Google August Core Update Announced! NYT Blocks OpenAI and a Funny Book Review Site

<p><!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>Spencer is back this week so everyone’s favorite duo is together again for the latest episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast. As always, he and Jared Bauman, of 201 Creative, bring listeners up to speed on the latest in SEO and digital marketing news.</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>Spencer begins by sharing that Google has announced a brand new broad core update, the biggest kind of update Google does. It kicked off on August 22nd and usually takes about 2 weeks to complete. It’s too early to say how it’s going to pan out, so keep an eye on your rankings!</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>The next news item they cover is the <a href= "https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/21/23840705/new-york-times-openai-web-crawler-ai-gpt" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">article in The Verge</a> reporting that <em>The New York Times</em> has blocked OpenAI’s web crawler. But not only has this huge news media outlet rejected OpenAI crawling its site and training its models for ChatGPT, it’s also considering legal action against OpenAI for intellectual property rights violation. </p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>Spencer and Jared talk about the implications of this decision and what this may mean for content creators. Spencer shares <a href="https://twitter.com/JonGillhams" target="_blank" rel= "noreferrer noopener">a study</a> whch shows that 9.2% of the top 1,000 websites in the world are currently blocking the GPT bot. They talk about what this means for Google and, potentially, the future of AI.</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>The conversation then shifts to SGE. Spencer shows his search page results, where the information now has down arrowhead symbols next to it, allowing users to access the sources for additional information. Is this good news or bad news for content creators? Hear what they have to say.</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>Jared and Spencer