More Google Updates, The Verge and AI, Feedback for Google, and Wirecutter Making $6 Million/mth

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast, where Spencer and Jared cover all the latest relating to SEO, digital marketing, affiliate marketing, and website creation and break it down into bite-size pieces for listeners. 

Spencer and Jared kick things off by talking about how the November Core Update was rolled out about a week ago. Spencer reveals how Niche Pursuits has fared thus far and Jared talks about how site owners he’s in contact with have been affected by Google’s latest update. 

Did most websites see a recovery or more of a decline? What will happen as the update concludes? 

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They also announce that the Reviews Update has also been rolled out. Will site owners be able to determine which update affected them and how? How is this latest update different from the HCU? How is Google going to handle update announcements moving forward? And will there be another update before the end of the year? Tune in to hear what Spencer and Jared think. 

Changing gears, Spencer shares an affiliate article in The Verge that is clearly written with AI with no human editing. Listeners of last week’s episode will recall the discussion of a different article in The Verge complaining that the internet is overloaded with poor-quality SEO content. And here it is, spamming the web with SEO-optimized unedited AI content!

Is their article ranking? And if it is, is it outranking truly helpful content written by humans who have actually tested the products? What do Spencer and Jared think about this case of parasite SEO? Listen to find out!

Next up on the agenda is a very interesting tweet from Danny Sullivan from Google Search Liaison on how he brings people’s feedback back to Google. Jared lauds this moment of transparency and Spencer wonders if this feedback could impact the way that Google Search works. 

Another tweet that made it into this week’s news is about the New York Times’ 3Q revenue numbers. Glen Allsopp did an excellent write-up after analyzing The Wirecutter, the Times’ affiliate website. How much does he estimate it’s bringing in per month in affiliate commissions? It’s clear that “the little guys” can’t compete with The Wirecutter, but what are Jared and Spencer’s takeaways from this situation?

In the last news item of the episode, Spencer shares that Elon Musk and Twitter recently revealed their ChatCPT competitor, Grok. Premium Twitter subscribers can currently sign up to the waiting list to test it out. Where will this go? It remains to be seen, but as Spencer says, it’s always interesting when someone with very deep pockets gets into the AI game.

In the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, Spencer talks about the tool he created, Rank Logic, and its latest addition—a Google Analytics integration, which will be available for current users as early as next week. He talks about the different ways users will be able to analyze data and create custom reports, and how much easier it will be compared with using GA4.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he talks about recording more videos for the Amazon Influencer Program, most of them seasonal. His goal is to hit 1000 videos by the end of the year. He also talks about celebrating the anniversary of the Photo Course on Weekend Growth and how his side hustles, and the opportunities that come with them, continue to grow and surprise him as well.

Spencer shares his Weird Niche Site first: Miss Rachel Networth. He gives the backstory about Miss Rachel, a popular teacher on YouTube, and shares stats for the 3-month-old site, which has a DR of 63 and organic monthly traffic of around 30k. Is it a 301 from an older domain? What else does he discover when he digs deeper? What’s his and Jared’s theory behind the website?

Jared’s find this week is The Measure of Things, a very, very weird niche site that lets you enter a measurement and then compare that measurement to other “things.” For example, 829 square centimeters is about 1/15th as big as a bath towel. Isn’t that great to know? 

This DR52 site ranks for 17k keywords and has an organic search volume of 24k per month. What’s super unique about this website? Hear Jared and Spencer break down the data they see in Ahrefs.

And that brings us to the end of another great episode. We hope you’re feeling informed and inspired, as always. See you next week!

transcription:

Spencer: ​Hey, everyone. Welcome back to this week in niche pursuits news. And like always, we have another good week of news. A lot of things happening in the digital marketing space, the Google, the SEO space. And we're going to talk about that. Uh, and of course, I've got Jared with me. How are you doing today? 

Jared: Good to be here, Spencer.

I'm excited for this week in the news. And I feel like we finally have a week where we can kind of dig into some of the topics a little bit and really. Explore them, but it's not like we have two or three. I mean, we're looking over our list, we've got five or six to hit again today, so that might be the new norm now.

Spencer: Yeah, I think so. There's always a lot of things going on. Uh, even though it doesn't feel like it's as big of news items, it kinda still is. Um, and could, could be very big, impacting sites, right? Uh, and... Some of these are a little 

Jared: tongue in cheek, we're gonna have a little fun too. I'm excited about some of these topics today.

You know, they're kind of piggybacking on some of the other stuff that's been happening over the last couple weeks. 

Spencer: Yep. So if you've been listening to previous episodes, I think you're going to love this episode because we do kind of piggyback, you know, harken back to previous episodes a little bit. Uh, it's kind of fun.

So some really good, uh, news topics, uh, that we're going to cover here. And then of course, we've got our side hustles that we'll dig into a couple of things that we've been working on. Uh, one thing that, uh, yeah, I'm kind of excited about to, to chat more about, um, that I'll share here, uh, as part of my side hustle.

Uh, and then finally our weird niche sites. Uh, a couple of, uh, weird niche sites. Um, you know, one site maybe is going to crash our Chrome browser here during the podcast. Hopefully it doesn't. So it's kind of one of those that that's how weird it is. That's how weird it is. It may or may not be working by the time we get there.

So stick around for that. Um, so up first is, uh, we just want to mention briefly, uh, the Google. Uh, core update. The November core update has been going on now for about a week. We announced it like it got announced, I think just a few minutes before we hit record, uh, last week it is rolling out now it's been about a week.

And, uh, so for me, I can just share what I've seen on my sites. Um, for niche pursuits, it's actually increased the traffic a little bit. I definitely am seeing maybe a 10%, uh, bump in organic search. So it's a good, uh, update for me, but that doesn't. necessarily mean it's a good update for everybody. Uh, Jared, are you seeing anything or hearing anything out there?

I 

Jared: mean, what I would call sub 10 percent one way or the other on most of the sites that I've looked at. Um, uh, in terms of my own portfolio and client sites, I will say that I've seen numerous, like, three, four, five, six different independent people say that they're seeing some recovery from downturns experienced during the HCU that are clearly tied with when the core update started really hitting.

Most people saw the core update start hitting Friday, Saturday ish of last week. I don't know what that puts us, uh, you know, third or fourth or something like that. Um, and so, you know, if you had a site that was negatively impacted by the HCU, might be good to pop it. If you've kind of been ignoring it and like just kind of putting your head in the sand and hoping it all blows over, you might want to pop into analytics.

Get the, get the stomach up for it and see if maybe you did have a little bit of recovery. Um, we've seen, I don't know, I think you've seen some of the same, Spencer, but at least three to four or five different people saying, Hey. I'm definitely seeing recovery to some degree. 

Spencer: If there's any chatter that I've been seeing that, that I have seen, that's about it, right, is that it, it seems to maybe be positive, uh, for a lot of people, a lot of, uh, sort of niche site creators, bloggers, um, definitely hasn't been, you know, big doom and gloom.

Anything like that. So that is good. It's probably got another week to finish rolling out. They usually take about 14 days or so. Uh, so we'll keep our eyes on that, but to keep things interesting. And we did mention this last week that Google would be rolling out with the new, uh, Google reviews update. And that has officially happened.

The, the, the update has begun. Uh, and that just started yesterday, I believe. Is that right? Uh, might 

Jared: have been today. I think it was this 

Spencer: morning. It may have been. Uh, let's see. It started, here I'm sharing my screen, it started November 8th. Okay, yesterday. Um, at 12 p. m. Eastern Time. So, just, uh, just yesterday it started.

Uh, so maybe people would start seeing some sort of impact today, but again, maybe it's going to take a couple of weeks to, uh, finish rolling out. 

Jared: Yeah, so the thing about the review update, and remember this used to be called the product review update, and then they dropped the product, which is interesting because we were noticing In previous review updates that they were impacting more than just review URLs, right?

And so... So it's a bit of a conundrum, right? But it's interesting because now we have to analyze a review update at the same time as a core update. So it's going to make a mess out of it. It, it, I think now we're just at the point where we're just throwing up our hands and saying like, Hey, you know, updates happening all at once.

And we're just going to evaluate that as 

Spencer: it seems like that's the norm. Now Google's just doing a bunch of updates. And, um, you know, so I guess if you have a ton of URLs that are reviews or product reviews that. Appear to be hit. It's probably the product review update. Uh, if it's other URLs, right, that are not, not product reviews, it's probably the core update, but it makes it so confusing, not, not easy to follow.

Uh, 

Jared: it's interesting to me 'cause I was reading this article and we, it's been a while since we had a, well, not that long, but in Google Land now, so I think July was the last one. So, I mean, that's like a lifetime ago. Yeah. Um, and I was reading, uh, in this article on Search Engine Roundtable about some of the things a review update published by Google is meant to, to target, I dunno about you, but it.

It looks strikingly similar to what we ended up with from the HCU. Hmm. Um, and I can kind of read some of the things that I, that I saw. Yeah. Google's advice for writing high quality review content includes, and again, Spencer, tell me if this sounds a lot like what you and I have been noticing when we review HCU stuff here on the, on the podcast, evaluating from a user's perspective, demonstrating expertise, providing evidence, sharing quantitative measurements, explaining what sets a product apart from competitors, discussing benefits and drawbacks based on original research, how our product has evolved.

Key decision making factors, key design choices, including links to other resources and multiple sellers. 

Spencer: Yeah, very interesting, right? Evaluate from a user's perspective, right? All of these things. The first 

Jared: thing. And what do we 

Spencer: see in the HCU? Yep, same thing, right? They want you to sort of write as though you're writing for humans, right?

Uh, is sort of the common phrase that they're always making. Making it more user, sort of friendly, user perspective. 

Jared: So anyways, um, Yeah, hard to say. I mean, we got the core update. We got the reviews update and in theory, they both run two weeks, so in theory, we'll be talking about this again next week, maybe wrapping up the core update and maybe still midstream with a little bit of data to look at from this reviews update.

Yeah, it'll be hard to know which is which. 

Spencer: Yep. And so that's about all we have to say about that, right? It's happening. Other than, uh, I guess that Google says this is the last time they will announce a reviews update or have it. Be its own standalone sort of, um, update. They're just going to roll it out and you won't know.

It's just going to be part of the, the core update, I guess, because maybe it's now part of the HCU or maybe it's part of the HCU. Um, yeah. So, um, yeah, it'll be interesting to follow along. That's what's happening. I got the two Google updates happening right now. Uh, so buckle up, kind of check your site, see what's happening here over the next week or two.

Uh, hopefully it's, uh, good things. Good luck to everybody out 

Jared: there. Spencer, I gotta ask you on record here. Do you think we'll get one in the usual kind of Black Friday, early December period? 

Spencer: It's, it was so interesting because there was a tweet that Google put out that essentially said, um, we don't try to normally do this around holidays, and you and I were both like, yeah you do, every year.

Uh, and so will that, um... 

Jared: So, I can't remember, I wish I had it in front of me, I think Danny or somebody commented on that tweet and said, that was many years ago. I think that it was an old Matt Cutts comment that either Danny or somebody else actually said like, ah, that's yeah, that was yes. That was yesteryear.

We, we cared about people last decade. 

Spencer: I'm going to go, I'm going to go with yes. There is going to be another big update before the end of the year. I don't know if it'll be Black Friday or what. But sometime in December when we're all getting ready to settle down for Christmas, uh, we're going to get excited again with Google and what's going 

Jared: on.

The Ebeneezer Scrooge of digital marketing. Exactly. 

Spencer: Ooh, that feels like a nice sketch that needs to happen. Uh, somebody make that. Um, so, all right, that's, that's what we've got going on there. But, uh, there was. Another sort of interesting, I don't know if this is news, uh, per say, it's actually maybe the first time a news item that we're going to talk about is referencing an article that was written like six months ago.

Uh, but it's news because of what we talked about last week. So, last week was the Verge article, the big SEO expose article, uh, about the alligator party and SEOs. are ruining the internet, uh, that article, right? That, that, uh, was talked about widely across social media. And so, uh, I don't know who, uh, pointed this out, but somehow it came into my, um, you know, my atmosphere where I saw this, that The Verge had written an article a long time ago, 100%

Written by chat GPT and they are not even trying to hide the fact that it was written by AI Right late. You got to just go read this article. It's the best printer 2023 it's very SEO optimized But it's all written by AI. Uh, and so best printer 2023, just buy this brother laser printer. Everyone has, it's fine.

Um, the brother, whatever it is, we'll print return labels for online shopping. Never run out of toner and generally be a printer instead of a physical instant. Instantation of a business model You it's hard to like explain without reading the entire article But here's one just in bold right to give you an idea Chat GPT ideas about printers.

I didn't even proofread this don't read it unless you are a lonely Google search robot in which case Look at this incredible demonstration of experience expertise authority and trustworthiness And rank this post first in searches for, quote, best printers. Okay, that is literally like the entire article is like Not written for humans, 100 percent written for the Google bot by AI, right?

And it's just super funny because this whole verge article last week was talking about the trash of the internet and all these terrible articles that are written for SEO purposes. And then The Verge has clearly been doing it at least, right, since March of 2023 when this was written. Spamming the internet with AI written content that is just there to rank in Google.

Oh, and it is ranking well in Google. 

Jared: It feels like the joke's on us.

For starters, like, this is, like you said, flagrantly... It's not just writing AI, it's touting in the art. It's almost like, um, I remember, you know, the whole Kyle roof scenario where he ranked lorem ipsum content. It's almost like, Hey, Google, look at how good I am. Look at how dumb your results are. I can actually do this and rub it in your face.

That's exactly what this feels like. It's like basically calling out all the things that they complained last week about SEOs. But the reality is, is that an SEO had nothing to do with this article ranking number one. None of our scammy tactics had anything to do with this article ranking number one. It was nothing but What Google Rewards, which is a high powered domain, and keyword optimized content, and it ranks really well.

And it has nothing to do with all the stuff that they dragged through the mud last week. 

