We also know that the advancement of generative AI technologies, like ChatGPT, brings up more questions than the can’t-recommend-anything-past-2021 robot can answer.

While we believe there is value in using generative AI and are sharing ways publishers can use ChatGPT to speed up their workflows, understanding how to protect your content from unwanted scraping and data collection is huge.

OpenAI has announced the release of GPTBot, a web crawler you can use to stop ChatGPT from reading your site to train its algorithms, and we’re breaking down how you can do this.

Understanding GPTBot: Enhancing AI Models and Web Crawling

GPTBot is OpenAI’s latest tool, and it’s designed to enhance the training data for their AI models, including the upcoming GPT-5. GPTBot crawls the entire internet for data sources that can improve the accuracy, capabilities and safety of AI technology.

In non-tech talk, this bot spends its time doom scrolling.

And while Skynet may not be fully self-aware just yet, this doom scrolling has understandably led to feelings of, well, doom for creators.

It seems ChatGPT’s robots — or at least the program’s powers that be — are listening.

You can now opt out of sharing your site’s data with OpenAI, a win — however small — for every publisher concerned about data privacy and transparency.

Your Control: Opting Out of GPTBot Web Crawling

NOTE: You may need to contact your site hosting provider or administrator or web developer for assistance with the following steps. Mediavine Support, as much as they would love to help you crush the robot overlords before they take over the world, aren’t equipped to modify your robots.txt files.

As discussions regarding copyright and fair and acceptable use take place around the globe, with its newest iteration, OpenAI is moving toward a model that asks for permission rather than just assuming you’re okay with sharing Grandma Betty’s Pecan Pie recipe with zero attribution or backlinks.

Granted, their permission is permission-by-assumption, but there’s a solution and that’s the major point here.

Something to consider before you proceed is that opting out of GPTBot web crawling could impact your traffic, particularly from Bing Chat.

To be clear, we don’t know for sure. But we know the impact is possible and, as always, we’ll keep you posted.

That said, we’re still glad publishers have this option.

By following these steps, you can prevent GPTBot from accessing and using your website’s content to train its models:

Modify Your Robots.txt File

The first step in opting out of GPTBot web crawling is to modify your website’s robots.txt file.

The robots.txt file is a set of instructions for web crawlers, including GPTBot, letting them know which parts of your site they are allowed to access and which parts are no-crawl zones.

To fully restrict GPTBot from accessing your site:

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

To grant partial access to specific directories while restricting others:

User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /directory-1/
Disallow: /directory-2/

Your directory names, or the areas that are off-limits to GBTBot, may be different than the code text seen above, and you can customize this to your specific needs. For instance, you may want to allow GBTBot to crawl your articles but disallow it from accessing your shop.

Remember: Your web developer is your friend.

Save and Upload

Once you’ve made the necessary changes to your robots.txt file, save the file and upload it to your website’s root directory.

This ensures that GPTBot recognizes your access preferences and adjusts its crawling behavior accordingly.

Verify Your Changes

To confirm that GPTBot is adhering to your access preferences, you can use online tools and services that analyze your website’s robots.txt file.

This verification step helps ensure that your content remains off-limits to GPTBot.

Empowering Publishers: Taking Control of Your Content

Will you need technical assistance from your site host or administrator to make these changes? Maybe. Maybe you’re savvy enough to do this yourself!

Again, this is not something our Support team is prepared to assist with.

But this is a proactive measure you can take to protect your content and maintain control over how it’s accessed and used.

AI has been here for a while now. It’s not going away any time soon. As the debate around AI, copyright and data usage unfolds, rest assured that we’re having conversations and joining other industry leaders in support of you, our publishers.

We’re watching for ways to help protect your content, including participating in discussions with Google about the future of responsible AI as part of our Premier GCPP status.

We’re committed to ensuring that your content remains yours, now and into the future.

The post Protecting Your Content: How to Opt Out of GPTBot Web Crawling appeared first on Mediavine.

What exactly is SGE, and more importantly, what will it mean for content creators who rely on Google for much of (or most of) their web traffic?

According to its post on SGE, Google will add a new section directly above the search engine results, where a ChatGPT-style bot will answer queries directly inline.

At that point, the user can click on links to the sources that fed the AI response, or continue the dialogue by asking follow-up questions to the chatbot.

Many publishers are concerned by this and rightly so. 

If Google chatbots are directly answering search queries at the top of the page, how might that impact organic traffic as we’ve always known it?

Before we pronounce our industry dead and buried, let’s zoom out. Despite how remarkable this technology is and how futuristic it seems, we’ve been down this road before.

If you’ve been doing this for a long time like we have (at the risk of dating ourselves) you may remember when Google first launched ads into search.

Ads quickly began to dominate most of the top spots, and plenty of panic ensued, but here we are. Organic search results survived.

