🤖👀 This Week: Yandex Leak > ChatGPT?
GM nerds,
New week, new current thing 🙄
Look, we’ll get into the Yandex leak. But there’s still a **** ton of AI content. I mean, ChatGPT just got an MBA and passed its medical licensing exams. Gotta respect the good doctor 👨 ⚕️💰
What’s good this week?
→ Yandex Leak & Your SEO 👀✍️
→ Google Image Update 📸🚨
→ Generative AI Stays Booming 🤖👆
→ The Power of the Personal Touch 🥹✨✨
→ Social Media Round-Up 🤠🐮
No time to waste, LFG.
But first…
This Week’s Pod 🗣️🎙
I was stoked to have my man Tom Wang on the pod this week. We go waaaay back and he’s earned himself some massive Ws in competitive niches over the years. Alex is an absolute real one. In the interview, he shares some FBA wisdom, talks about winning big (and taking a few tough Ls) in the beauty niche, and gives some important perspective on health & wellness for us marketers, rather than as a type of product to sell. We also go off about our plans for the future. It’s a real good ep. Tune in & leave a comment 🙏
Yandex & Your SEO 👀✍️
Unless you spent the last few days under a rock, you’ve heard of this. But in the case that you did spend the last few days under a rock, first of all, hope you’re feeling alright. That sounds intensely bad. Beyond that, here’s a quick rundown of the situation and its implications for your SEO.
As you prob know, Yandex is a Google competitor which, in Russia and the surrounding region, actually competes with Google for market share and often wins out. While Yandex and Google definitely don’t algorithmically match 1:1, it’s as close as you’re gonna get. And that’s why it’s a big deal that their source code leaked.
Again, not identical to Google by any means, but a legit source of insight into ranking by maybe the closest thing to an analogue to Google. Rank Ranger puts it like this: “The Yandex leak has given us the first-ever opportunity to see the actual source code of a major search engine.”
The entire Rank Ranger piece is worth reading, but one of the more interesting things was the “Unexpected” factors. For example: Factor #850 | Name: BrowserBookmarksUrl: "The more users add to bookmarks a url, the more factor value it has.”
It’s worth digging into the list.
ChatGPT Keeps Changing the Game 🤖👆
→ WaPo w/ an in-depth piece on how ChatGPT forced Google’s hand; rather than stick to their course re: “potential harms” like “sharing inaccurate information, generating fake photos or giving students the ability to cheat on school tests” they’ve got no choice but to go all-in
→ Buzzfeed, a “journalism”(?) outfit with iffy reputation anyway, announced this week that they’d be bringing in the tech to generate all sorts of content that humans used to write; people got mad, stock prices soared… funny how that works
→ Semafor reports that “OpenAI has hired an army of contractors to make basic coding obsolete”
And here’s some takes:
→ @SophiaKianni raises the question: can AI’s rise actually put more value on what is distinctly human?
Recommended by LinkedIn
→ On the other hand, @thealexbanks brings up a good point. The creatives are being replaced first, with manual labor still untouched. huh.
Plus, with some stories about text to Music and text to 4D images breaking this week, here’s a fuller picture of what’s going on w/ Generative AI:
A Couple Google Updates 📸🚨
First, if Follows on Chrome are part of your grind, make sure you include the <title> element and <link> elements in your RSS feed.
More important, I think, is the Google Images SEO Best Practices update. It explains that “Google parses <img> elements even when they’re enclosed in other elements (such as <picture> elements) when indexing images.”
Worth a quick readthrough if relevant. These changes are subtle but can definitely have an effect.
Social Media Round-Up 🤠🐮
→ Social Media Today with some Twitter scoops; first, a deep dive into an important question: Can Elon right the ship?; Twitter’s Paid Partnerships Policy has been updated to ensure more transparency in paid promotions within tweets— this comes after some intense criticism about influencer activity; & the launch of a new ad option for advertisers, letting them promote tweets in search results w/ targeted keywords; finally, here’s a look into the trouble-shooting that’s gone on re: adjusting code based on complaints of reach & visibility
→ LinkedIn is introducing a feature that lets other users see the newsletters you sub to… to my many excellent, respected subscriber, get on that (please); LinkedIn also keeps growing, now above 900 million members (3 signing up per second)
→ Facebook is adjusting its ad measurement terminology to more cleanly map onto its Accounts Center— always been bizarre that they were out of sync to begin with imo
→ Instagram, the photo app, has announced they’re going back to focusing on photos in 2023— they got lost in copying TikTok, wouldn’t be the first app; they’re also testing a “Lead Forms” button for business & creator profiles— currently, it permits 3 custom questions + options for 4 pre-existing information points
→ This is a pretty helpful guide to refining your SnapChat strategy in 2023
The Personal Touch 🥹✨✨
This is an interesting article about writing, posting, and personality. Basically, @NiharikaSodhi unpacks the common element in every viral post she’s ever made.
Are they motivational threads?
No.
Are they grindset flexes?
Not really, no.
What are they, then?
Basically, the common thread is that they’re authentically personal. They're about real life experience. Don’t polish your persona too much. Don’t hide your Ls but boosting your Ws— this is one I’ve always tried to follow.
Some advice is a little less thematic: write and post often, format for mobile, and be real-- if pressing "send" makes you feel something like fear, it might just mean it's out of your comfort zone, which is good... As long as it's not cancellable. lol.
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