Today in Digital Marketing - AI-Generated Content Won't Rank Well in Google. (Unless It Ranks Well in Google.)

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Wednesday, July 19th. Today, a big legal decision that could have changed social media forever. Pinterest gets deep, Meta waits for Europe, and Google tells us how well AI-generated content will rank. And on the ad-free premium podcast, which you can learn more about by tapping Go Premium in the show notes, everything you wanted to know about doing an audit of your Google ad account. I'm Todd Mathen. That's ahead today in digital marketing. One of the strange legal questions that always followed around social media was the copyright status of an embed, an embed, an image or video which is displayed on a web page, but the content itself is pulled from

Starting point is 00:00:43 another web server. Certainly, if you just copy a photographer's image and slap it on your brand's website, that's a violation of copyright. But what if you embed it instead from a public platform like Instagram? Well, a new ruling by an American court has found that embedding images on third party sites does not necessarily constitute copyright infringement as long as they are not direct copies of the original content, but rather HTML code that serves as a link to where the original photo is stored. In other words, an embed. The case started as a class action lawsuit filed by two photographers in 2021 against Instagram. They said the platform violated their copyright by letting news outlets embed photos they posted on their accounts

Starting point is 00:01:30 without proper licensing. Their lawyers argued that Instagram's practices misled third parties into thinking they had permission to use copyrighted material. Initially, a California judge dismissed the suit last year, saying the news outlets were not displaying actual copies of the photos. But the photographers appealed the decision, leading to this final finding. According to the filing, quote, The embedding website does not store a copy of the underlying image. Rather, embedding allows multiple websites to incorporate content stored on a single server simultaneously. As long as the HTML instructions from the third-party site instruct the browser to retrieve the image located at a specific address, the browser will retrieve whatever the host server supplies at that location. Unquote.

Starting point is 00:02:20 From copyright loopholes to creative copycats, Instagram today introducing new updates to Reels templates by taking its copy and paste approach one step further. Templates let users create their own videos based on someone else's work by breaking the content down into a preset format that users can drop their own videos and photos into. Soon, the presets will also include the text and transitions of the original video, though users can edit and customize their clips. The platform is also launching a new template browser, which will let users search for templates in different categories, including recommended and trending. Pinterest has added a new way to drive conversions, deep linking from pins. The new feature lets brands direct users to a specific spot in the retailer's own mobile app. Deep links will be available for shopping ads with click-throughs automatically opening the product listing in the retailer's app if the user has it installed. If they don't, they will be taken to the mobile web page within the Pinterest

Starting point is 00:03:25 app. With ChatGPT writing, well, everything these days, some marketers are worried that their own human written copy will get drowned out in Google by cheap machine-generated blog posts, landing pages, and product sheets. So how well does AI-generated content rank on Google? Yesterday, Google search liaison Danny Sullivan responded to a new report from Vox Media, which claimed that AI content is currently, quote, well-received by search engines, unquote. Quoting Danny Sullivan, this isn't correct. Our systems are looking at the helpfulness of content rather than how it's produced. We'd encourage publishers, however they produce content, to ensure they're making it for people first.

Starting point is 00:04:12 Producing a lot of content with the primary purpose of ranking in search, rather than for people, should be avoided. Sites producing a lot of unhelpful content not intended for people first may find all of their content less likely to be successful with search. It's still not correct that AI content will be well-received by search engines, at least for us. There's lots of AI content on the web that doesn't rank well and hence isn't well-received, unquote. One thing he didn't say is that they are turfing auto-generated content. Quite the opposite, in fact. He said, quote,

Starting point is 00:04:49 if the content is helpful, then it might succeed. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches,

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Starting point is 00:05:31 You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N.ca. Sorry, European brands and creators, no threads for you. Instagram's head says it will take months before Meta's new anti-Twitter is released in Europe. The delay is due to compliance with the European Digital Markets Act,

Starting point is 00:06:09 which safeguards user privacy and data control, while also curbing monopoly-type behavior by tech giants. Meta says ensuring that they meet all of those recommendations is going to take many months. Some European users recently found ways to access the app through VPNs, but Meta recently blocked that workaround too. So European users are now locked out of threads while the rest of the world gets to play with the shiny new app. More cuts have come for Cameo. The news site The Information reports that the video shout out app told employees yesterday it was laying off at least the third round of cuts in the past year. Cameo had nearly 400 employees before starting the workforce reduction.

Starting point is 00:07:14 And finally, here's an interesting strategy to get your customers to upgrade to your paid tier. Reddit this week changed the icon of its iOS app and made it butt ugly. It is an incredibly pixelated icon. It looks like something I drew in Microsoft Paint, like not retro cool or like OG hipster trends. It just looks like shit. Like it looks awful. There are two other free options. Doge, in case you want the Dogecoin dog, and one icon that looks like a South Park character. If you want a better one, or even just restore the original icon it had last week, you will have to pay for Reddit's premium subscription.

Starting point is 00:07:59 As the saying goes, don't judge an app by its cover. Look, have I said something wrong? Is there a reason you're not in our Slack community yet? We are past a thousand members now, all sharing advice, all getting help. There's even a channel you can promote yourself in. It's free to join. Just tap the link in the show notes or go to todayindigital.com slash slack. My wife and I are off for a mini vacation for the next couple of days.

Starting point is 00:08:30 So I will leave you in Steph's very capable and very pregnant hands. Steph, how are you feeling? Still feeling pretty good. So hopefully I'll be able to do the podcast Thursday or Friday without going into labor. Are you that? How close are you? I'm almost 35 weeks. 35 weeks Friday. You know, this is going to sound like such a typical male. I know it's nine months. How many weeks is it where you're supposed to?

Starting point is 00:08:57 Well, that's the thing. We're actually pregnant for 10 months, pretty much. What? I don't know why everyone says nine months because most people go 40 weeks, which is ten months. It's all a lie. So you are theoretically four weeks away. Yeah, like I'll be four weeks away next week. So five, five, five, four weeks away. All right.

Starting point is 00:09:18 Well, hang in there. Steph, we'll see you tomorrow and Friday. I'll be back on Monday. I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening.

Today in Digital Marketing - AI-Generated Content Won't Rank Well in Google. (Unless It Ranks Well in Google.)

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