When Danny Sullivan (Google’s Search Liaison) reached out to me a few weeks ago to invite me out to Google, I immediately accepted. Any opportunity to sit down and have the potential to drive change, is at the core of why I get up in the morning.
There were 20 of us invited from all over - US East, US West, Canada, and the United Kingdom - and all represented across gaming, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, and home.
I won’t name any names in this post of other Creators, I’ll let each person talk about their experience publicly and I’ll link to them at the bottom as they decide to share. I hadn’t read anyone else’s post before writing this, as a note.
Disclosure: Google covered our flights and hotel - rides and meals were on our dime.
Setting the Stage
Since you may not have read my speech (which I retooled the night before the event) or the notes I sent to Google, let me add some context.
I launched TechRaptor in 2013 as a way to stay connected to the gaming industry. Over the last 11 years we grew to 30,000 pageviews in 2014, 300,000 in 2018, 2.5-3M in 2022, and after search ranking hits since 2022 we hover around 500,000 per month.
Anyone who knows me, knows I’m super transparent and I’ll be as honest with my thoughts as possible.
The last 2 years have been tough. I’ve had to let people go, cut back on investment in charitable giving, and almost completely stop taking risks or investing in emerging writers.
It sucks, but I’m lucky (or privileged) - I work a full-time job that completely meets my financial needs, and we still have 20% of our peak traffic and enough revenue to maintain the current team.
Many of the others at this event have lost much more, and their losses are far more impactful to them personally, financially, and emotionally.
Even as I wrote this, I was hearing of layoffs at GameSpot and Fandom. More pain, more loss of jobs, all driven by changes in Google since 2022.
My Expectations Going Into This
I didn’t go into this event with any expectations of concrete answers, solutions to our problems, or anything other than a “seat at the table.”
My goal for this event was simple - explain our history, the money we’ve spent and wasted on SEO, and talk about potential solutions.
I got that and maybe a bit more.
As I write this, I know I’ll probably be the more “positive” of the people who report back - it’s a big part of who I am as a person and how I analyze the things around me.
By no means was this event perfect, and by no means were the answers everything I wanted, nor is the timeline for any level of recovery okay with the impact this has had on the livelihoods of creators and writers around the world.
This is fully my perspective, and if we’re truly honest - as much as I enjoyed the event and what I got out of it, for it to have been truly worthwhile, we need to see action from Google.
I would love to see a followup with this group in Q1/Q2 of 2025 - virtually or otherwise, to discuss any traction that’s been made on the search side. Danny expressed that he’d love to have us back out in a year, if Google is able to take our feedback and action on it correctly, so that the next meeting will be more positive.
Based on the events of yesterday, we won’t see that action tomorrow, next week, next month or even this year - but Google seemed to take us, our concerns, and our ideas seriously. Seriously enough that Googlers flew in from around the world just to be there with us, and there were multiple meetings scheduled for the days following to discuss what we talked about on Tuesday 10/29.
That seems like the right effort, but again, time and action will tell.
A Timeline of Events
It was a wild 48 hours - it feels like we packed a full week into two full days.
I landed in SFO at 9:30a PST on Monday, and returned to Indianapolis at 6:30p EST on Wednesday. A very short trip!
Monday was neat, having an opportunity to really engage with other creators and all-around awesome people was such a highlight of the trip.
Danny (who I’ll talk about more in a bit) gave us a tour of Google HQ (specifically Building 43) in the afternoon, and it was definitely odd.
The offices were pretty cool, but they were empty. It felt like something of a shell of a company, likely deeply impacted by remote work, alongside many of the companies and clients I work with daily.
Even Danny was unsure of where everyone was, as he works remotely and rarely goes into the office unless traveling or hosting events like this.
With the sprawl of buildings that Google owns in the area, it just felt so empty and hollow - a stark contrast from the vibrant and busy Google campus you see in pictures and movies like The Intern, which Danny made jokes about as we wandered and he pointed things out.
Beyond an odd experience wandering the Googleplex, we stepped off to the side and talked to Danny in a really direct way for 30 minutes.
One of the things I have to say is that Danny is genuinely a sincere individual - it’s hard to get that when you’re just tweeting or DMing, but through both Monday and Tuesday he was not only delightful but transparent.
I actually rewrote huge chunks of my speech to include hard numbers, financial losses, how much I’d spent on SEO and Dev, based on things Danny said and encouraged us to focus on.
Monday night, the group of Creators mostly (some flew in late) all got together at a local bar and talked shop, preparing for the day we were all here for.
