Helpful Content Update Analysis, Google Antitrust "Leaks", SGE Lite, and Weird Niche Sites

<p><!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>It’s Friday, and that means it’s time for another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast, where Jared and Spencer break down the latest SEO news into bite-size pieces. Buckle up people, because they cover many, many topics on today’s episode!</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>It’s been one week since Google announced its core update for October, plus the spam update was rolled out, so Jared and Spencer first talk about how to know which may be affecting your site.</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>For those affected by the HCU, they look at a very <a href= "https://on-page.ai/pages/helpful-content-update/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">exhaustive, data-heavy resource</a> and highlight some of the conclusions, including what type of content performed better, how new sites fared in the update, how article length importance has shifted, and conclusions about AI content. They also share their opinions on some of the author’s theories and touch on the future of updates.</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>Moving on, Spencer and Jared address Google’s antitrust lawsuit and the recent news reveals that Apple was in talks to <a href= "https://www.searchenginejournal.com/apples-talks-with-bing-duckduckgo-revealed-in-google-antitrust-case/497861/#close" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">buy Bing or DuckDuckGo</a>. They talk about the money that was exchanged between Apple and Google and how Apple negotiated the deal.</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>The next topic is how a recent op-ed on Wired claiming Google alters users’ search queries was recently <a href= "https://twitter.com/semanticentity/status/1710861072851157292?s=43&t=pSha4mq3KUvNFjlX2P2Dzg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pulled from their website</a> for “not meeting their editorial standards,” and Jared and Spencer discuss why it might have disappeared.</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragr