Mediavine Bans Publishers for Excessive AI Content
Empire Flippers
The #1 curated marketplace for buying and selling established, profitable websites and online businesses.
Hello, sunshine!
Today’s trend of the week is “secondhand luxury goods”.
The market for secondhand luxury items has exploded, hitting nearly $50 billion globally in 2023. This is a huge jump—doubling in just four years!
This surge is largely thanks to online platforms like The RealReal and Vestiaire Collective, making it easier than ever to buy and sell pre-owned luxury goods. In fact, secondhand luxury now makes up 12% of the entire luxury market.
Some pre-owned luxury items are even worth more than when they were first sold. For example, Hermès handbags can go for 25% more secondhand, and Rolex and Patek Philippe watches are sold for 20% and 39% more, respectively.
Because of this, many luxury brands are getting involved in the resale market. Burberry is working with Vestiaire Collective, and Gucci is partnering with The RealReal. Some brands are even setting up their own resale programs, like Rolex’s certified pre-owned watch initiative, which guarantees authenticity.
This booming market opens up exciting opportunities for digital entrepreneurs. You could create a database to help people source specific secondhand luxury items, or start a blog with tips on spotting genuine luxury goods versus fakes.
Today we have for you:
And:
Alright, let’s dive in.
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Mediavine Cracks Down on Publishers Using Too Much AI
Ad management firm Mediavine is terminating publishers' accounts for overusing AI-generated content.
The issue came to light when a Reddit user shared an email from Mediavine explaining the reason for the account terminations. According to the company, their tools flagged the user's sites for relying too heavily on AI to create content. After a review, Mediavine immediately terminated the account.
In a March 7th statement called AI and Our Commitment to a Creator-First Future, Mediavine made its stance clear: it doesn’t support low-quality, mass-produced, or undisclosed AI content. The company warned that AI-generated material, like untested recipes, can undermine the value of content created by real people. Mediavine has positioned itself as a strong supporter of human-made content in an industry increasingly influenced by AI.
For the affected publishers, losing their Mediavine accounts has serious financial impacts. Top advertisers will stop spending on their sites, limiting future earning potential. Mediavine’s revenue-sharing model typically gives publishers up to 90% of advertising proceeds, making these terminations a serious blow to publishers reliant on this income.
Though Mediavine cut off access to the sites, they offered to provide earnings data and will still issue any unpaid payments as usual.
This incident has drawn comparisons to Nebojša Vujinović Vujo, an "AI Clickbait Kingpin" exposed in a Wired report for filling dormant domains with AI-generated content solely for ad revenue. Mediavine's actions target such practices, seeking to maintain high-quality content standards.
It’s important to note that Mediavine isn’t completely against AI. The company supports using AI responsibly, like helping to write descriptions for images to improve accessibility for visually impaired users.
While AI can assist publishers, Mediavine's actions highlight the risks of depending too much on automated content creation, from financial fallout to reputational harm.
SEO
The SEO Blunder That Cost HubSpot 41% of Its Organic Traffic
The folks at HubSpot recently shared a cautionary tale, detailing how they lost—and eventually recovered—41% of targeted organic traffic and conversions, all due to a simple technical oversight.
It all started when Sylvain Charbit, HubSpot’s senior SEO strategist, noticed an alarming 82% drop in organic traffic to specific pages.
After looking at the timeline, the SEO and conversion optimization teams realized that the URLs affected matched those involved in the test. But the changes were so minor that they shouldn’t have caused such a catastrophic loss of traffic.
The team ran a thorough audit and discovered the issue: duplicate canonical tags. Canonical tags are bits of HTML code that help search engines decide which version of a page is the “real” one. The test created two versions of each page, and each page’s canonical tag pointed to the other, confusing Google’s algorithms. As a result, the affected pages were removed from search rankings.
The issue stemmed from an outdated integration of a third-party A/B testing tool that caused the canonical tag duplication. Once the problem was identified and fixed, it took several days for the pages to return to search rankings, but by then, the damage had been done.
Although HubSpot recovered quickly due to its size, smaller sites may not be so lucky. Here are some key takeaways to keep in mind to prevent a similar problem from happening to you:
Test Before Launch: Quality assurance (QA) checks should always be run before launching any website test.
Regular SEO Audits: Periodically check your site for basic SEO issues. Even a simple audit of a few pages can catch potential problems before they escalate.
