The photo below was taken at Google HQ. I was told my 24 years of experience mattered. I was told Google wanted to 'fix' the search ecosystem. 17 MONTHS later, they’ve ghosted us and our traffic is being cannibalized by their AI. The 'conversation' was a lie. Google invited me to HQ to help "fix" search. It was a pacification tactic. I’ve been publishing Mountain Weekly News for 24 years. I’ve spent two decades technically vetting gear in the trenches of the Tetons while Google was still in its infancy. I walk the walk, I test the gear, and I’ve survived every algorithm shift—until now. October 2024, Google invited me and 19 other independent creators (including Rutledge Daugette of TechRaptor) to their HQ for a "Web Creator Conversation." They told us they wanted to hear from the experts. They told us search was changing and they needed our help to get it right. It was a masterclass in smoke and mirrors. Danny Sullivan (who won't allow me to tag him...) and the search team asked us to stop "pining" them publicly on X and LinkedIn. Instead, they asked us to compile "internal documents" with our findings, data, and technical concerns. They promised these would be the "workbooks" for the engineering team. Rutledge sent 26 pages of exhaustive data. I sent an 8-page deep dive on how Google was rewarding corporate conglomerates over actual experts. The result? Silence. Ghosting. Total lack of accountability. Did anyone on your team see this Cathy Edwards? We weren't invited there to provide solutions; we were invited there to be silenced. It was a pacification tactic to shut us up while they finished building a parasitic search engine that values Reddit threads and AI-generated "slop" over two decades of primary-source expertise. The "Don't Be Evil" era is dead. Why did that get removed Jennifer Kutz Google has a responsibility to the ecosystem that feeds it. Instead, they’ve chosen a path that rewards media conglomerates that pay writers pennies to "spin" content, while independent publishers who actually invest in original photography and technical vetting are forced into layoffs and closure. If Google continues to prioritize "Zero-Click" results and corporate authority over human expertise, there will be no professional independent media left to crawl in two years. Any thoughts Pandu Nayak? Should I close a 24 year old business? Rutledge and I aren't giving up. We’ve found business models that don't rely on a broken search engine. But the open web is on life support, and the "physician" is the one pulling the plug. Check the data for yourself: any thoughts? Cyrus S. Barry Schwartz Lily Ray Glenn Gabe My report: https://lnkd.in/g4xCgg8Q 26 Page Report: https://lnkd.in/gbwPXVk4 #GoogleSearch #SEO #HCU #DigitalMarketing #IndependentPublishing #TechRaptor #MountainWeeklyNews #SearchEngineLand #GoogleHQ #AIO #ZeroClick
This is really frustrating. However, not surprising at all given over two decades of unethical practices.
I have a lot of opinions about what affiliate publishing has done to the internet, and how the good operators get caught in the fallout created by bad actors. I’ve studied the strategies, monetization models, & brand partnerships in this space for years, and I’m convinced the strongest move for experts like you (and other good affiliate/review marketers), who understand niche products, competitors, use cases, and consumer behavior better than almost anyone, is to build your own brands and products. Carryology and Bellroy are a great example of what this can look like when deep editorial authority evolves into owned product. I wouldn’t shut down the reviews site. If anything, it’s the strategic advantage. The audience trust, first-hand testing knowledge, and category depth are assets most brands would spend years trying to build. I understand why it may not feel that way right now, but I’d argue you still have the upper hand.
I hear you and empathize with your story. I maintain domains that would definitely fall into the "corporate authority" bucket. Having said that, I do want to share that we're trying too. We are trying to do what you're doing: Building human content, from humans, for humans. Just wanted to share this because just because you might fall into a category, doesn't mean you do things necessarily related or psuedo-related to that category.
I definitely feel for what's happening to you and to anyone else post-HCU. Not going to defend Google, but happy to help if I can. I was assisting (hopefully!) Rutledge Daugette following my own efforts at recovery that were written at Search Engine Land. I clearly can't switch off the AI counterpart, but I have some thoughts on other aspects that may help.
Ever heard of Trade Comet? One of the fastest growing businesses in 2006/7, invited to mountain view to receive an award and the day they returned their website was cut off from search and has never been reinstated. The behaviour has not changed.
Information is inseparable from governance. When ecosystems of AI agents replace the web as our primary interface between and among humans/enterprises then we'll have the opportunity to build search that works for humanity instead of privileged corporations and their elite investors. This is nothing short of anthropological evolution and epistemic rewiring for the future of digital civilization. Google search will go the way of the yellow pages.
Added to /r/RealSEO, hope it helps spread the word.
Dont be Evil google
Well done buddy. Hold the line. The world is with you.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yN2W5oY6Wv2DDpvG2-6wO_QRCF4SXAUV9Aeh8XR0-x4/edit?tab=t.0