More recently, you likely remember the launch of position zero, which is conceptually similar to SGE, as certain questions are answered directly in a box above the search results by Google before any links are displayed (hence the name).

But again, guess what? Organic results survived.

In fact, organic search strategies came to include winning this very spot, as position zero is attainable even if a page isn’t otherwise ranked in the top three. For those that saw this challenge as an opportunity, it was a potential win, not a loss.

The list goes on. Think about carousels, text fragments, and countless other changes and enhancements we’ve experienced with Google search.

Organic survived, because content creators have always served as the lifeblood of those search results, and the web itself. 

Google’s SGE post acknowledges this reality:

“As we bring generative AI into Search, we’re committed to continue sending valuable traffic to sites across the web.”

Okay, But Do You Honestly Believe That? And What Can I Do?

Still skeptical? Good, and same. There are things that are outside of your control (what Google does).

While we believe that Google needs content creators — and therefore has an interest in taking the responsible approach it promises here — we’re still strong advocates for publishers taking AI seriously and updating their strategies.

First and foremost, focus on the one thing that AI, machine learning and chatbots can never do: Build a relationship with your readers.

SGE, ChatGPT and their robotic cohorts have many use cases, but forming an authentic relationship with readers is beyond their scope**.

Take advantage of your best asset: You. 

Own the relationship with your audience and nurture it with tools like Grow’s Spotlight Subscribe and running a newsletter.

Second, think in terms of what these changes add, not what they take away.

Remember that this is not a declaration of war on AI, nor is it mutually exclusive from embracing technology that adds tremendous value.

Don’t fight the robot revolution, lead it. Check our blog post on ways bloggers can use ChatGPT to increase productivity while maintaining your unique voice.

Use AI to build and maintain the authentic relationship with your readers that helps you stand out. It’s not an either/or proposition.

Third, and perhaps most importantly from the standpoint of AI possibly disrupting your Google traffic? Diversify. Invest in other traffic sources.

I know … who wants to join yet another social network. I still long for the days of MySpace. But again, you have to think of your relationship with your readers. 

Not every reader is going to want to engage exactly how you wish they would, whether that’s via email or on your preferred social platform that you’ve already mastered.

Change is the only constant. As trends in content consumption and technology shift, users will adapt and so should you. Meet your readers where they are.

Even if that means TikTok.

Mediavine Has Your Back

Through nearly 19 years of growth as an independent business, Mediavine has adapted to myriad changes that threatened its existence and has always come out stronger.

We still own and operate The Hollywood Gossip, TV Fanatic and Food Fanatic — the same websites that led us into ad management in 2015.

We’re publishers, too. As always, we’ll be using that to our advantage, using our own sites and resources to help our 10,000-plus customers navigate these changing times.

AI is here to stay, but so are we, the content creators. We’re here to make sure the two work together, and lead the next internet revolution together.

** ChatGPT attempted to write a first draft of this post, and it was beyond terrible. What the 12 of you who made it to the end of this just finished reading is all me, using my uniquely human voice. 

The post Google’s Search Generative Experience appeared first on Mediavine.

We’ve all seen the headlines questioning the future of organic search, the impact on creators’ livelihoods and content ownership, the challenge of information authenticity and accuracy. It’s easy to feel anxious about the future of digital publishing.

So, what’s a content creator to do? First, let’s get some perspective.

AI content generators have been around for quite some time, including tools you may have heard of or even used, including Jasper, Copy.ai and Surfer SEO. ChatGPT is the latest iteration of generative AI and moves the technology’s potential several steps forward.

But for purposes of this article, we’re setting aside the fevered predictions of the future and focusing on the here and now: How to learn about and responsibly use these tools to be more productive today, with five tips for incorporating ChatGPT into your blogging workflow.

Create a ChatGPT Account

First things first: In order to use ChatGPT, you need to create a free account. As of early 2023, ChatGPT’s capacity is still stretched to its limits while they wrestle with unexpected demand — monthly users topped 100 million in January following December’s media blitz. 

However, the most difficult part about gaining access to the tool is actually creating the account because unregistered users are deprioritized behind those already logged in. Don’t be surprised if you’re greeted with a “ChatGPT is at capacity right now” message on your first several attempts.

But don’t give up. It took a few days of trying during business hours before finally resorting to a late night visit to get it done. Have your phone handy, as you’ll need it for the account verification process.

A few things to consider before getting started

Once you’re in, the best way to learn about ChatGPT’s capabilities is to jump in and write some prompts or ask some questions. You’ll quickly get a feel for how ChatGPT responds.

When you’re ready to move beyond the testing phase, you’ll want to keep a few things in mind before using it for professional purposes.

Acknowledge ChatGPT’s limitations

By now we’ve all seen the infamous ChatGPT output about egg-laying elephants. While a little on the extreme side, it’s unfortunately not that unusual. In fact, there’s even a note right on ChatGPT’s homepage admitting that it doesn’t always get it right. 