Spencer: Yeah, exactly. And so just to drive this home, you know, I, on this other tab, I'm going to share now, um, I went ahead and search for best printer 2023 and a side note, SGE is showing a massive pack of SGE stuff. Right?

That's like one of the biggest I've ever seen. I got to scroll a couple times, but then if you do scroll and it's not at the top of page one, But it is right here, right? Bottom of page one or wherever you call this. Now, the verge article is ranking and I'm sure getting traffic and making affiliate commissions all, you know, written in a way that is not for humans at all.

So really calls into question this helpful content update, you know, right? Articles for humans. Um, I don't know, man. I, I, I hate to say it, but it just drives home a lot of the points that people were making on that Twitter thread and that Verge article, comments that, you know, that we shared about, hey, all these big sites with huge domain authority, they can get away with anything, get away with murder, um, because they have a DR of 95.

And 

Jared: I quote, just one, I have to read one line, Spencer. Here's a button to buy whatever brother laser printer our commerce team is getting the best affiliate rates on right now. 

Spencer: Oh man, it's, it's so good if it wasn't so sad. Oh, 

Jared: if there wasn't ever a case in point about all the Forbes bickering we've done in the last, you know, nine months or, you know, two years as a 

Spencer: There's that one.

I love it. And, uh, as you pointed out, this article was written by, or at least it's under the name of, Nyle Patel, who is the editor in chief of The Verge, who had a back and forth with Danny Sullivan related to the, uh, article published last week on The Verge. So it's just, I don't know what you call it, but it's just a little extra, you know, something.

Uh, little, little stab in the back there. Um, because it's all the same parties involved. 

Jared: Ah, I mean. It's like when you're asked to talk about something that already talks about itself. I mean, it's, it's so cringy that it, you know, like, you know, and there's things that you have to talk about, but they're so cringy you just want to kind of crawl in a hole.

That's kind of how I feel right now. 

Spencer: Yeah, yeah. And so, um, open invitation to both Nyle Patel and Danny Sullivan. If you want to come on to the podcast, uh, and chat about this either together or separately. We'd love to have an open forum just to talk about why is this article ranking so well in Google when others that are written by bloggers that are definitely more in depth, written by humans, people that have tested products, not ranking well in Google.

So. 

Jared: Uh, you should read the comments as well. Nilay Patel is, uh, is, uh, is, is quite happy to approve plenty of AI comments. Is that right? I expect that my child will inherit this printer. 

Spencer: So if anybody wants to, you know, dig deep into the comments or anything else, right? Just, just Google Best Printer 2023 and you'll find this article.

Uh, and you can go read that, so. Thanks, thanks to whoever, uh, re shared this, uh, for me. It was, yeah, perfect, perfect timing. Piggyback from last week's episode. Uh, so also kind of piggyback on last week's episode, this whole discussion of, um, all the comments that were had on Twitter with, uh, Danny Sullivan about, um, the helpful content update.

About this article, about, um, sort of my post from a couple of weeks ago about, you know, is Google slowly killing blogging? Uh, well, I'm sharing on my screen here now Danny's response. He essentially says somebody asked me, uh, this week for any examples that I give to the, bring back to the Google, uh, search team.

You know, do I take any of the feedback that I've gotten from SEOs and actually take it back to the Google search team and they implement that? Uh, and so he was nice enough to compile, uh, sort of a report, um, that he has recently shared, uh, concerns and questions and suggestions that he's taken feedback from us, from SEOs in general, and taken that back to the Google team.

And so there's a lot in here, um, of actually things that, that he has, um, taken back to the team. And it's kind of interesting. 

Jared: It's very interesting. I mean, Spencer, you know, we're having a good time. I mean, I'm pretty sure. There's a link to some of the things you shared. Because he has hyperlinks, we can't see the hyperlinks.

Yeah, exactly. And some of the hyperlinks are to some of the things you've talked about. And I'm pretty sure one of the hyperlinks is to the spreadsheet I put together for the helpful content update and how to evaluate your site. I mean, I got at least five DMs from people circling and going like, that's definitely a link to your spreadsheet.

But the point is, is, and I'm just having fun poking around, but this is clearly related to, um, you know, some of the things that we talked about, uh, I guess what two weeks ago, last week, how the time flies. And I mean, Look, let's be honest. This was so cool to see. Like, you couldn't have been someone who's been involved in the junk of the last couple weeks and see this and not kind of feel like, well, uh, thank goodness.

Like, this is what we sort of always have wanted from Danny. And maybe he's been doing this for a long time. Certainly the results don't make it feel like that. But a little bit more transparency. And so it just, it, it makes us feel like he's less the enemy. And at least there's a go between. Whether it's working or not, you know, at least there's a Feels like there might be a conversation happening.

I don't know. That's, that's certainly the way I feel like a lot of people felt too 

Spencer: about it. Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's good to know that Danny really is taking the feedback, right? He's not just jumping into the weeds on Twitter and trying to defend Google which you know He partially is but the other part of it.

It sounds like okay, some people brought a good perspectives I'm gonna take this back to the search team. So You know my thought it was like wow, we actually might be impacting how Google works Which is a crazy thought, um, you know, and I was kind of telling my wife this, and she didn't really care, but I was like, man, isn't that cool?

Like, I might actually impact how some sites are ranked. She's like, yeah, that's nice, honey. Yeah, he could have sent this 

Jared: to his mother. We don't know who this went to. I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm sure this did. Um, uh, I think it was, uh, I think it was a very good move on Danny's part. Again, we're seeing...

This sort of stuff happened. We're seeing him engage in your tweets from two weeks ago. Mm hmm. We're seeing this transparency and feedback loop. Maybe the feedback was always happening and now we're just seeing the transparency. But I think Danny has made some great moves in the last couple weeks in what has been a pretty ugly time for Google in terms of rankings, results, all 

Spencer: that.

Yeah, and just, you know, one quote that is, you know, exactly what we were just talking about. Uh, here on my screen is over and over, people noted large publishers, like The Verge, that seem like they can write about anything and get rewarded. A compilation of such complaints is here, which he links to, which, uh, may be a link to Sean K's large comment that he had on my thread.

And one key tweet, in part, is this. Maybe, maybe, maybe not. We don't 

Jared: know. Oh, uh, yeah. That's, that's the Twitter tweet right there. We don't 

Spencer: know. We don't know. Um, and then related is the idea that Parasite SEO, uh, Parasite SEO site wins, sites that lease themselves out to third parties and then content ranks on these sites that would never succeed on a different site.

It's just interesting, right? They're paying attention to all this discussion, all this chatter. They know what's going on, and if they see something working that shouldn't be working, like Parasite SEO, or maybe something that's broken that needs to be fixed. Right? Uh, they're going to take it back to the team and fix it.

I thought this was very interesting that Danny was considering, Hey, we should develop a helpful content tool. 

Jared: This is the one that people are thinking might be linking to my little tool. Yeah, one 

Spencer: of these, um... This is a very 

Jared: rough idea. I got, yeah. I got that circled a bunch. Yeah. 

