Google algorithm update “fairly soon”
Google’s next major update is on the horizon. At the Web Creator Summit this week, Google said it will start rolling out “fairly soon”.
However, there was bad news for sites that suffered after the “helpful content update” in September last year. Leading figures from Google said they couldn’t give assurances that anyone who saw rankings and traffic nosedive will bounce back soon.
News sites reporting on the summit said the consensus was for webmasters to “move on” – though it didn’t use that phrase directly.
Threads hits 275m user milestone
Meta is playing the long game with Threads, and it continues to pay off. The conversational app surged to a new milestone of 275 million monthly active users (MAUs) this week – up from 200 million in August.
While Threads struggled to capitalise on its initial success after a blowout launch period in summer 2023, it’s now on track to overtake Elon Musk’s X by June 2025.
Mark Zuckerberg revealed this week that 1 million people are currently signing up to the platform every day.
X continues to lose ground in Europe
Threads’ recent success comes as X continues to falter in Europe.
New data from the EU transparency report showed an average of 105 million MAUs between April and September 2024. That’s a significant drop of around 723,000 users compared to the previous reporting period from late winter to early summer.
Google demotes “starkly different” content
Google has confirmed it’s now penalising sites that publish content drastically different from their core offerings.
A spokesperson for Google said, “Our systems aim to understand if a section of a site is independent or starkly different from the main content of the site. This helps us surface the most useful information from a range of sites.”
It later noted that these demotions are not linked to any real-world tests for its site reputation abuse algorithm; they are simply a consequence of search ranking systems.
The news follows recent notable declines in search visibility for some larger sites, first spotted by Search Engine Land.
Google reports 15% revenue growth
It was a busy week for quarterly reports from major corporations.
Google delivered strong results, with 15% growth driven mainly by its suite of AI tools and features.
CEO Sundar Pichai said the “new AI features are expanding what people can search for and how they search for it.”
YouTube expands AI-generated summaries
Alphabet – Google’s parent company – appears to have been emboldened by the success of AI.
It’s no surprise, then, that YouTube doubled down on artificial intelligence this week with expanded summaries for videos.
Now, all English-language videos globally will feature a summary created by generative AI, which provides a “short, basic” overview of what’s featured so viewers know what to expect.
Apple believes TikTok is unsafe for teens
A US ban for TikTok still looms. A new report this week revealed that Apple tried to get the platform to raise its recommended age to 17 after citing the “frequent” and “intense” occurrences of mature and suggestive content.
Apple wanted TikTok to make the changes to meet its strict App Store Review Guidelines.