Sometimes it produces outright inaccurate information, but more often it makes illogical assumptions, awkward phrasings and nonsensical story points. 

In any event, as a professional content creator, proofreading and editing is a must (as you’ll note us repeating throughout this article). 

One of my early tests of ChatGPT was a prompt to write a children’s bedtime story about a kitten and a ball of yarn. The first half of the story was sweetly charming, with Mittens the kitten playing inside with her owner. 

But then things went logistically sideways after Mittens awoke from a nap and couldn’t find her ball of yarn:

Setting aside the abrupt change of scenery from indoors to outdoors, meowing yarn balls caught in a tree might be problematic to explain to the kids.

ChatGPT is always learning and refining its knowledge, but it might not be sufficiently up to speed on your topic at a given moment and could be filling in its own knowledge gaps with questionable information.

And more importantly, as it also notes right on its home page, ChatGPT is based on data collected up to 2021, so its usefulness for current events or recent changes in a given industry is limited.

Are you a subject matter expert on the topic?

In terms of productivity and speeding up content production, ChatGPT will be most efficient for topics where you’re already the subject matter expert. Or at least expert enough that you’ll know where to look to confirm what ChatGPT is outputting.

Of course it’s a fascinating tool for learning new things but for fact-checking purposes, you’ll achieve more efficiency when you can spot inaccuracies or data that needs to be double-checked before publishing.

Be prepared to edit ChatGPT’s output

While ChatGPT is surprisingly impressive, it’s far from a copy-and-paste solution. In addition to ChatGPT taking poetic license with facts, the technology is still in its infancy as far as natural human speech is concerned.

In the few months since its debut, a considerable amount of its raw content has been published on the web, and it’s now quite easy to recognize the characteristic ChatGPT tone of voice (as editors have recently noted).

One of the dead giveaways is that ChatGPT frequently uses the same turns of phrases, such as “Looking for [a thing]? Look no further than [this].”

It will no doubt improve its language skills over time, but for now, publishing unedited ChatGPT output poses a number of risks, both in accuracy and obviousness.

So if you haven’t heard us already saying this by now in other channels, please take note: Generative AI tools might create impressively detailed content on some subjects, but what they can’t produce is YOU.

Think about your favorite novel: What did you love about it? Vivid imagery, evocative characters, the steady voice of the omniscient narrator, intense emotion, twisting story arcs. Now imagine ChatGPT rewriting that book.

How to use ChatGPT to increase productivity

With the caveats out of the way, we can move on to the good stuff. When used judiciously, ChatGPT can be very useful in managing a content business, as it can take over producing some of the more rote and time-consuming tasks of content creation.

While using ChatGPT, make sure you don’t overlook one of its more interesting features: A chat is meant to be a conversation, so if your first prompt doesn’t return an acceptable result, rephrase your ask. Add more detail or expand the question. ChatGPT will refine its approach and try again.

ChatGPT remembers and uses the information you provide in subsequent responses, so don’t hesitate to get granular with your prompts.

For illustrative purposes, we’ll use the example of writing an article about a tomato soup recipe. While our examples below might not be applicable to every writing niche, we hope that it inspires you to review your content production workflow to see where ChatGPT might be a good fit.

Generate a quick list of keywords

ChatGPT is in no way ready to replace full-featured SEO research tools and best practices. However, it’s quite handy for creating a list of subtopics related to your article.

I usually ask for a list of 25 or 30 keywords. As you can see from the sample above, some of the results are long-tail keywords worth pursuing for your article, while others are suggestions that could be expanded into pillar content.

You can also ask for more detail on any of the keywords to have ChatGPT flesh it out for you.

Create sections of content in your article

ChatGPT is fairly adept at creating certain types of content within an article. If you’re publishing within the recipe, DIY, crafts, home decor or travel niches, for example, you might routinely include sections such as frequently asked questions, tips, what to pack for a trip, etc. 

Using our tomato soup recipe example, here’s a partial list of FAQs generated by ChatGPT:

The output above is a good example of why ChatGPT output should never go unchecked. The answer to #3 will depend on whether the soup contains cream: Cream-based soups generally don’t freeze well. 

And for #4, tomato acidity has other components besides flavor, including stomach irritation. ChatGPT’s answer addresses only one and misses an opportunity to point out that a pinch of baking soda can make tomato soup edible for those who have difficulties tolerating highly acidic foods.

Generate meta descriptions

One content task that I happily hand off to ChatGPT is creating meta descriptions. As of this writing, Google does not specifically use the meta description as a ranking signal. 

Instead, Google might use an article’s meta description to populate a link’s description in the SERPs. So, rather than being a ranking factor, it becomes our article’s sales pitch: When a user scrolls through the list of sites on a search results page, they use that description to help them decide whether they want to click the link.