Spencer: Yep. Very much could be based on, you know, Jared's spreadsheet.

Uh, and so... To be fair, probably not. 

Jared: But, my, you know, my spreadsheet, uh, didn't get the virality that your, your tweet did, 

Spencer: so. Yeah, yeah, but you made, anyways, you made some money off yours. I didn't make any money off my tweet. You're right. So. But you're changing Google, Spencer. I hope so. Hopefully for the better.

Don't come after me if your website's not ranking anymore. Can you really put a price 

Jared: tag 

Spencer: on that? No, no you can't. That'll go right on my resume, right at the top. I changed how Google works. Um. 

Jared: Seriously, that should be your tweet byline. Changing Google one tweet at a time. Oh, I 

Spencer: love it. Ooh, ooh. 

Jared: Last week, I think I was fair at first content.

This week, I'm writing your byline for you. 

Spencer: I like it. Man, I gotta re listen to these recordings, because I'll forget that after this. Um, so, alright. I think, I think we, uh, you know, hit that one enough. Again, Danny, it's a 

Jared: safe spot. Come on here, we'll talk shop. 

Spencer: We really will be nice, Danny. 

Jared: Clearly, you recognize some of the issues we are at least sharing, and...

That's that's the first part of a long long journey. 

Spencer: Yep. Absolutely. We're just trying to get it right You know, there's a lot of hard people out here working very hard, you know bloggers that are we think doing a good job and Want to make sure their their website is is viewable in the SERPs. So Okay, another just, uh, interesting tweet, and this is based on, um, news, the New York Times posted their quarter three revenue numbers, uh, just this, this week, a couple of days ago, I believe, and Glenn Alsop did a great write up as it relates to the Wirecutter, and because that's a, you know, Wirecutter is owned by the New York Times, and so, I will just share his tweet because he had a great breakdown, uh, of that.

Um, basically, okay, uh, quarter three revenue numbers 598 million, uh, which is a 9. 3 percent increase over last year. Uh, now Glenn estimates that the Wirecutter affiliate commissions are bringing in at least 6 million dollars. Per month per month and potentially a lot more right? Uh, and he kind of goes through his entire Analysis how he came to that but a lot of it is based on on numbers and basically here that the New York Times stated that digital other revenues which consists primarily of Wirecutter affiliate revenue totaled thirty seven point two Million dollars for the quarter, right?

So that's three months anyways, and then he did some math to You know kind of come up with this number of okay. He thinks that you know at least 18. 6 million Is coming for the quarter was coming from the wire cutter, right? And so he can estimate that at least six million, but probably even more 

Jared: I was gonna say I was gonna piggyback on that to be clear Glenn almost trips over himself multiple times to basically echo like That he thinks is very conservative, right?

Like Nieman Lab believes it's much higher. He's being very generous with what he's marking down here. So arguably much higher, you know, 

Spencer: than that. Yeah. And, um, it's just, it's just fascinating because I have this number in my head. I, this probably isn't right, but I seem to recall several years ago that everyone was oohing and aahing over the wire cutter cause they were doing 40 to 50, 000 a month.

Um, and then they got sold to the New York times a couple years later, maybe. Yeah. He 

Jared: says back in 2018, we know, which was. You know, five years ago, we know wire cutter was generating around 1. 6 million per month. Okay. And, um, so this is what a five, four X increase on that in five years. And I don't know what year they got sold, but they got, they got bought by New York Times for 30 million, which on

6 million a month, this many years later, looks like a bargain, because 6 million profit per month is 72 million profit per year, and they bought it for 30 million five years ago. Now, obviously, they've spent a lot of money on it since then, but looking like a absolute brilliant investment. And we were saying back at the time, to piggyback off what you were saying, like, Man, New York Times really overpaid for this sucker.

Spencer: Mm hmm. Yeah, exactly. And, uh, they're doing quite well. And, uh, A lot of large publications are doubling down on this type of thing, right? They're taking advantage of the opportunity to get affiliate commissions, do product reviews. The New York Times has done it very well, of course, because they brought the Wirecutter 

Jared: team in house.

Not everyone spends as much on their product reviews as the New York Times. Like, The Verge probably doesn't spend quite as much on their printer reviews as Wirecutter would. 

Spencer: You know, maybe 10 to 15 minutes. I couldn't help it. Um. But, so, it's just fascinating, and again, I don't, I don't know if this is positive news or negative news, right, for people listening, it's like, oh, that's great, the New York Times and the Wirecutter are making so much money, they're growing, but here we are, the little guys, we're making less and less with Amazon affiliate commissions, so, there's two sides to that coin, there's tons of money still being made in affiliate commissions, but it kind of does feel like a larger piece of the pie is going to the big players out there.

This 

Jared: feels more like, a bit more like your friend winning, uh, maybe winning the lottery rather than someone you don't know winning the lottery. Um, I feel like, The Wirecutter winning, at least, while we can't compete with the Wirecutter because their domain rating is the New York Times. At the very least, with the Wirecutter winning at its current standards of publishing content, at the very least we know that good content wins when the Wirecutter wins.

And right now that's a much better play for us. Uh, in this game than when we see The Verge and their junk win. Because, how can we compete against high DR, no, absolutely no, no um, no emphasis on high quality product reviews, right? At least, most people will agree that Wirecutter did a pretty darn good job on that.

And so at least we see quality winning here. Agree, we can't compete with it, but, you know, there's some semblance of truth in 

Spencer: that, at least. Right. Yep, that's a good take. I agree. Um, you know, it's somebody that, yeah, we can feel a little bit better about, you know, ranking, doing well. They're, and, and if you want a great example, I was just looking at this earlier today.

Go look at the Wirecutter and the types of reviews that they do. They are stellar. And the way they're monetized, they've got their review boxes. Like here's our number one pick. It's right at the top. And then they got their, you know, three, like here, this one's also good. And this one's great too, but this is our top pick.

It's all right at the top. So it's monetized really well. And then super in depth with images. And so look at the wire cutter as a great example of how to do a good article versus the verge, which is not so much how to do a great article. Um, so, we have, I think, just one more news item that's come out recently, and one we don't know how it will impact all of us, but it's very interesting because it comes from Elon Musk and the team at X, uh, and so, just announced, uh, when was this, um, November 4th, it looks like, so just a few days ago, Elon Musk And the X.

A. I. team revealed their chat GPT competitor, Grok. So, Grok is out, I, you can't, uh, it's not open to the public to use, but you can sign up on the waiting list to potentially test it out. Uh, I tried that out, I signed up, and so I'm on the early notification list. You have to be a, um, what do they call it, a premium subscriber of Twitter.

Have the blue check mark to get on that waiting list. So we don't know exactly where it will go, but always interesting with somebody with very deep pockets gets into the AI game. 

Jared: Yeah, you know, I mean it's interesting on a number of fronts, like we can't hide from the fact that Elon Musk had a lot to do with open AI in his early days, right?

Like, uh, he owned a part of, he had a stake in the company. Um, there were a lot of articles coming out, I think like March or April about his involvement. A big talent recruiter for it, and he had a lot to do with it. There were independent sources saying that, so. Uh, very interesting now he's developed and built his own model.