The October 2024 Web Creator Conversation at Google
As much as I think we all enjoyed hanging out, Tuesday is what we were there for. The opportunity to directly interface with Google.
I’ll reiterate - I went into this with the mindset of being an agent of change, not just to air my grievances and get specific advice and timelines, as working in corporate America I know “the game” and how you play it.
After all, we’re talking to engineers, Directors, VPs and more - they want actionable advice and direct and clear feedback, as much as I wanted to plead an emotional case about the impact their changes have had on real people.
I’m going to break down the way the day was laid out, and go into detail on each piece.
- 8:15a - 9:00a // Arrival and Breakfast
- 9:00a - 9:15a // Welcoming Remarks (Danny Sullivan)
- 9:15a - 10:30a // “How We Build Search” (Danny Sullivan)
- 10:30a - 10:45a // Break
- 10:45a - 12:00p // “Let’s Hear from You” (Creators)
- 12:00p - 1:00p // Lunch
- 1:00p - 2:00p // Breakout Sessions
- 2:00p - 2:15p // Break
- 2:15p - 3:15p // Group Discussions (Followup from Breakouts)
- 3:15p - 4:45p // Closing Remarks / Q&A
- 5:00 - 6:30 (really 8p) // Reception at Shashi Hotel
Welcoming Remarks
In reality, we’d already heard much of this the previous afternoon as we walked Google, but Danny welcomed us, set the stage for the day, and reiterated a few points he’d shared before.
There were some big standout things that Danny said throughout the day, but there were three overarching ones that I really want to touch on.
- “This whole event is unique for us to do.”
- “I reviewed each of your sites myself, and your content is wonderful.”
- “This may purely just be a Google problem, and nothing to do with your sites or your content.”
Google has held plenty of events with publishers and SEOs, but this one was truly unique, which was confirmed when talking with one of the Search Product Marketers later on in the day. This wasn’t meant to be PR, and it wasn’t meant to be a feel-good session, nothing that was said or talked about was “feel good.”
It all hurts, and Creators/Publishers are completely valid in their frustration, anger, and distrust of Google. In no way do I want to invalidate all of that - lives have been destroyed.
But in every conversation I had with Googlers, there was genuine interest in us, our businesses, how our industries work, how we create content, and so much more. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting people other than Danny to really engage in the way they did - and it didn’t feel empty.
Before I step to the next section, I want to touch on Danny as a person and how he approached and talked to each of us. It’s hard to see this on X, but Danny is an exceptionally empathetic person. There were multiple times both days where he got openly emotional as he talked about the impact that the HCU and other updates have had on publishers and creators. If he could turn the traffic back on for us right now, he would in a heartbeat, and it showed through his words and demeanor.
Danny read every single submission that was put into the March Core Update feedback form. There were over 13,000 and one person put in (and this is nuts) 1,700 individual query submissions alone. That’s why we were at this event, and he laments it couldn’t have been sooner.
One overarching theme, as we’ve come to expect with communication: Google can’t say much in specific, and they couldn’t give us specific guidance - that’s natural. It’s how they prevent black hats, spammers, and otherwise abusive “creators” from gaming the system.
How Search is Built
To be honest - I wish we’d mostly skipped this part of the day. I know it was meant to set the stage for discussions and talk about what could/couldn’t be shared, but it wasn’t anything new. Those of us deep into the industry of SEO should know everything that was discussed, how the ranking systems tie together, and just how big the index is.
There was one part that tied into the larger discussion of the day, however, and I really want to dive into that a bit. Pending updates, and when/if recovery is possible.
Here’s the big standout quote: “On the next update, we want to act on the feedback you’ve provided and will provide,” but Danny did clarify to ensure expectations were set by saying, “There will probably be an update fairly soon, and it won't have any change coming out of this event.”
This is due to the fact that most of the updates we see take weeks and months to even prepare to go live. Based on something discussed later in the session, many updates come to fruition off an idea an engineer has. They build it, and then it has to be rigorously tested (quality raters) and it has to “win” on certain metrics to even be considered. Most of the updates that get pitched will never see the light of day.
Some other choice quotes from this:
- "This was not our intent" and "We really are trying to make search better."
- "We know it's hard to believe, but we really do want to highlight real human voices."
- Also "I can't predict what will happen."
My guess? We won’t see updates that are able to act on our advice until late Q1 of 2025 at the earliest, which if you’re reading this post, is probably the last thing you want to hear. Publishers shouldn't expect to see quick turnarounds from the feedback, examples, and ideas we brought to the table.
Danny also explained that many of us may never see “a recovery back to September levels” due to the changes that Search has undergone feature-wise since September 2022 and September 2023. This makes sense, even if you regained every rank you had at that time - placement of links would be different than it would have been then.
