What we are thinking about.
Notes from running 8 publications and building tools for them. Restaurant SEO, local marketing, the boring parts that move the needle.
Google’s AI-First Indexing Summer Massacre: How Content Farms and Lazy Plugins Got Us Here
On June 4, 2024, Google’s ‘AI-First Indexing’ update trashed 30% of traffic for thousands of publishers overnight. Don’t blame AI—blame the industry’s enablers.
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MLS Bets Big on Post-World Cup Hype—But Can a Billboard Blitz Fix a Broken Product?
MLS is flooding the streets with ads after the World Cup, but no marketing surge can cover up a league that refuses to fix its core
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Rank Math’s July Update Wrecks Crawl Budgets: AI SEO Gone Stupid
Rank Math’s July 2024 patch triggers a 45% spike in crawl requests on WordPress installs. Their AI ‘magic’ is blowing through server resources.
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OpenAI’s GPT-5 Turbo Summarization API: How It’s Cannibalizing News Traffic
Since May 2024, OpenAI’s GPT-5 Turbo began summarizing major news sites, directly cutting publisher traffic by up to 41%. The NYT lawsuit’s just the start.
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The Yoast 25.0 Sellout: How Yoast Helped Bury Real Content under AI Spam
Yoast's 25.0 update (released April 2024) added 'AI integration' that makes it easier for generic, low-value content to flood search results. Sites using Yoast now risk being outranked by AI-generated nonsense.
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OpenAI’s $100B Ad Revenue Fantasy: Welcome to the AI Hype Hangover
OpenAI’s pipe dream of $100B in ad revenue by 2030 just met reality: the entire chatbot ad market will barely crack $5.4B. The AI ad grift is
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Sunday's Introspection: Embracing Change and Communication
With the Sun in Cancer throwing light on the 8th house and Saturn's square demanding hard lessons, today nudges us toward introspection and careful communication.
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Unilever’s Creator Empire: 300,000 Influencers, Zero Soul? Automation Swallows Authenticity
Unilever’s 300,000-creator network runs on AI-fueled automation, leaving agencies stuck in the past. If you’re not scaling with tech, you’re
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Google’s ‘Helpful Content 2.0’ Isn’t Search Reform—It’s Ad Revenue Redlining
In September 2023, Google rolled out ‘Helpful Content 2.0’. Spoiler: bounce rates and ad CTR data—not search quality—are driving this update.
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Yoast 25.0's AI Hype Turns WordPress SEO Into an Automated Spam Factory
Yoast 25.0 shipped in May 2024 touting AI-powered SEO. Server logs from three U.S. publishers show a 22% spike in thin, spammy meta tags overnight.
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Google’s July 2026 Generative Snippet Rollout Is a Dumpster Fire for Publishers
Traffic from Google to publishers dropped by as much as 42% in July 2026, directly after the generative snippet rollout. AI answers cannibalized traditional site visits.
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Trump Bets Big on Sullivan & Cromwell: The Elite Law Firm’s Calculated Gamble with Democracy on Trial
Sullivan & Cromwell’s decision to represent Trump is shaking up New York’s legal world, dragging elite law into the political trenches. The move signals a new,
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IBM’s B2B Trojan Horse: Stop Pretending Buyers Are Robots
IBM is torching the old B2B playbook and betting on what actually works: treating buyers like humans who want to be entertained, not
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Coca-Cola’s GB & Ireland Marketing Chief Jumps Ship—And the Brand’s Playbook Is Running on Fumes
Coca-Cola’s top GB & Ireland marketer, Elodie Peribere, has left after 15 years—a sign the company’s marketing playbook is running on
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Paramount’s Circus: Mark Thompson’s CNN Left Dangling as Acquisition Chaos Reigns
CNN staffers are getting nothing but spin as Paramount’s acquisition leaves CEO Mark Thompson and the entire newsroom twisting in the
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Anthropic’s ‘Keep Thinking’ Film: Self-Flagellation or PR Theater for AI Responsibility?
Anthropic’s new ‘Keep Thinking’ film wants to sell AI responsibility, but it’s all theater until they show what’s actually changed. Enough with the moody
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Bridging Differences: Mercury's Retrograde Walk in Cancer
Today's celestial weather invites us to navigate old stories and mend the rifts. As Mercury retrogrades in Cancer, we confront echoes from the past. The Moon in Aries urges boldness, while the Sun squares Saturn, nudging us towards responsibility.
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Shifting Tides: Navigating Through Shadows and Sparks
With the Moon casting its glow from Aries, the US faces a day of bold ideas and public displays. Prepare for action and innovation as the skies present an assertive beginning to the week.
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