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🔧 Google is Pressing Random Buttons Again
Published 3 days ago • 4 min read
GM nerds,
Welcome back to the newsletter that spotlights controversial SEO tactics for laughs.
... Who knew handcuffs could be the ultimate link-building tool?
This Week in Digital Marketing: What you need to know📊
→ Google tinkering with everything (again)
→ AI companies entering their “we swear we’re not broke” era
→ Social platforms dropping year-end chaos
→ all of this… and more, obviously 💬
But first…
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In this week's video, I break down how I'm shifting my focus toward my newsletter as we head into 2026. After testing it on and off over the years, the real momentum came during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when the engagement and revenue showed me how strong this channel can be.
I walk through the systems behind it, how I handle signups, automate engagement, and use tools and referral programs to boost revenue. The goal is to give you a clear look at how I’m turning the newsletter into a core growth engine going forward. Tune in!
Google’s been busy — like “new-season-of-a-drama-series” busy. Let’s unpack:
→ Google’s pushing searchers deeper into AI land. AI Overviews now have a sneaky new behaviour: tap “Show more” and boom, you’re yeeted straight into AI Mode. Scroll a bit? It invites you to ask follow-up questions right there.
→ And since they’re upgrading the whole AI Mode setup, they’re testing new citation link hovers too. Hover over a link card and a little source pop-up floats above your answer. Google said they’re experimenting w/ driving more clicks to publishers. We’ll believe it when traffic goes up and not down, lol.
→ Speaking of experiments… Google Discover is now testing a “Top Searches” widget, that also sends you straight into AI Mode. You tap a trending topic expecting a search results page, and Google says “haha no” and drops you into AI Mode instead. The list refreshes every time, kinda like TikTok’s FYP but nerdier.
→ Meanwhile, Search Console decided to take a two-week vacation. Index coverage + page indexing reports are delayed by ~14 days. Google says it’s only a reporting issue and rankings aren’t impacted. Sure. SEOs totally love flying blind for half a month.
→ Also, John Mueller says: yes, you can slap a 100MB video on your homepage. His take: rankings won’t budge, but your conversions might, so measure stuff instead of doing it just because it “looks cool.”
🔌 Speaking of Google..
Interested in working with us on SEO? Schedule a call and see what we’ve done for brands like Thrasio, Sotheby’s, Medtronic, and hundreds of others!
It’s AI’s world, we’re just living in it(s simulation) 🤖
But here’s the plot twist: Google + OpenAI pulled the “we’re broke” card (again): both companies throttled free usage like it’s a limited-time buffet. OpenAI capped Sora free users at 6 videos/day, while Google shrunk image-gen and prompt limits further. GPUs melting under holiday demand is the official excuse.
A beta build revealed strings like “search ad” and “ads carousel.” Looks like ChatGPT Search is about to go full Google.
→ In other news, Poetry is officially dangerous now, apparently rhymes jailbroke 62% of AI models. Yep. Researchers used poems to bypass safety filters. “Adversarial Poetry” worked on 25 AI systems (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta, xAI… nobody was spared).
→ Meanwhile, Runway said: ‘Congrats on your trillion-dollar valuations, but we’re winning the video race.’ Runway’s Gen 4.5 just topped the Video Arena leaderboard, beating Google’s Veo 3 and OpenAI’s Sora 2 Pro. Users vote blind, so no brand bias..
→ China said “Hold my tea” and dropped two open-source models beating U.S. giants on math + coding. DeepSeek-V3.2 and V3.2-Speciale reportedly perform on par w/ GPT-5 and Gemini 3 Pro. The open-source sector is heating up FAST and the geopolitical drama is bubbling.
What next? Feels like the entire AI ecosystem is shifting from the “wow” era into “pls monetize responsibly before your servers melt.”
Social Media Round-up 📲
→ Spotify Wrapped is dropping this week, hopefully. Expected between Dec 3–4 (they always avoid weekends). Last year Wrapped was dragged for AI-generated inaccuracies, so Spotify claims this year is “more accurate”… Apparently they fixed genre mapping and the personality system.
→ And just to keep things spicy… YouTube drops its first-ever Recap, launching personalized recap cards for your 2025 viewing habits. US/NA users got it first, global rollout is happening right now. You can find it on the homepage or under You.
→ Also, YouTube advertisers are eating good with “Partner Match.” It lets approved 3rd-parties upload hashed audience data (email, name, ZIP). Not rolling out in the UK/EEA, but advertisers there can still target users in allowed regions.
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