Um, and I think, uh, I did a little research. I, I'm just trying to figure out like, okay, what's the difference between, uh, this and ChatGPT? And from what I understand is Grok is meant to be an AI chatbot that relies on the data available on X. And so it's trained using data from basically only social media.

Along with status script from the web. So it combines these. So I, that's a fascinating idea. And I'm starting to think about how all these things we could potentially use this for if it turns out to be really good and really cool. But I'll kind of just pause there at, at, at that. 

Spencer: Yeah, it's, it's interesting, um, for the angle that you mentioned, right?

Elon Musk was so involved, had a like 10 percent stake in OpenAI. Maybe that's not right. I definitely had a stake. Maybe still does. Um, but he was very outspoken when OpenAI went from a Essentially non profit organization to a for profit, uh, organization made this massive shift. Um, and Elon Musk was very outspoken about that.

Of course, now he's got his own AI. We don't know all the reasons. Um, but is all the data coming from Twitter that their models are going to be trained on better than... What other models are going to get? I don't know. It's um, kind of interesting. 

Jared: Grok is designed to have a little humor in his response.

Musk promises witty, sarcastic responses from Grok, which he hopes will serve as an antidote to ChatGPT's sometimes dry responses. 

Spencer: There you go. So if you're going to try and write some, some comedy bits, maybe this is going to be the one. Uh, and I guess that makes sense, right? Twitter is usually a little more humorous, right?

Or sometimes light hearted, or sometimes definitely not. Uh, but there's certainly data, probably on Twitter, that is more sort of witty, weird. 

Jared: Again, I mean, going back to what we talked about, the Verge article and so many other things we've seen, like, it's an interesting thing to think about, like, if it's almost this weird, uh, paradox that Google seems to want more personable, witty, fun, conversational type of, uh, of content that relies on social media type of stuff, like we're seeing Reddit rank, we're seeing these kind of articles rank that are more, uh, User generated.

And I'm just curious to see if this would be better for content because it could incorporate social media along with scrape data from the web, rather than just straight. Scrape data from the web, which chat GPT 

Spencer: is. Yeah. So we'll keep you posted as soon as it's available to use, or we see other people using it, what it's like.

Um, yeah, we'll just kind of let you know, but that is definitely something to have on your radar, uh, of a new AI tool, um, from Elon Musk and the team at X. Okay, boy, uh, we got through the news. And, uh, we've got a little bit of time left here so we can chat about our side hustles and then move into our weird niche sites.

Um, I don't have a lot to share about my side hustles. And so one thing that I wanted to kind of just mention that I'm really excited about is I'm working on my tool called RankLogic. It's a WordPress plug in that helps you get ranking data to get analytics to help understand if you're making... Content updates properly.

Um, a lot of those things, but a big thing that I've been working on for a long time, the last, uh, three months or so is a Google analytics integration. And I may have shared that here on the podcast before, but it is finally ready for release. Uh, early next week, um, I should be getting that out to existing, uh, subscribers, people that have already purchased, um, RankLogic will be getting that update and so that they can get all their Google Analytics data directly within, um, within their WordPress dashboard as part of RankLogic and, uh, what's cool about that is that, um, Yes, you can get the number of pageviews and sessions listed out per page really easy, uh, but also you can then slice and dice that data.

You can do it based on author or based on category of your website, uh, or a combination of things, right? You can do authors written before this date, only in this category, and I only want to see social media traffic, right? And so you can do all these things that... You either can't do, uh, or is really complicated to do within GA four.

Uh, and so that's going live, you know, uh, sometime next week to existing subscribers, or of course, anytime you buy it, that is now going to be part of rank logic. And so, although not maybe a, a side hustle in the traditional sense, it's something that I've been working on on the side in the background for three, four months, just excited to finally get it out the door.

Jared: Man, I tell you, it's been said by many, many people, but I had to go to GA4 yesterday to get some data, some more advanced data for a client. And I, I had a couple of parameters I had to filter on. I had to filter down because it's their multi language site. So I had to pull out the foreign results. And then I also wanted to look at data from before the core, the November core update compared to current core update and see if they were taking a bit of a hit.

I was getting asked by the client about it. I'll tell ya, I never really got a good answer because I couldn't multi pivot and when I finally figured out how to multi pivot I hit export and guess what? The exported CSV had none of the pivoting in it. Oh man. So I just need the tool figures out how to do all this.

So I don't have to go into GA four. I think that's the solution. I don't want to go into GA four. I just want to stay out of it. I just want to stay far away from it. Let somebody else figure out how to make what I want happen inside of it. 

Spencer: Well, that's what rank logic is going to do for you. So, um, starting next week, right?

Uh, Google analytics integration, all the data is there, but it's just going to get even better and better over time because there are a lot of different, maybe there's a custom reports that you want to have, you know, on the fly that are just there built for you. And so we're going to continue building and get feedback from users, but really excited to share what, what I've been working on, uh, for a long time, starting next week.

Congratulations. That's big news. Thank you. Yeah. So that's a, that's really my side hustle. Uh, that I wanted to talk about. I'm happy to jump into whatever you got going on. 

Jared: Yeah. Kind of a smattering of, of things here. So I've been teasing for a while that I was going to get back on recording videos for the Amazon influencer program.

And I did nice. It was like, it was like dusting off the bike. You know, I had to like dust it off, you know, pump the tires back up. I had to. You know, put some grease in the chain. Like I really did. I had to get out my, all my recording stuff, you know, I mean, it's not that much, but, uh, you know, like find my tripod for a couple of these, but I'm just like riding a bike as soon as I got going again, I'm like, Oh, there we are.

My old friend, it's been a little while, but you know, I did 15 videos. Uh, not many compared to what I was doing in the heyday there, but you know, I had to get back, get back going again. All of them seasonal, so that was the thing. Um, it was a little weird to be donning, uh, Christmas decorations on a warm, uh, sunny, uh, afternoon here when it was far from Christmas time.

Yeah. But, um, focused on the seasonal things. And we'll see, I'm very interested to see. As we go through Q4, if doing some seasonal videos and releasing them at right before people would probably presumptuously be buying those, if that'll be some of the best sellers in Q4. Um, or if it's more about the kind of high ticket, high class products that always sell well, right?

Like, um, interested to see how that goes out. So those are uploaded and I'm going to continue to crank out more content. Again, I'm trying to get to a thousand before the end of the year. Somebody reminded me, Spencer, that, do we have a bet about first to a thousand or not? I can't remember. I'm not even sure I want to know, because you're always, you've been beating me lately.

Spencer: Well, sounds vaguely familiar. I think we, I think we tossed around the idea, but we never did anything official. It's more just light hearted banter about, uh, trying to get there first, but. Well, here we are. I'm at 914. I'm happy to accept some money if, if I get there first. If you win. Yeah. Yeah. I'm at 

Jared: 914.

Spencer: I think I can make that bet. Whoa. 914? Yeah, aren't you beating me? Well, I was at one point. I don't even know what I'm at now. I've only done 

Jared: 15 since I think my last update. 

