Google's Core Update Shakedown

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of the
NerdBrand podcast where I guesswe're going to be talking about
some.
You know, google completes itscore March update rollout and
you know we'll find out aboutsome other stuff to talk about.
You know, like maybe we'll sitand ponder hypothetically, like
what's going to happen withTikTok and things up next.

(00:21):
Hey everybody, welcome back tothis episode of the NerdBrand

(00:49):
Podcast.
We're going to take a look atwhat's going on in the world of
Google.
A while back, I talked abouthow they released a core update
and the world is coming to anend as a result.
Oh, my god, everybody's runningaround the hero farm.
That's the sound.
That's how I sound.
On Friday, um, anyhow.

(01:10):
So the core updates rolling outand, 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 tostart this.
Google.
If you're listening, by the wayand I have not checked to see
if that is a Friday, but if thatis, then somebody at Google is

(01:32):
violating their old slogantagline of don't be evil.
For those of you that didn'tknow that then that was their
actual slogan Anyhow.
So there has been widespreadimpact from this obviously
observed.
Um, so there's been, uh, somevolatile search engine results,

(01:55):
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, homeservices keywords showed a ton
of movement.
So if you're in that sector andyou're like, what happened to
all my traffic?
Um, that happened.
So, uh, you know you're, ifyou're in that kind of, uh

(02:16):
situation where you're um homeimprovement or you're in some
sort of plumber, electrician, um, that kind of a thing, I would
say you're probably going to beseeing that there's been a
recalibration of forum content.
So this has been prettysignificant.
I've got an article here thatsays After approximately 18

(02:38):
months of heightened visibilityfor forum websites following
Google's mid-2023 Hittin' Gemsupdate, many forum sites are now
experiencing substantial dropsin visibility.
So this is something that a lotof people don't think about.
But what is a forum?
Well, first of all, for thosewho don't know, reddit would be
one.
Okay, so Reddit gained a lot ofvisibility, and many other

(03:02):
forums they benefited from thealgorithm change in 2023.
But now all of that's goingaway.
All of that's diminishing nowin visibility for search terms.
So you know, you've got otherpatterns besides forum content
devaluation, you haveprogrammatic content penalties.
Therefore, that is, sitescreating a large volumes of

(03:26):
programmatic pages, thosedesigns specifically for SEO
rather than user value.
So if you're out there making awebsite and your goal is to
rank number one or two, I don'tknow do something like that for
the sake of SEO.
Yeah, you're going to getpenalized for that.
Now, that is something that is.

(03:47):
I've harped on that before manytimes.
You've heard that, jason, youalways criticize content because
we all engage with content.
Turn on your Netflix and onyour shows and you're engaging
with content, and so the valueof that is definitely being

(04:10):
weighed now more over othercontent in order for visibility.
Cross-sector impacts are anotherpattern that's identified, um.
So it's affected retail andgovernment and forums and
content publishers.
So it's, it's, this is acrosseverywhere.
This isn't just a specificsector or set of data that this
algorithm impacts.
So professionals commenting onthe update they have noted and

(04:33):
this is a quote from thisarticle potential connection to
Google's broader efforts toimprove search results,
diversity and combat low valuecontent.
So they're saying it out loudlike guys your blog posts are
garbage.
Your web copy needs polishing.
It will always need that, bythe way, I'm not just being mean
.
It's always a thing, becausethe world spins every day, thank

(04:57):
God, and things change.
So you're going to need toprobably maybe go back over that
stuff and retool it, rekey,maybe, bit, maybe rewrite you
never know.
And if you're doing AIgenerated content, integrating,
that is fine, I say, but if itis 90% of what you are putting
out there, no, google's notgoing to like this.

(05:18):
So, with the update completed, alot of professionals they're
still in the process ofassessing 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 managingcontent, uh, or a forum, um,
you're, you're, you're justgoing to see site like

(05:39):
performances drop, you're goingto as far as traffic.
So those are some of the thingsthat are going on in the land
of Google's um.
With that in relation to afollow-up of a, um, what I did
earlier in the podcast, uh andso, uh, I hope you enjoy that.
And now you can continue yourdrive to work or whatever you're
doing when listening to this umand be like, oh, so, but

(06:04):
there's that.
So what else is out there thatone could think about that?
Hey, you know, um, my businessis 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 througha list here that I have um

(06:28):
TikTok ban or we can talk about.
Well, let's just look at itthis way Um, social media has
come back pretty strong, I thinkwe can agree, but in a way
where it is more social than itis a marketing tool.
So if your social media strategyis again kind of like your SEO

(06:49):
strategy just to get clicks,just to get you know, if you're
not talking to people becausethat's where people are, then
it's probably not performingwell, because that content is no
different than what they'regoing to find on your site that
we just talked about.
So you know that messagingrather.
So the Trump administrationwanted to have somebody buy it