One part of this that was interesting is that Danny brought up that they hear from big publishers just as much as small during and after updates. Sometimes it's directly, but sometimes it's through feedback they provide to the Ads team, who reaches out to the Search team, and per Danny, the Spider-Man meme is relevant in each of those situations.
Hearing from Elizabeth Tucker on Search
Once we got through the pieces about Google Search and how it’s built and updated, Danny brought up Elizabeth Tucker, who is the Director of Product Management for the Search Team.
I made some small tweaks to my speech that I’d prepared based upon things that Elizabeth had mentioned around “SEOs” and Content Publishing guidance, like “You don’t need to be posting every day to be relevant to Google Search. That’s not true.”
The overwhelming sentiment from Danny and Googlers like Elizabeth was that they don’t want people paying the fees they are to SEOs for audits. Many of us touched on what we have spent the last years trying to understand, and based on facial expressions - she and others were shocked.
Danny specifically said, “We don’t want you paying money for SEO audits to try and recover, we should be providing better guidance that removes the need for those outside of instances like site migrations or more complex changes.” We touched on this further in the breakout sections.
As a note, I’ve spent a significant amount of money on SEO consulting since 2021. SearchMetrics, Marie Haynes, Amsive, and a handful of others. I shared specific numbers when I spoke later on.
Hearing from Creators
Google gave each of us space to speak, and almost everyone used it in ways that were not only impactful to them but true to their personalities and experiences. Losing almost everything is not easy to talk about - emotions were high.
Everyone touched on something impactful to them, and everyone brought something else to their speech that others didn’t have, but there were also a number of common points too.
Originally my speech had more emotional pieces to it, but after speaking to Danny and the others at the hotel the previous night, there were chunks that I removed, others that I reinforced with more detail, and I threw hard financial numbers at Google to showcase that their lack of clear detail is leading to sites wasting money on audits that won’t move the needle.
I speak all day for a living, dealing with CEOs, CFOs, and Directors. I didn’t expect the sheer weight I felt speaking to 30ish Googlers in person, 30ish on the video call, and probably hundreds more post-event. I don’t think I’ve ever shaken so much while speaking, my anxiety was through the ROOF.
I wanted to do right by those who weren’t there and provide a clear case for how search wasn’t working, and how it was impacting the gaming industry specifically.
I like to think I used my time effectively.
Googlers listened intently to each of us, there was no one on their phones or distracted - they paid attention and they listened to our words. From what one of the other Creators told me post-event, he saw some that were tearing up or crying as they listened to some of our stories.
That was not expected.
Connecting with Googlers
Once we’d all spoken, it was lunchtime, and we all broke off into groups that talked while we ate. What I didn’t expect was that Googlers joined us. They asked questions, they listened to our longer stories, opinions, thoughts, and concerns.
Once again, I feel like I’m “propping up” Google, but I went into this actually expecting very little interaction with the Google team beyond Danny and the breakout groups. The genuine interest was reassuring.
Breakout Groups & Collective Rollup
Having those pre-breakout conversations was a perfect pregame to what came next. We were broken into 4 groups: Entertainment, Travel, Reviews, and General.
Two Googlers led each group through an exercise Google does internally, in which we discussed key problems we each encounter or wanted to solve, and then rolled up to a larger discussion with all 4 groups. On top of the two Googlers that led our group - 4 others joined us to listen, ask questions, and understand each issue and topic.
For our group: the three big things we rolled up were:
- Social as a Signal
- Experience is a signal, but how do we refine it to leverage our experience in our expertise instead of just experience as in “experienced it.”
- Verification
- Can we build a verification system for independent creators that have a proven track record?
- Google Search Console (GSC) Feedback
- Can GSC be leveraged for better feedback around technical issues, advertising impacts, and bugs?
- Ad Networks like Mediavine push ads heavily (8 per page), and many of the bigger pubs have as many if not more ads than we do. Why are we pushed down?
- How do we identify independent sites vs. corporate owned?
The final point was both not shocking, but also frustrating in that it underscores that Google's algorithms can't detect legitimate websites vs. spam sites at times, and they don't have a strong way to understand when a website is "real" - which in my eyes could be the biggest thing that, if they fix, could reverse HCU-type penalties.
We discussed a lot more though - such as the media consolidation we’re seeing with Valnet and Gamurs and the impact that’s had on both TV/movies and gaming. Googlers seemed very interested in this one, it seemed to be something they didn’t know much about.