Spencer: Now I feel embarrassed. I'm at 778. What? Have you like, 

Jared: deleted videos? 

Spencer: Maybe Amazon deleted my terrible videos. Uh, I swear you were above 800.

Not anymore. Um, I, I know I have a big backlog of videos. Oh, man, you gotta get those up. It's Q4. I know, I know, I know. Uh, gotta, gotta get them going. And so, uh, but I don't know that I have a hundred and thirty. Don't you have people for 

Jared: this, Spencer? 

Spencer: I'm supposed to. Maybe it's time to get new people. Ah, 

Jared: 130.

Okay, so I've got 

Spencer: 130. You're gonna beat me. So the bet's off. The bet's. Off the bet's. Now off the bet is officially it never happened. You're tucking tail. It didn't happen. I never heard about any bet. Ah, well, 

Jared: uh, we'll, we'll leave the bet aside. Um, hey, another fun thing, as I look back on it, it's almost ironic that, you know, at the time, one year ago we weren't doing this weekly news podcast.

We weren't talking about side hustles. But one year ago next week, I launched kind of my first ever side hustle thing. And that was the, um, the website photography made easy course. Uh, and that was when the weekend growth brand launched. I needed somewhere to launch that. And it didn't make sense to put that under the banner of 201 creative, my agency.

My agency clients could care less about that. They don't want to learn how to do it. They want to hire us to do it. Yep. Along with a lot of other things. So, it didn't make sense to put it there. So, we started this Week in Growth website. Threw up a quick design and quick website. Um, and launched the course.

And now we're a week away from one year on the course. So, um, kind of a fun little milestone. It, it, the course isn't really as special as kind of the larger brand that's now started to encompass an email. newsletter, um, a YouTube channel, um, a whole bunch of other things, but, um, next week we will have a kind of celebratory birthday special for the photo course we'll launch and we'll kind of celebrate one year in on not only the photo course, but, but weekend growth.

And, um, I might try to put together some kind of weekend growth, like, Hey, one year in rev, One year in, in, in review if we can for next week, uh, next week and stuff. So, um, it also really represents, I realize, the first opportunity ever for me to kind of do some, like, Black Friday stuff here. So... That's right.

Uh, you are partly to blame for that. You're like, hey, what are you doing for Black Friday? I'm like, uh, uh, I haven't thought about it. So I'm like, alright, I gotta sit down and think about that. So, so more to come with that next week, but, you know... High level, because we talk about side hustles, and you, it's, you can't really necessarily think three or four steps down the road when you're starting these things.

But a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about has coalesced, and it's not the opportunity you're pursuing in the moment, like the email newsletter, but it's what that leads to, which is what that leads to, which is what that leads to. And so, You know, who knows, but here we are and most of the things I'm talking about on the side hustle side of things with November are really piggybacking off of something I started a year ago without that in mind, so.

Yeah. It really grows on 

Spencer: itself. Congrats on making it a year. The Weekend Growth brand has continued to grow and it does well. You've shared your email and YouTube subscriber numbers, right? We've kind of followed along with that, uh, over the majority of this year. Um. And so, first of all, congrats on that.

Uh, it, I think it might be interesting talking about Black Friday that, uh, our episode when we do it always comes out on Friday, and so we will have an episode going live on Black Friday. Uh, so we may need to consider that as we record, maybe we'll have a larger sort of section where that fits exactly.

Right. We, we can talk about, yeah, what's happening on Black Friday. And we should. Yeah, so that could be fun. So, 

Jared: I mean, Black Friday is a great, like, obviously we get our inboxes hammered. Yeah. With stuff, but at the same time, I mean, it's a great way as someone in this space to think ahead of the curve a bit and kind of...

Like plan, like, especially if it's something that you already plan on spending money on, or if you want to carve out some money for, um, like learning or growth or new opportunities, like this is the best time of year to take advantage of those kinds of things. You know? 

Spencer: Yeah, exactly. If you've got a tool that you've wanted to buy and they've got a, got a deal.

Like, of course, go for it, do it. That's going to be a. So we'll, we'll chat about some of those things. I think that would be a good idea. Well, that'll be in a couple weeks. 

Jared: So I gotta race to a thousand, although I have no bet in the table to win. And I gotta get some Black Friday stuff put together, not only for Black Friday, but to talk about it here on the Black Friday episode.

So I got a little homework 

Spencer: here. You got two weeks to pull it all together. Alright. Uh, so, clock's tickin Very good! Uh, should we jump into our Weird Niche Sites? 

Jared: It's official. My Weird Niche Site has officially crashed this podcast already 

Spencer: once. I think so, yeah. We, uh, in case you guys missed our...

Hopefully the editing's perfect and they never notice, so we shouldn't even mention it. But, uh, yeah. This, this recording may have crashed. And, uh, we think maybe it was this Weird Niche Site that crashed it. 

Jared: I can't think of a time we've ever crashed before, so... No, 

Spencer: we haven't. So, I mean, that has to be it. I, it's, it, I don't have it pulled up yet, so hopefully we can finish this recording when I do pull it up, uh, and show it.

So we'll start with mine, so we get through mine, and then, you know, if we don't get to yours, well, we'll, 

Jared: we'll list it in the show notes. They'll know why. If it just ends, right, abruptly after your weird niche, we'll all know why. That's 

Spencer: right. Just read, read the notes in the YouTube description if you want to know what his site was.

Okay, so... Uh, this is one, um, yeah, it's, I don't know what to say about it, other than it was shared, uh, with me, so this, thank you again, uh, somebody shared this with me, and it is, uh, missrachelnetworth. com. 

Jared: Oh, I know this one, this was shared by both of us. And you commented on it first. 

Spencer: Mm hmm. I said mine. I claimed it.

You did. You 

Jared: got up earlier that morning than I did, I 

Spencer: think. It's actually funny. I checked the notes today. I was like, ooh, did he write that one down? And you hadn't, so I put it in the notes today. I respect it. You called it. I didn't like it, but I respect it. So, so thank you, uh, for that. Um, I had no idea what that was.

I don't know what this site was or who Miss Rachel was, but doing some, some research, Miss Rachel is a YouTube star. She formerly was like a kindergarten teacher, elementary school teacher, something like that. And, uh, she was making videos for her students or something, and they started to take off and she really leaned into YouTube and now is just crushing it.

And so it's a, it's a net worth keyword that she's, this whole website is dedicated to miss Rachel's net worth. At least that's how it started. Okay. Um, and, uh, actually now I'm looking at this, like I don't even see any ads. 

Jared: No, I don't either, but I see all the latest 

Spencer: posts. Yeah, uh, that we'll get to, right?

Um, I just thought it was really interesting. Oh, where's this? Here it is. Of, you know, her net worth over the years, right? Um, Why I'm chuckling is because there is like zero references to where any of this information came from It's like they just say yeah, she in 2018 She was worth 4 million and then it went to 5.