And since that space usually accommodates just 160 characters, we have to squeeze a whole lot of convincing into a few short sentences.

As you can see by this article, brevity is not my gift.

Even when I skip ChatGPT for content creation within my articles, it’s become a habit now to let it have the first crack at creating a meta description. 

Here’s a great example of how asking for something in two ways generates different responses:

This output is also a good illustration of the first ChatGPT flaw mentioned above: Making assumptions about a topic when information is missing. I did not input a specific tomato soup recipe or instructions into the conversation, yet ChatGPT describes it as quick and easy in both outputs.

They also contain examples of ChatGPT’s use of turns of phrases. I frequently see “Looking for …” and also “Get ready to warm up with …” first sentences for winter-leaning recipes.

Remember, always be prepared to proofread and edit ChatGPT’s output, no matter the length.

Generate an introductory paragraph

While we’d never recommend letting ChatGPT take full charge of your content, having it create an introduction for your article is an easy way to spark your creative juices and get past that dreaded Blank Page Syndrome (a.k.a., writer’s block).

Again, don’t hesitate to rephrase your initial prompt with a different angle. You can usually drill down to a satisfactory response fairly quickly.

Generate social media blurbs

Similar to meta descriptions, I find ChatGPT particularly helpful in creating descriptions for social media promotions. These are the kinds of blurbs where I quickly end up in a rut, in terms of producing descriptions that are unique and appropriate for each platform. 

I’m more than content to let ChatGPT loose on the salesy parts of my content marketing, which I then tweak for voice. Here are two sample Pinterest description outputs, each different from the other, depending on my prompt:

Notice that it remembers the “smooth” and “creamy” details from previous prompts. 

Also note that, true to its 2021 heritage, it includes hashtags in Pinterest descriptions, which are no longer useful on Pinterest. It’s better to use standard SEO best practices to ensure that your pins find their way into Pinterest search results.

ChatGPT also sometimes can’t restrain itself to a fixed character limit, so make sure you double-check character count when it matters.

As we wrap up, we should clarify that this article was written by a human being. ChatGPT’s contributions were limited to screenshots of chats that occurred over several days.

While it’s not really possible to say here in March of 2023 exactly how things will change in the content creation industry, we only know that they will.

Our best advice for creators: Don’t panic, stay informed, enjoy the inevitable comic relief … and explore.

The post 5 Ways Bloggers Can Use ChatGPT to Increase Productivity appeared first on Mediavine.

What better way to ring in 2023 than with our first installment of Behind the Numbers with Brad (BTNWB)? As always, I work with Mediavine’s data experts to gain a few insights from several trillion data points. (With nearly 10,000 publishers now under the Mediavine umbrella, that’s barely an exaggeration!)

With another calendar year in the books and a new one just beginning, we’ve put together the latest version of Mediavine’s “Best Days of the Year” calendar. 

As the name implies, this uses data from previous years to predict which dates in 2023 will see the highest potential for earnings, and which ones could be underwhelming. 

We do this by analyzing eCPM, which takes into account fill rate, and CPM, by calendar day.

These data points are heavily influenced by seasonal advertising spend — the times of year in which consumer activity fluctuates cyclically, and when companies are more (or less) likely to deploy their fiscally-planned advertising budgets. 

While the timing and volume are inexact, there are two recurring trends which nearly always result in an uptick in advertising spend:

1. Increased activity, generally around major holidays, on the consumer side.
2. Budget timing, on the advertiser side.

Let’s start with the first trend. Who hasn’t made additional trips to the grocery store ahead of a holiday weekend, or spent extra time shopping online ahead of the Christmas holiday?

This bonus activity, if you will, jolts advertising budgets into overdrive as advertisers try to get their product or service in front of the right audience at the right time.

The second recurring trend — budget timing — is driven by how funds for ads are allocated for specific time periods during the month, fiscal quarter or year.

Because of these allocations, we typically see spending increases at the end of months and quarters and conversely, steep declines at the beginning of each. 

Consider this a reeducation of sorts for how you think about ad revenue by the seasons!

Alright, without further delay, we present you with Mediavine’s eCPM guide for 2023.

NOTE: If you’d prefer a printable version of this, we’ve got you covered. Print either the color or grayscale PDF to pin to your bulletin board. You can also find them in this Google Drive Folder for easy cloud storage.

So what should you do with this information? 

Remember, the world’s largest companies invest millions into researching when exactly to use marketing dollars most impactfully.

Mediavine is privileged to work with many of these huge brands, plus thousands of additional advertisers over the years. What you’re seeing above is the aggregate data showing you, historically, when these businesses are most often spending. 

The largest and most successful companies don’t announce their latest products or services when no one is looking. Their timing is very strategic, and yours should be, too! The insights presented here are meant to help you build and promote content to that effect.