In both breakout and the rollup group, I touched on advertising and how we’re all blind in what’s best, and what’s expected. In my eyes, if Google led on this and clearly defined what was good and what was bad, many publishers would follow that and the ad ecosystem would improve.
Productive Break Time
Once this session wrapped up, we had a short break, and this is when a Googler walked up to me and wanted to know more about some of what I’d talked about.
She asked pointed questions and wanted to dig into certain things more to understand. That really meant a lot, and it was such an engaging conversation - I know others had similar ones too. It didn’t feel like “thanks for the feedback, we MIGHT do something with it,” but more of a “this is interesting, and I’d love to know more so we can solve for it.”
Each group reported out on their top discussed items, and everyone weighed into the conversation. I said my piece (again) on ads, and we continued to discuss topics like verification, how we better identify original reviews, curated Creator feeds (“For You”, but in Chrome), GSC feedback, Creator Programs (like YouTube has), social posts outranking the actual content, and so much more.
Once the session wrapped up, Googlers walked over to the whiteboards (images above/below) and took pictures for their own uses and discussion points later on, as did many of us.
After another break, we went into closing remarks and a Q&A Session with Elizabeth Tucker and Pandu Nayak.
Closing Remarks & Q/A
There were some genuinely interesting pieces to this from Elizabeth’s perspective, and how quality raters work, but I’ll admit that when we discussed the impact of AI on Search, they completely missed the mark. That was frustrating.
I’ll admit I didn’t know a ton about Quality Raters going into this, but it was interesting in how they’re used for Search.
One big note they made: "EEAT is not for people who create content. It's for the Quality Raters"
Yes, they rate queries and the website that they show, but the goal isn’t to rate the website - it’s to rate how well the query was handled by production vs. the potential search update that was being tested. I always assumed it was about the website.
This is where they explained more about how updates get rolled out, how many come from Google Engineers, and how in order to even make it past the vetting stage - that potential update has to be quality rated and “Win” against the production algorithm 3 out of 4 times, which why sometimes Search misses the mark on some queries, but not others.
It was an interesting inside look at something not widely talked about when it comes to the process of updates, and why they take so freaking long to roll out, or even just get launched.
Touching on AI
Then we got onto the topic of AI, which was mentioned HEAVILY in the Google Earnings call that occurred during the day. I specifically asked about how Google Docs and other Accounts were posting on X about creating content using AI and publishing it with ease.
There was a little bit of gaslighting from Pandu Nayak about this one and how we should be using AI as a writing assistant, or to use it to help us create content but not all of the content. That piece, considering many of us were impacted because of the rate of spam that AI is creating, was pretty tone deaf to the audience and none of us were happy about it.
I think that Pandu was probably the wrong person to have speaking here - he was very clearly an engineer, and I'm sure to him everything was "normal" but to us it just fueled the frustration. Elizabeth by contrast felt more measured, but both of them expressed frustration around other parts of Google "touting" writing with AI for content creation.
Once again, a bit of the Spider-Man meme when it comes to the different parts and teams within Google. Search is pretty disconnected, and doesn't get much say in what the Google Docs team or others share and promote.
The Sitewide Classifier
In my eyes, there is a sitewide classifier. There is no other explanation for the sitewide hits that our sites have taken. Unfortunately, Google refused to really acknowledge this, consistently saying it was all page-level classifications.
I think the exact quote was "There are not sitewide penalties, only page-level classifications."
This is one point that continues to lead me to believe that Google’s Search Team has somewhat “lost control” of the systems that are in place.
There is absolutely some level of sitewide classifier in place - I’d understand if individual pages dropped out of Search - but losing 200,000 keywords over the last 2 years doesn’t signify a “page-level” classifier being the reality.
This was compounded throughout the day by the team, but it really culminated in this Q&A with Pandu Nayak pushing that there was no sitewide classifier.
Mythbusting SEO
The standout piece for me was twofold within the Q&A portion, because there were two pieces of advice I’ve received from the audits I paid for that never really sat right with me. The response to both was disbelief and laughter that people even suggested to us.
#1 - “Are ads actually bad? Does Google care how many are on a page?”
This is based on a section of an audit I had done in 2022 that basically called out my ads as a “problem to be fixed” in a way. Citing the Quality Rater Guidelines as saying they were excessive.
Elizabeth: “Nowhere in the Quality Rater Guidelines do we say ads are bad.” She clarified that Google understands that creators have to monetize their content, and ads are the easiest way, but so long as the user experience isn’t poor and the ads don’t impede your ability to read an article - Google has no issue with them.
#2 - “I had it suggested during an audit that Google sees me as a spammer when I drop 15-20 guides all at once at the launch of a game. I was told to space them out so as not to seem spammy.”