5 and now it's 10 million, right? There's I don't see any references. Also, they're 

Jared: getting this. I'm like, oh, this is really valuable Like we had a nice table and it's telling me that in 2022 her net worth increased by 25 percent Yeah, pretty simple math right from 8 million to 10 million pretty simple Somehow we didn't have that capability to calculate that prior to 2019.

Spencer: Not applicable. There was no increase. 

Jared: Like, I'm sorry. I'm tired of doing the math after three rows. I'm done. 

Spencer: It's like, just forget about it. It doesn't matter. You know. Before 2020 it didn't happen. Uh, that's fine. I didn't even notice that. Um... So, yeah, you know, whether or not this is accurate is questionable, uh, for sure, uh, but, uh, no display ads, um, but yeah, I wanted to quickly pop over to Ahrefs, uh, just to show that, I mean, the traffic is just, you know, appears to be doing really well.

I didn't look to see if this was a redirected. I mean, this kind of looks like, you know, it came out of nowhere. But currently, it's at about 30, 000, uh, organic, uh, traffic a month. What? Uh, yeah. What? Yeah, that's what it says. A DR 

Jared: of 63? 

Spencer: Three months of being live. So, it, it's gotta be like a 301. Yeah. Uh, from, from an older domain.

But when you look at the top pages, you start to see that, okay, it's not all about... Miss Rachel, although the top, uh, performing keywords all are. You start to get other keywords like Iran occur. So net worth, um, there was a few others in here, how to decorate candle jars. plant housewarming gift, money saving tips for students, right?

All of a sudden you start to get these other keywords. Uh, and as you look at the website itself, which if I come back over here, and I think it's, yeah, here in the latest post, right? You start getting things that, I mean, they're just writing about all kinds of things. Uh, life in red with red Moroccan rugs, online gaming and social interactions by Instagram followers.

Uh, vacation rental security. So, I don't know exactly what's going on with this website, other than... It feels like somebody bought an expired domain. Ms. Rachel Networth. Well, why would they do that? This feels like, you know, maybe this is an expired domain. And, uh, now they're just trying to take this high DR and publish anything and everything type of article on it.

Alright, I'm 

Jared: checking right now. Yeah, 

Spencer: please do. Um... No redirects. No redirects? Well, maybe, 

Jared: maybe... Yeah, gotta be expired. Let's go to archive. 

Spencer: org here. Yeah, maybe this website, the domain, has existed for a long time? Nothing in archive. org. Okay, backlinks.

Alright, you're, you're gonna witness all of this live, right? We're either about 

Jared: to look like big idiots or we're gonna find the uh, The needle in the 

Spencer: haystack here. Why, um, yeah, I mean it, it's got, so let's sort by DR, right? Um, 

Jared: It's got, I mean, a very paltry 133. Uh, domains linking to it. That's not going to get you a DR 63 unless every single one of them is like the New York times.

Spencer: Yeah, but it's got a lot of really high DR links and they are all from this year. You're right. Wow. Oh my gosh. They're all exact.

Jared: A lot of them are exact match anchor text. And, 

Spencer: interesting... Can I sort by UR? Uh, no, but...

It makes... 

Jared: me... When Mrs. Rachel Networth, your post, receives a substantial number of likes, I mean, you want to talk about inserting... That's the, um, that's the, uh, the one from, uh, Uderfeed. com there, near the 

Spencer: top. Oh, I, I, uh, of course I changed that as soon as... 

Jared: You can see it anywhere, like look at any of those anchor texts that involved exact match, they're just injected in.

Spencer: Yeah, yeah, so is this um, somehow they're, they're spamming or found a hack? On other websites, it almost feels like. 

Jared: This looks like in, I mean I don't want to call someone black hat, but this looks like injected. 

Spencer: Looks, mhm, it looks injected. It looks injected. It does. And, um. This 

Jared: looks like a bunch of sites that don't keep their WordPress, uh, plugins 

Spencer: updated.

Ms. Rachel Networth, Ms. Rachel Networth, Ms. Rachel Networth. All the same. 

Jared: Interesting. There's a few Instagram ones when you get down there. This looks injected. 

Spencer: This looks hacked. It looks, it does. Right? They've, they've found a vulnerability that they were able to hack. 

Jared: Hey, we figured it out. There's nothing like a little pressure to make 

Spencer: a dive in here.

I think we figured it out. Yeah. So if somebody wants to do a deep dive and, and write up a whole blog post about it, you know, be my guest, that'd be great. Whew. I lost my, uh, it 

Jared: looks like we, my agency owner 

Spencer: card there, . That's right. Um, but we caught this one, it feels like early on, right? Yeah. 'cause the traffic just started taking off.

Yeah. And so they're probably gonna try and get a bunch more traffic and then they're gonna monetize this. So check back in a month or two. We should. And, uh, tabs. Maybe do an update. There you go. So it's a weird niche site, not for the reason maybe we thought originally it tells you how much research we do before the show.

We basically find something weird and uh, we run with it. But, uh, there you have it. I think an interesting discussion. That's a, 

Jared: I mean, interesting premise, obviously. Yeah. Um, to take a net worth topic that perhaps the person hasn't monetized themselves, Miss Rachel, and build a website on it, I mean... It's an interesting topic, especially if you could legitimately then start ranking for secondary or tertiary net worth topics.

Like, it brings up an interesting discussion, like, does Google think that this is topically relevant for Miss Rachel or for the concept of net worth, right? Because if it, if it looks more at this site as a net worth website, rather than as a Miss Rachel, then what's to stop you from writing about all the other net worth, uh, topic you can 

Spencer: find, you know?

Yeah, if I were to jump into this, I would do something related to YouTube stars, right? She's a YouTube star, so I would just hit on every big YouTube star, right? Every 

Jared: educational one, and then move into, you know, if you really wanted to be specific about it, then move outside of that into... Yeah, you know, somewhat related semantically and then keep going.

Spencer: Yeah, yeah, so maybe opportunity, I don't know. But, um, very interesting, uh, website that is living out here on the internet. I would, I would call it weird. Yeah. I would definitely call it weird. 

Jared: I, I, I do think like maybe, um, uh, maybe a bunch of people listening will have never seen an example of a site that.

Looks about as clearly as possible to be using some, uh, some, what we would call black hat techniques. So it might be eyeopening for, you know, maybe somebody who's a little newer and hasn't seen that kind of in the wild. 

Spencer: Yeah, and, uh, you know, just while you're talking, I am pulling up your weird niche site, so I'm gonna hope we get to it.

This is the first 

Jared: weird niche site that I am NOT gonna pull off my computer, so I'm gonna be looking at the screen that you are showing to walk me through the niche site that I brought to the table, because I'm so nervous it'll crash my 

Spencer: computer. It, it seems to have pulled up okay, um, we'll see, we'll see.

So, you ready to go? 

Jared: Okay, yeah, normally I'm the one doing this. So, my weird niche is, uh, also given by a reader, thank you very much. By the way, I'm out after this week, so folks. Let's keep them coming. Um, the measure of things dot com. Very bizarre topic at first. Um, but I would encourage you just do what they say.