Now for the disclaimer to end all disclaimers, a disclaimer so disclaimerable that we made up that adjective to describe it, then bolded and increased the font size below:

Past performance does not guarantee future results.

This calendar was built using data from 2021 and 2022; Normally, we would use the past few years, but ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, the broader economy and advertising trends have been less predictable and very different, to say the least. 

We expect 2023 to track more closely to 2021-22 than to pre-COVID-19 times.

Moreover, commerce is always evolving, and there are likely to be new reasons for spending increases and decreases that are difficult if not impossible to project.

Amazon Prime Days are a great example. These “holidays” created by the world’s largest retailer not only mean increased spending from Amazon itself, but more competition in the marketplace that raises CPMs across the board.

These days, important as they are, will not be announced until right before they happen, and therefore aren’t included in our calendar. Other new and unprecedented (I almost made it through this article without using that word) circumstances may arise, as well.

Also, we are likely headed for a global recession, or are in one already, depending on who you ask. Turbulent economic conditions are negatively affecting the largest companies in the world, and those companies are the ones with the most significant advertising budgets. 

Some recessions are milder and shorter-lived than others, and hopefully this one falls in that category, but no one can say for certain how dramatically budgets will be impacted, when a recovery will commence, or how robust that recovery will be. 

The long and short of it: Past data can offer instructive guidance, but change is a constant, happens quickly and can be caused by myriad factors.

With that said, advertisers will still spend, and this calendar is an exercise in helping you pinpoint when that spend is more likely to occur. 

At Mediavine, our job is to prepare your business so that you can make the most of your hard-earned traffic, taking advantage of everything you can control while persevering through the many factors you cannot control. 

This is just one example of our ongoing mission of helping build sustainable businesses for content creators, for 2023 and beyond.

The post Best Days of 2023 (with Printable) — Behind the Numbers with Brad appeared first on Mediavine.

We believe in empowering people to create their own wealth on their own terms, and so does our guest author.

We’re delighted to bring you Latasha Peterson, founder of Arts and Budgets. Latasha’s passion is helping creatives find ways to make money by turning their hobbies and talents into side hustles.

With a background in singing and musical theater, I have seen so many of my talented friends and colleagues look for ways to make additional money to help them cover their daily expenses while they pursue their dreams.

Seeing people struggling to cover day-to-day expenses throughout my own journey inspired me to start a blog to help them find the best side hustles to increase their income.

When I was pregnant with my first son, my husband and I decided to stay at home with our baby and start a side hustle blog. So, in 2016 I created Arts and Budgets to help people find the most profitable side hustles to build wealth and pay off debt.

Starting my own business has been one of the best decisions I have ever made.

The Ticket To Financial Freedom

Financial freedom is essential to me because I didn’t learn about money management and the importance of creating generational wealth growing up.

My husband and I are currently teaching our young sons about financial literacy, and we desire to leave a legacy of knowledge and wealth for them.

Having my own business gives me the chance to work on my terms, and it is also my ticket to financial freedom. In 2021, I paid off over $25k of debt with the help of my blog’s income streams, and I plan to pay off the remainder of my student loans and start investing this year.

My blog has changed my life because I can do what I love each day and get freedom with it.

Inspiring Others

As an African-American creator, I didn’t see many people who looked like me that were successful in turning their blogs into profitable businesses when I first started out. But despite that, I still took a leap of faith and started Arts and Budgets.

Today, Arts and Budgets gets over 100,000 monthly pageviews and is an online business that brings in over $10k per month. But most importantly, my blog is a place where people can find hope by discovering the best side hustles to create their financial dream life.

Being able to use my platform and voice to show creators that they can start a blog and be successful is one of the leading reasons why I love serving this community.

Creating Multiple Income Streams

With my blog, I created multiple income streams which allowed me to pay off over $25k of debt in 2021. I didn’t earn any money in Arts and Budgets’ first year, so I became determined to research and learn more about the different ways someone could monetize a blog successfully.

I started monetizing my blog through affiliate marketing and working with my ad management company — Mediavine.

Then, I began to monetize through working with brands on sponsored posts, doing one-on-one and group coaching, freelance writing, speaking at online events/workshops, selling physical products, and selling digital products such as my ebook, “Side Hustle To Freedom” and my course, Blog For Profit Academy.

Network & Build Partnerships

My blog has also given me the opportunity to build partnerships and work with other bloggers and online entrepreneurs through collaborations. Last year, I did multiple Instagram lives and workshops with others in my niche which has been a really helpful way to connect with people.

If you have a blog, my biggest advice is to try to keep a positive mindset and never give up.

While I didn’t hit many of my milestones overnight, what has helped me has been staying consistent and never giving up. Because of that, I am able to work on my terms and help others on my journey.

