I shortened my sentences. I used keywords that Google could identify easily. I wrote in a way that allowed Google to understand our content, following a set of nebulous rules laid out by the overlords. The rules were never expressly stated, but trial and error from millions of people that came before our blog seemed to point to a common path. And that path was “Juicy Info Nuggets”.

In September of 2023 Google started rolling out what it called its “Helpful Content Update“. The stated goal of this update to search results was to reduce the amount of spam and AI-generated crap that littered the internet. The actual result? The destruction of small publishers, blogs, and the Rise of Reddit.

And where does that leave bloggers, small publishers, and the like? Well, after years of training online publishers to write in a fashion that Google web crawlers could easily identify, in easily digestible nuggets of information, Google will be taking those nuggets and giving them away for free. Because hey, when you’re a huge monopoly you can do whatever you want.