Try what they're asking in front of you and you can kind of see it play out. So try typing 829. 78 centimeters. And so if you're not watching, there's this search tab that you type a measurement. Um, and it gives you calls, uh, to try it out, because probably nobody knows what the heck to do when they get here.

And so just hit enter if you want, or yeah, there you go. I 

Spencer: selected one. 

Jared: 829? And so, it now starts telling you things that this is related to. So, for whatever bizarre reason you wondered what 829. 78 square centimeters was, it's going to go ahead and give you... Analogies that you might understand. Um, it's four fifths as big as an airplane tray table.

Oh, okay. Interesting. It's about two times as big as an Apple 

Spencer: iPad. That's a little more helpful. Yeah. 

Jared: I can understand that. I might understand how big 828 square centimeters is, but I do understand it's one fifth as big as a bath towel. Yeah, I mean come on. It's about 15 times as big or 15 total post it notes, okay?

There you go now when we're talking the world of helpful sites How could it get 

Spencer: more helpful than this and they go? I mean they've got a lot here postage stamp u. s. Nickel u. s. Penny nail head tennis court Obviously 

Jared: my mind starts going with where they get this information It's not like you can go to Wikipedia and see that something is four fifths as big and guess what Spencer?

They tell you right there the source and they have a hyperlink. 

Spencer: Oh, is that right? Okay? Uh, just to, which hyperlinks am I clicking on? Yeah, you were, you were 

Jared: hovering right over there. You just mis sourced. Let's go back down there. Permalink? And then, keep going permalink. Yeah. No, no, go back. Okay. Oh, you're fine there too.

Keep going two more over. 

Spencer: Source. Source. There we go. Oh, and then it, uh, links to another blog. It does! That tells you, of course this page is not 

Jared: found. Uh, yeah, of course. But you go to citations and stuff, so I didn't play around with it to be fair with you, but I was very curious with how they're coming up with this data.

I'd be curious to see what you think. 

Spencer: Yeah, um, that's interesting. I mean, they've got this source link. Yeah. And all the, all the links I've gone to so far, like the page or product does not exist. I 

Jared: don't know. I thought I had one earlier. 

Spencer: So it feels like, I mean, maybe they originally got the information from whatever source this is, right?

Uh, but then they, yep, this one's a Wikipedia one, right? So I'll share that tab. It tells you how big a playing card is, but I think they must have all this. Information in a huge database, right? Where they've got a thousand items, you know, and they've got the measurement of each one. And then, yeah, and then it's just math after that.

It's a formula. You know, when you punch something in, it says, Okay, well that, let's pop out the ones that are closest to it. Yep, so you 

Jared: get a hundred or two hundred things like a car. How big is a car? And you get a hundred, you get playing cards, and post its, and quarters. And you get a hundred of these.

And then you just start running queries against that. 

Spencer: So let's put, um, 2. 5 acres. Um, but, uh, it, it appears... I'm gonna go ahead and shut down the website. Uh, because, uh, it does appear to have crashed. In case you're wondering, um, I'm now talking to myself. And Jared, I couldn't hear him anymore, so he had to go off.

I think he's going to come back on here in just a second. So I went ahead and I just talked the whole time, um, about what was happening. And clearly that the website crashed, uh, the podcast once again. And so I just shut it down. 

Jared: You typed 2. 5 and I disappeared. 

Spencer: Yeah, I was going to see what 2. 5 acres pulled up, but we're not going to see what that is.

People can do that on their own, um, at your own risk. I don't know. I don't know why the, maybe that website is the website that had the vulnerability that got hacked for Ms. Rachel. I don't know, but something's going on, uh, with that website that it's not working so well. You know, you do enough of 

Jared: these live in terms of like, we're just so many things we're doing in the moment.

Like this is bound to happen. So. 

Spencer: Oh man. Uh, so, go, go to that website at your own risk. But, um, did you have any interesting data in terms of traffic or 

Jared: anything? I was gonna say, I did have some interesting data. Don't pull it up, though, for goodness sakes. You can pull up Ahrefs, I suppose, if you wanted. We know that's a pretty safe one, but um, you know, some of the data behind it I thought was very interesting.

It is a DR 52, which if you did happen to catch a glimpse of it online before it crashed the podcast, you'd kinda wonder where it would get any links. But it does have quite a few backlinks. It ranks for 17, 000 keywords. It ranks for, uh, gets an estimated 24, 000 organic, uh, or traffic, uh, uh, from organic search every single month.

And, uh, so a lot of those links... I've got that pulled up now. Okay, there we go. Good. Go to keywords if you can. And, um, you'll see a lot of those links, like the link we were just looking at is actually, um, it's, it's very weird. Uh, you know, we can discuss this because what's ranking are the PHP search results.

Yeah, and so it's like as best as I can see they actually aren't creating unique results But they are allowing the search results to be indexed Yeah, why Google is indexing them is beyond me, but they are indexing them in droves They rank number one for example for what weighs 2, 000 pounds and it's not a page.

It's not a post It's an indexed search result. 

Spencer: Yeah, it's a query. Yeah That's interesting. I mean, so they're allowing, yeah, so they've got this database, right? And then it pulls in unique results based on, okay, if you type in what weighs 2, 000 pounds. Right? It kind of cobbles together whatever, you know, database items they put in there, and then it's getting indexed.

Jared: Actually, it clearly speaks to your database theory. That's exactly what's happening based on the URL string. Yeah. 

Spencer: Oh, yeah, yeah, if you look at, yep, it's got, you know, weight, unit, amount, all those things, so. Right? Interesting. 

Jared: Anyway, I, I, I, I'm blown away by this site. This site is bizarre in all ways. Uh, and, and how they're getting that many backlinks.

How they're even, I mean, we can't even get the site to dog, to load on the doggone podcast without crashing 

Spencer: it. I mean, it's, it's highest, um, search volume keyword, or it's highest traffic keyword is 56 feet. Who says it's not? Ranks for 55 feet, right? Um. Close enough? And, yeah, 50 meters long. Anyways, it's just weird, sort of the, the things that it ranks 

Jared: for.

In the amount of time I was able to spend on the site, I didn't see much in the way of monetization. Yeah, I, I think I saw some ads 

Spencer: there. There were display ads. Yeah, there were display ads. There was some display 

Jared: ads, but I didn't see any other ways of monetization. So yeah, 

Spencer: so interesting site. Um, one that definitely broke our podcast, but I think we made it through.

Um, so hopefully it was worth it. Hopefully people enjoyed, uh, seeing this one. 

Jared: To be clear, it broke the podcast more than once. Oh yeah, it that no one else can tell when it broke it the first time and we edit that 

Spencer: nicely. Yeah, sorry editor, but you got some work to do on this one. A few, few clips to combine.

Uh, but I think we did it. We made it through Jared. Uh, we got through the news. We got through the side hustles. We got through the weird niche sites. Thank you so much, uh, for sticking around, you Jared, but thank you everybody for sticking around and listening. Really appreciate it, and if you want to keep following along, of course you can join the newsletter at nichepursuits.

com slash newsletter. Have a good weekend. Thank you everybody.

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