Thank you, Latasha, for sharing your wisdom and experience with our readers! To learn of Latasha’s top tips for creators, check out her Blogging On a Budget episode of Mediavine On Air.

Check Out Latasha’s 1-Minute Tips on Passive Income

The post How To Use Your Blog To Build Wealth: The Steps I Took To Turn My Blog Into A Profitable Business appeared first on Mediavine.

We’ve discussed at length how specifically to update content to improve RPM and optimize for SEO, but today we’re focusing on a specific and surprisingly controversial aspect.

How to handle the modified and published date may not seem significant, but it can make a big difference when it comes to how your content is presented to Google and users.

Google’s Best Practices For Dates

Make eye contact and don’t talk about yourself the whole time. Just kidding. (Although that is generally good advice.)

When it comes to the calendar dates displayed on posts, Google recommends displaying a visible date – as in something users can see – while also outputting the date using Article schema.

Google requires that you output a published date (in schema), and recommends that you output the modified or updated time on the post as well.

The company’s specific threshold for when you should change the visible date to the user is when you’ve made substantial changes to the content.

Keep in mind that these are best practices, which differ from policies – violations of which can result in actual, punitive action against your site.

What we’ve discussed so far applies to your content and organic search results. Google News publishers must comply with a more specific set of guidelines.

Google News-Specific Policies For Republishing

If you’ve submitted your website to Google News via the Google Publisher Center, there are somewhat stricter policies for republishing.

[Side note: If you haven’t submitted your site, you should. Despite its name, Google News will also accept lifestyle sites, such as our own Food Fanatic, as approved publications.]

Google News’ best practices are roughly the same as for regular Google search results, but the publication date is required in order for the content to appear at all.

When it comes to Google News specifically:

• The visible date should be placed between the headline and the article body.
• The published date must be the original time in which the post was first published.
• You should display only one visible date.
• You should only change the modified date if substantial changes are made to the article, as with organic best practices (this is now a policy that can lead to you being removed from Google News).
• You cannot delete an old post and redirect it to a new one.

If this sounds too strict and makes you wary of Google News, it shouldn’t.

Most of these bullet points are more or less the same as Google’s regular best practices, and Google News can be a substantial source of traffic.

The significant difference for those publishing in Google News when compared to publishers at large? As of now, republishing for the sake of reappearing in Google News can cause a penalty, all the way up to a potential removal from Google News.

Should I Show the Published or Updated Date to Users?

Google recommends you show a published and/or updated date to a user. In that same Advanced SEO article, they advise only showing one date if Google is getting confused.

Given these two pieces of advice, combined with our own experience, we recommend showing only the updated date to readers, assuring Google will show the freshest date.

Your theme should hopefully support this (Trellis does, apologies for the shameless plug), but if not, you should be able to accomplish this with a quick filter.

Remember that Google will see the published date via your schema, and via your Google News site map if your SEO plugin is outputting one for you.

Should I Change the Published Date?

Per Google’s best practices, no. You should be changing the updated, or modified date, leaving the published date as the original date.

Still, we know a lot of publishers are doing this, undoubtedly with good intentions.

Hear us out and we’ll explain why it’s a common practice, but not necessarily the best one – and how there’s a better way to achieve our shared goals.

Why Are Bloggers So Into Republishing?

It’s no secret that Google and readers love fresh content.

Taking a 2017 article, giving it a 2021 date and republishing with some new content can often result in more clicks from search results and potentially a boost in your rankings.

Which is great, but correlation is not causation here.

A lot of that boost comes not from republishing the post, but from a side effect of republishing – the simple act of bringing that post back into your feed.

If you change only the modified date and bump the article back on to your homepage, you’ll effectively get the same boost without going against best practices or policies.

How do I do that, you’re asking?

We’ll tell you!

All the Benefits of Republishing With None of the Risk

To fully replicate the benefits of appearing in the feed – homepage links, showing up to RSS readers, appearing on category pages, etc. – you’ll need to change the WordPress “loop.”

The biggest benefit of republishing is that precious homepage link – and you can get this with any static homepage through a “recently updated” section, or manually placing it inside a “featured” or “top post” area (or whatever you choose to name it).

There are plenty of plugins that will let you change the order in which posts appear; you might be able to sort by modified dates, or manually push certain posts to the top.

For category links, you can create static category pages, or even add links inside the category description if your theme supports outputting that (like Trellis, which by design is optimized for SEO best practices).

Alternatively, you could use the “sticky” feature of WordPress to instantly jump to the top of category and feed pages. You’ll just have to remove this later on.

Mediavine-owned sites use a custom CMS (not WordPress) which includes a feature enabling us to re-insert posts at any point in the feed without changing the publication date. 

The long and short of it: There are lots of ways to reap the benefits you might get from changing the publication date, without running afoul of Google or altering the space-time continuum.