Pandu and Elizabeth both replied, with “not a thing” and explained that it isn't spam in their eyes but 400 AI-spun articles within the time frame will potentially raise some flags, especially if it’s frequent.
We also discussed things like article update dates and more - but the ads and spacing out content were really the big standouts for me.
Once we wrapped, we headed to the hotel and had drinks and snacks as a group, talking more with each other and Danny and other Googlers that also came over with us. Danny thanked each of us for coming, and was consistently vocal about how grateful he was that we accepted the invitation.
Collecting My Thoughts On This Event
I’m grateful for the opportunity that was afforded to me, and maybe I’m too optimistic, but I do feel that our words, stories, data points, ideas, and supporting documentation were received well, and Danny is championing this event to drive change.
I wish there was a “cure-all panacea” that could get us all our rankings back. Danny and Google openly admitted that it’s not our content that is the issue. This is equally reassuring, as well as disheartening to hear knowing that we, and many others, did nothing wrong but are being punished for it.
Danny reviewed every site that submitted feedback in the form published after the March 2024 Core Update. The 20 of us were selected because of this, and Danny took it even further, researching our social presence, and anything he could find on us. In his words, multiple times both days - “your content is not the reason you lost traffic, it’s phenomenal.”
The Google team wanted us there - between our past feedback, relations in our industries, and content they believe should have never been affected, they felt that we could bring strong feedback and discussion to this event. To me, that means a lot, but it also shows the care they took in selecting attendees to ensure that they got as much out of this event as they could, to figure out where to go from here.
I shared some of the direct quotes I wrote down or pulled from my recordings already, but one that accentuates this is "we want to get better at recognizing and rewarding this content" in reference to their belief that the 20 sites attending do have good content.
Personally - I think that the advent of AI tools driving an unsustainable amount of spam forced Google to make changes with Product Review and Helpful Content Updates. That was inevitable that they‘d have to do that.
But Algorithms are complex, and I think they’ve lost control and are struggling to get the ranking systems back under control. Danny spoke at length about how they’ve been using our feedback and query examples to debug the system and REALLY understand what’s not working and why.
There’s no easy way to roll back an algorithm, or program of any kind, with this level of complexity and systems. As a former programmer and IT guy, I may be more sympathetic in this way - but it’s up to Google to fix this and fix it right.
I can’t say for certain if any of us will see recovery, for sure we won’t see full recovery to the past levels soon. It’s likely going to take multiple updates to even restore parts of our traffic. There are sites out there that won’t recover, some that absolutely should, and others that dug too deep of an “SEO Hole” content-wise to meet the ever-changing quality requirements that Google looks for.
One thing is for certain, our content is good. Google sees it, Google knows it, and Google has our sites as examples on how they need to work on the algorithm. Many of our colleagues' content is also good, something that was never in question. Hearing directly from Google "Your content isn't the issue, it's probably us" was extremely hard to hear, but also somewhat validating.
As for productive changes, I think the big things that Google can focus on beyond improving the SERPs that we brought up, are key:
- Verification System for REAL Creators
- Creator Program like YouTube, TikTok, and others have
- Some sort of a For You Page in Chrome (Similar to MSN/Yahoo)
- Discover improvements to highlight more independent creators
- More effective documentation for Creators (so we don’t have to pay SEOs)
- More feedback and advice in Google Search Console
- Understanding independent vs. Corporate Sites
- Better guidance around Advertising
I sent examples of that over to Google too (a 26-page document in all), hoping to point out more solid outlets in my industry that I respect and want to see recover if possible, such as Gamer Guides and Video Games Chronicle. I’m sure that’s anti-competitive of me, but as I said before - there’s nothing I want more than to make an impact.
Google also needs to make an impact though - for this event to have meant anything we need to see positive change in the Google SERPs that gives independent publishers at least some of their traffic back in the next year.
It’s clear we won’t see a switch flip that will give us all that traffic back, but there needs to be some HCU and publisher recoveries by the same time next year.
Whether this visit to Google HQ makes an impact for search and for publishers across the web, all I can do is hope.
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One final note, as I share links to what some of the other Creators are sharing after the event.
These are all amazing people - it was an absolute delight to meet people I’ve followed for a while, and new faces I’d never interacted with. Bonding not only on content creation but how we help “solve” Search, was the highlight of the last 48 hours for me.
I learned a lot about, and from, each of them - and it was a fantastic experience because of the people who were there.
Have questions, or want me to detail something more? Hit me up on X or BlueSky.
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Links:
Thoughts from other Attendees:
