so if I were interested in getting "the best arcade cabinet" as one of the examples the author used - I would actually be looking to either reddit, or gaming YouTubers or gaming sites I already use, which are the places I would expect to hear about Retro Dodo
by miohtama on 4/3/24, 7:00 PM
The problem is Google having 90% dominance on the search, without credible competition.
The problem is that Microsoft Bing never became a viable search engine.
With more diverse Internet, like it was 15 years ago, issues caused by one provider were inconvenience, not a death blow.
by latsu on 4/3/24, 6:57 PM
I know that I added them to my personal filter list when I found them providing mis-info or just click-farming off of unannounced products.
by whatshisface on 4/3/24, 6:57 PM
>And to rub salt into the wound, it was discovered that Google is paying some media companies “five figures” to use their AI to automatically scrape content from other publishers’ work (who have paid expert humans to produce) and publish it as news twice a day on their websites.
For every one thing you hear about, there are nine you don't. Apparently, the difference in quality is about what Kagi is not doing.
by Spivak on 4/3/24, 7:03 PM
The folks here in the comments are missing the forest for the trees here, sure algo tweaks reshuffle winners and losers but there's almost no results that aren't Google's own scraped content and ad spots. No amount of "make better content" can push you above the fold.
by paxys on 4/3/24, 6:57 PM
by plagiat0r on 4/3/24, 8:50 PM
Articles are not interesting to me at large, 99.9% of the time, there is no comments sections to correct them or engage and challenge authors or other readers, seems like owners so not care about what their audience has to say. They only care about views. There is no community at the site, so they are at mercy of a search engine without spending a dime on advertising.
There is only room for a few "best top 10 Pokemon ROM hacks" articles... It was good when it last, but all comes to an end...
by em-bee on 4/3/24, 8:00 PM
i am not sure what the rules on this are, but i think the comment makes an important point that i believe should be discussed, so i am reposting it together with my response (without naming the author).
if this is not ok, then i'll get it removed. if the original author of the comment has a good reason to not have it posted, you may contact me by email (see profile))
the comment:
I think this is a feature, not a bug. The economic precariousness that the author describes is what makes the opinions of small outfits like his suspect. It's just too easy for companies to influence them with special treatment or outright payments. Reddit, for all of its faults, is hard to bribe. That is by design. We built mechanisms to intentionally cultivate diverse and redundant communities. Even if you try to control the mods of some particular subreddit, you are probably just shifting where the definitive/highly ranked conversations on a topic end up happening.
The author seems to decry Reddit as "not expert", but I think what its ascent has proven is the collective opinion of disinterested amateurs is often the best available.
my response:
that implies that every independent content producer is corrupt and only caters to the highest bidder.
how does reddit help here? each community is independent even on reddit. there are good and bad ones. a small community on reddit would be just as susceptible to manipulation as would a small community of the same size on an independent site.
and reddit is hard to bribe? well, maybe in specific cases, but reddit needs to cater to its advertisers just as well.
reddit, youtube and any other large site will only be able to represent the majority views because they can't cater to minorities that conflict with those views. advertisers won't have it.
an independent site can be completely onesided and be under the influence of some financial interest. or it can remain independent and actually represent the interests of its members in a way that reddit et al. can not.
by ChrisArchitect on 4/3/24, 7:36 PM
15 results of book stores (including the publisher they released on), reviews, other news sites, all covering their book, and then near bottom, their own page on the book. That doesn't seem off really, their product is still reachable. Whether they should be considered the authority, or the store selling it should be, is up for debate.
by smrtinsert on 4/3/24, 6:57 PM
2023 and 2024 has demonstrated handily that the entire web is at risk if we trust large corporations with everything.
by hadlock on 4/3/24, 9:22 PM
If you hitch your wagon to the google bus, and the bus crashes, you don't have much recourse.
by ecliptik on 4/3/24, 8:06 PM
1. https://web.archive.org/web/20240320154449/https://www.racke...
by madsbuch on 4/3/24, 6:56 PM
On a deeper note: Search is challenged. With the advent of first niche communities and now LLMs the traditional idea behind search engines is a left over from the 00s. Google need to earn by ads.
Retro Dodo probably need to focus on a niche community and retention over organic traffic like so many other small / indie shops.
Personally I use Kagi who are also in the business of disrupting them selves using LLMs - at least they have a business model that absorbs it.
by dave333 on 4/3/24, 7:38 PM
by fumar on 4/3/24, 8:10 PM
I cite Discord because it is text-first compared to Twitch. As an elder millennial, I find myself using Discord to interact with niche communities. For example, I care about a specific synthesizer emulation project. They have a discord server where we can discuss feature releases or music in general. Twenty years ago this community would be its own forum or a thread on a larger forum. https://dsp56300.wordpress.com
Lastly, if discoverability is monopolized by one player, then why and how did TikTok explode in the last five years? It is not the front page of the internet for all, but it is for certain age groups.
by socar on 4/3/24, 7:09 PM
by lloydatkinson on 4/3/24, 6:53 PM
by dvngnt_ on 4/4/24, 5:41 AM
by delduca on 4/3/24, 7:12 PM
by PerilousD on 4/3/24, 7:06 PM
by Tiktaalik on 4/3/24, 7:14 PM
The real valuable content created by regular people is being obfuscated by useless AI white noise and nonsense content mill shit from giant corporations.
Things just keep getting worse and worse for media.
by mattl on 4/3/24, 7:39 PM
But why is every link on their website purple like I’ve already read it? Oh because their brand is purple.
Really sucks as a reader.
by hankchinaski on 4/4/24, 12:58 PM
Also people who keep insisting on building solely and relying exclusively on SEO do not run a business but a franchise where the franchisor is Google and the franchisee’s conditions are reviewed and changed at moments notice with no recourse
by skilled on 4/4/24, 9:37 AM
> Well, that all came to an abrupt end in September 2023 when Google decided to release an algorithm update that completely obliterated thousands of independent content businesses overnight, and we are one of them.
> Since September 2023, Google has hidden our site from millions of retro gamers, reducing our organic traffic and revenue by 85% and causing our business to be on the edge of going under.
Google is flat out refusing to lift this penalty on people's sites for 7 straight months now.
You can read about that here,
https://www.seroundtable.com/no-hcu-yes-core-google-update-r...
and also this tweet:
https://twitter.com/glenngabe/status/1775495481604358363
--
This is absolutely insane and Google is putting 100% of its faith into an LLM algorithm (the "Helpful Content Update") that in of itself has a token limit and thus cannot read the entire page. On top of that, seven months is a long time and a lot of people will have worked on their sites to remove and/or update their content to have less fluff, etc. And yet Google is refusing to push an update.
From what I have seen in various places, Google has ruined thousands of livelihoods without giving people a second chance, all of which has been done automatically without human supervision. If this were to happen to big publishers, you know for a fact that where would be a class action lawsuit ready to go by now.
by ozehlaw on 4/4/24, 6:25 AM