Your main goal should always be getting internal links to fresh content you just updated. Everything we’ve just described is just one piece of the puzzle.

Go through your related content and add new links. That plus a homepage link will take you a lot further than republishing ever could.

But I Still Want to Change the Publication Date! Is it Ever Okay?

Whether it’s regarding republishing or anything else, we’re here to tell you what we believe is the best course of action, based on our own experience and Google’s own guidance.

At the same time, we understand that if every component of SEO were an exact science, there wouldn’t even be SEO, because everyone would follow the same exact rules to the letter.

SEO experts are going to differ on certain topics, and this is one of them. Some believe strongly in republishing, as we’ve just discouraged you from doing.

If you want to trust them, and you aren’t a Google News publisher, you’ll probably be alright. We still don’t suggest this, but if you go that route, at least consider this the intent behind what we’re advocating.

These best practices are in place, and Google News has stricter policies on top of those, for a reason: Google doesn’t want to confuse or mislead readers. Neither do you (we hope).

Unless you’re attempting to deceive Google by changing the publication date to artificially improve rankings, or bump yourself back up in Google News on an old story, you’ll likely be fine.

Just make sure you’ve actually made substantial changes if you’re changing the publication date. Did you change the headline, add new photos, add or replace significant content, etc.?

Put yourself in your readers’ shoes. If they just saw this same article yesterday and again today. Would it read like two different posts? If so, a new publication date will probably not hurt you.

Important: If You Have Dates in Your URLs, Don’t Republish

It’s important to note that if you have dates built into your URLs, you should not republish posts.

Doing so will cause a change in the permalink of the post, causing a redirect. Whatever SEO expert or experts you listen to on this subject, you really don’t want to do this.

If you have dates in your URLs, I’d recommend following best practices, changing the modified date and finding a way to get that link using methods like we described above.

If you can, try to follow Google best practices and Mediavine’s best of both worlds approach.

The post Should I Republish Content? There’s a Better Way appeared first on Mediavine.

I’m your host Jenny Guy, and in late 2020 I had the privilege to sit down with two powerhouse Google employees, Julia Li and Bianca Jochimsen. They both know a thing or two about starting out as non-techies and rocking it in a tech world. Which is something quite a few content creators can identify with.

We discussed the root causes of imposter syndrome as well as specific strategies and action items to kick it to the curb.

Now let’s show imposter syndrome who’s boss

Helpful Resources

The Disciplined Pursuit of Less — An article to guide you upward in your career.
#IAmRemarkable — Google’s initiative empowering women and other underrepresented groups to celebrate their achievements in the workplace and beyond.

The post Be a Boss and Kick Out Imposter Syndrome with Julia Li and Bianca Jochimsen: Mediavine On Air Episode 14 appeared first on Mediavine.

Typography, the study of fonts and the way letters are designed has long been pivotal in providing readers with easy reading experiences. 

(Okay, yes, I am a typography nerd.)

Best practices for choosing fonts for your website

I always recommend hiring a designer if you can afford one, even if just for your logo. If you’re in a situation where you have to choose a font, here are the most basic categories of fonts to choose from:  

A quick crash course on typefaces 

• Serif — Latin for the word “foot,” these fonts have “feet.” These are great for headlines or body text and logos, too. With higher screen quality these days, you don’t have to worry as much about these appearing pixelated when used at smaller sizes. Examples: Georgia, Times, Courier, Garamond. 
• Sans Serif — These fonts tend to be more modern looking, as they don’t have the “feet” of serifs. (“Sans” means without!) They’re great for most uses online, from logos (hello, look at ours!) to headlines to body text. Examples: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana 
• Script — Cursive, handwriting, whatever you want to call them. Examples: Brush Script, Comic Sans. 
• Display — These fonts are everything else, pretty much. They’re the fun ones that don’t fit into the other categories, but they can be great for logos. Scripts can also fall into this category as they can sometimes be less readable. Use with caution but know that there are usually some fun ones in this area! 

Choose a combination of fonts

When designing your website or brand, it’s a good idea to stick to only a few fonts. For example, at Mediavine, our brand consists of two fonts (a serif and a sans serif), which we use on everything we make. We will pull out other fonts for emphasis only on special occasions, such as a social post or an event logo. 

Utilizing the different weights of your typeface is a good way to provide variety without overdoing it. Weights are the various thicknesses available within a typeface, such as thin, light, Roman, bold, extra bold, etc. 

Keep accessibility top of mind

Back in the letterpress days, typesetters chose individual typefaces and letters and manually spaced them out to best suit the reader and the final output. Now, we can code these choices right into our websites, but many of the same best practices still abide. 

Website accessibility is a big talking point these days, and for good reason: What’s the point of publishing all that wonderful content if a percentage of readers can’t see it? 