Use SEO Tools: Consider using tools like Content King to monitor your site and flag issues automatically. These tools can catch problems like rogue canonical tags before they cause significant damage.
The incident highlights why SEO fundamentals still matter, no matter how large your business or how advanced your SEO strategy is.
You can read the full story here.
HIDDEN GEM
Listing #73647 - $307,635.00
Avg. Monthly Profit - $8,096.00
Amazon FBA | beauty | 38x
Created in May 2020, this Amazon FBA business offers a streamlined portfolio of 4 SKUs for a specific type of dispenser bottle.
The products are trademarked and the business has a low total advertising cost of sales (TACoS) of just 8.73%.
Recommended by LinkedIn
We’re highlighting this business this week because of its following strengths:
Google Heads to Court Again, This Time to Defend Its Ad Business
A landmark antitrust trial against Google has commenced in a federal court in Virginia this week, marking the second major legal battle the tech giant faces this year.
Google and the US Justice Department each believe the other wants too much of one thing: control. - The Verge
In August, a judge ruled that Google illegally maintained its search monopoly, marking the biggest antitrust ruling in tech since the Microsoft case 20 years ago. Now, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is accusing Google of dominating the ad-tech industry unfairly. The trial, set to run for four to six weeks, is the biggest legal challenge Google has ever faced.
The DOJ argues that Google controls key parts of the digital ad market through its powerful tools. They say Google’s dominance in areas like publisher ad servers, ad exchanges, and advertiser networks stifles competition.
DOJ attorney Julia Tarver Wood claimed that Google’s dominance over these sectors stifles competition and harms both publishers and advertisers. “One monopoly is bad enough,” she said, “but a trifecta of monopolies is what we have here.”
This alleged monopoly has reportedly led to higher ad costs and reduced revenue for publishers, with Google reportedly keeping at least 30 cents of every advertising dollar.
Google counters that the ad-tech industry is highly competitive. They argue that their tools are popular because they’re effective and affordable. Google points to rivals like The Trade Desk, Facebook, and Amazon as evidence of healthy competition.
Google faces challenges on multiple fronts. Besides this antitrust case, it is awaiting potential remedies from its previous search monopoly ruling and is likely to appeal. The company is also under scrutiny from EU regulators for similar issues.
This trial could have broad implications as Google strives to maintain its leadership in the evolving AI landscape.
Read All About It!
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YouTube
What's REALLY Behind Faceless YouTube Channels' Success
The second video in our faceless YouTube channel series is here.
In this series, we explore how faceless channels, where the creator stays anonymous, can still achieve high six to seven-figure valuations.
We examine real YouTube channels and break down what makes them successful and how they're valued.
In this video, Greg takes a closer look at two popular faceless channels, Economics Explained and Moon-Real, to uncover:
One of these channels has a mid-six-figure valuation, while the other exceeds $2 million!
Watch the video to find out what makes these channels so valuable and how you can use these insights to improve your own channel.
Traffic Sources
Boost Website Traffic with YouTube's Latest Tool
YouTube has introduced a new feature in YouTube Studio, allowing creators to direct viewers straight to their websites from their videos.
This update, known as the "website visits" goal, is part of the platform’s promotion tools and offers an easy way to make your content work harder for your business.
By targeting specific countries and languages, you can better tailor your ads for maximum impact and reach your desired audience more effectively. It’s an easy way for you to turn video views into website visits, providing a powerful tool to promote your products or services.
The new “Website Visits” goal is now available within YouTube Studio’s campaign options. When setting up video promotions in YouTube Studio, you can now choose from three goals: audience growth, more video views, or website visits.
Ads can appear in formats like Shorts, in-feed ads, and skippable in-stream videos, all clearly marked as "Sponsored." However, keep in mind that engagement from these ads doesn’t count toward YouTube Partner Program eligibility.
For bigger ad campaigns, YouTube suggests using Google Ads, but for smaller promotions aimed at driving website traffic, this new goal in YouTube Studio is a simple and effective tool.
This feature is a game-changer for creators looking to grow their brand beyond YouTube by increasing website traffic, boosting sales, and generating leads.
Meme of the Week
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Send us a DM on Instagram (@empireflippers) with your favorite meme or nomad shot and we'll include it in the next email!