(07:12):
out back.
In the first term the secondterm, um before Biden got in, I
think it was they were going toban it and they were going to
ban it.
Now they're not going to ban it.
Nobody really knows Um.
I think that um, there's somethere.
There's just going to behurdles with banning something
like this, no matter yourpolitical leanings, I feel,

(07:33):
because the support for a thingis like TikTok took off.
I think everybody can not denythe fact that when TikTok came
onto the scene, it justexponentially took off in users
and in growth.
And in fact, at one point Idon't know if it's still people
to other sites OnlyFans in orderto make money and facilitate

(08:12):
transactions.
And so you have billions ofdollars here it's not millions,
billions and an economy that hascontained itself all through an
app and in ways that I thinkZuckerberg could have only
wished Facebook did, even thoughthey do a pretty good chunk.
Um, it's.
It's really something else.

(08:32):
But as of right now, pewResearch Center survey found
that 34% of us adults supportbanning 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 muchso, viewing it as a national

(08:56):
security threat.
That's down 10% from May oflast year.
And then you know opposition tothe ban that's risen a little
bit about 10%.
So basically, one-third ofAmericans are undecided and the
support for ban is obviouslyhigher on Republican than
Democrat.
But 12% of users want a ban,which is, I always found that

(09:20):
interesting that the users wanta ban, compared to 45% of
non-users.
That just seems a little odd tome.
I look at this thing throughanother channel to broadcast a
message I'm not bought inpersonally, and I know this may
be political, but I'm not boughtin personally that the Chinese
really care what I TikTok about.

(09:40):
And if you're wondering wait,wait, wait, jason, did you just
say you TikTok?
I'm like yeah, I know, I knowthat sounds really bad and
probably not the way to say itbecause I'm old.
So we're just going to move onfrom that.
And if you're going to belooking for an account that I
have, that's my personal onegood luck.
No, I'm not inferring that Ipersonally do that.
I ain't got time for that man.

(10:01):
I got to watch my shows, soanyways.
So the solutions and pathsforward are going to be
completely gray in area If itbecomes something that's owned
by a US-based company.
There's no telling what we'regoing to find.
That'll happen.
There's a deadline, however, onOctober 16th of this year, that

(10:26):
somebody needs to figure outthis company that he was hoping
would do it.
They obviously said no, theybought LinkedIn, kind of funny.
So now it's Oracle and Oracleis proposing, I believe, a deal.

(10:50):
So, yeah, for those of you thatuse TikTok for growing your
business and for spreading theword about your brand, you know
if you're like, should I?
Should I not also understand?
It's very hard to use thatchannel.
Now that more and more peopleare on it, it doesn't really
probably have the viral impactthat it used to, unless you're a
very creative individual, veryphotogenic and also, um, just

(11:14):
all around, uh likable, and havea solid product.
Uh, other than that, it's goingto be, you know, throwing paste
on the wall and hoping to seewhat sticks, and you definitely
don't want to do that.
Uh, as an agency, do we offerhelp with this?
Hmm, kind of depends.
I mean, uh, we're fine helpingyou with the strategy, but it's
your phone, not mine, and,honestly, when it gets down to

(11:36):
that, when you have somethingthat is so personal and so
individual and so transactionalin a one-to-one way, tiktok's
probably not really good for abusiness that's maybe got
several employees.
I would say that you reallywould have to definitely try to
examine what kind of strategyyou want to implement, whether
if it's influencers or if it'syour own company showing itself.

(11:58):
I think that there's probablysomething out there for everyone
with regards to TikTok.
But what I've noticed is thatbusiness pages on other channels
, frankly posts just don't getseen as much in visibility as
organic posts coming from actualpeople, actual profiles,
personal profiles from actualpeople, actual profiles,

(12:20):
personal profiles.
So take that into considerationas you try to go out and say
like, well, what can we do?
Because everybody's on the tikitalks 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 isnecessary, and ignoring certain
channels without having tried ortested something is also not a
good idea.
You should go ahead, try, testit, see what happens.

(12:41):
As long as you got somethinginteresting, you never know, it
might actually work out for you.
So, anyways, if you enjoyed thisepisode of the NerdBrand
Podcast, go tonerdbrandagencycom slash podcast
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(13:02):
about episodes and some thingsgoing on at NerdBrand, because
everybody's like it's so quietover there and the reason is
well, there's good reasons.
Collectively, there are one,two, three, four, maybe five.
Nerds, maybe four and a halfit's something to explain later,
nerds, maybe four and a half.
It's something to explain later.
So other than that, we uh, wewish you guys well, have a great

(13:22):
week and tune in next week tothe next episode on Friday, and
I'll see you then and keep yournerd brand strong.