For people with any kind of visual impairments, making sure all the text on your site is readable and legible is a huge part of being a good internet citizen. Here are a few tips: 

• Body copy should have a line height and font size set to a comfortable level for all readers. (Bonus: This is great for RPM and above the fold SEO too!) 
• Hyperlinks especially should at least be underlined and in a text color that is accessible, like blue. The idea is that a user should easily be able to tell when text provides a hyperlink. (Check out six ways to make your site more accessible for some examples!)
• Any font you are using should have contrast against the background. Fonts with thin lines and narrow details can be hard to read, so you might opt for a thicker weight. For example, Raleway is a font commonly used for body copy, but some of the thinner weights can be hard to read at smaller body copy sizes.   
• When it comes to text colors, avoid using solid black (#000000). Solid black is the absence of light, so it stops light emitting from the screen and puts strain on the eyes as they adapt. Instead, opt for a dark gray such as #444444. 
• Page titles and headings should be distinct from the body copy so they stand out for ease of reading. 
• Though it may be tempting to adjust the fonts used in your site’s navigational features (like the navigation, sidebar and footer) to keep the focus on your content, keep in mind those areas should have fonts clear enough for a reader to find, read and click. 

Pagespeed is paramount

Unfortunately for designers who could nerd out about fonts for hours, fonts aren’t always the best for pagespeed. And what do users, search engines and social media sites all care about?

Pagespeed. 

Alas, fonts are an area of your brand that you may end up compromising for the sake of speed.

But you do have a few options when it comes to this compromise:

1. Stick to web-safe fonts 

Web-safe fonts are the fastest option because the browser and website aren’t loading any extra files. This can be accomplished via some quick CSS or, if you’re using Trellis, in the Trellis settings.

This is the method we use on our owned-and-operated site, The Hollywood Gossip, which we mention in our case study on how The Hollywood Gossip passed Core Web Vitals.

2. Self-host fonts

With this approach, you can load the fonts into your theme directly, but there is a chance for some slowdown. Chrome and other browsers introduced font fallbacks, but when that fallback font is swapped with your Google Font, cumulative layout shift can occur.

No bueno. 

3. Configure the CSS ‘font-display’ instruction 

This method is a bit more technical, so I’m going to let our Product team take this one: 

4. Install a third-party font 

You can install a font through a service like Google Fonts or Adobe Fonts, but it also means your website can’t show any text until that font loads, so do so at your own risk of not passing Core Web Vitals.

This is definitely our least favorite option. 

But what about my branding? 

Believe me, it hurts my designer soul that some of my favorite fonts aren’t available as web-safe fonts. And it begs the question, why would Google provide web fonts and then ding us for using them? 

But I have faith that the industry will catch up and give us more choices — eventually. In fact, there are new browser capabilities in development that will provide more options to balance performance and font selection. 

My favorite part of being a designer is coming up with creative solutions to difficult problems, so I say there’s still a way you can maintain a branded look without compromising speed: 

Incorporate the non-web-safe font of your choice into your logo or any images you have on your website while still using a web-safe font for text.

Use your favorite design tool to make branded images with the fonts of your choosing, all while keeping your site speed-focused with web-safe fonts. 

And don’t fret — much to any designer’s chagrin, probably no one but you will notice that you make changes to your typefaces. Web-safe fonts are so ubiquitous, most people won’t think twice about seeing them. 

The post How to Choose Fonts for Site Speed and Accessibility appeared first on Mediavine.

On April 7, 2021, the Eleventh Circuit, in a case called Gil. v. Winn Dixie Stores, handed down a very significant ruling in the string of accessibility cases that impact website owners. The court held that websites are not covered as places of public accommodation under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”).

Big News.

As nonlawyers, I imagine right now you are probably thinking, “what on earth does that mean and why should I even care?” Hold on, I promise we are getting there.

In this case, it means that the Court found that the defendant, Winn-Dixie (a chain of supermarkets), did not violate the ADA because its website was not accessible to the plaintiff, who is legally blind.

Many of us reading this may have a strong reaction to such a ruling, because as website owners, we may feel that it is our responsibility to create accessible websites.

In order to better understand this, let me provide you with some background.

The ADA requires that people with disabilities have equal access to goods and services provided in any place of public accommodation. To define the term “place of public accommodation,” the ADA provides examples of physical locations, such as schools, restaurants, stores and hotels.

Since President Bush signed the ADA into law in 1990, the text of the law does not mention websites in the definition of places of public accommodation because websites weren’t a thing back then. In fact, the first website didn’t appear until the following year. (Fun fact!)

Unfortunately, the law has not yet caught up to the digital age and the definition of “a place of public accommodation” has not changed, despite so much of our lives being lived out online.

In order to make the web a more inclusive place for all individuals, lawyers began to file lawsuits against website owners arguing that websites should be considered places of public accommodation under the ADA.

There is also a set of guidelines to inform website owners on how to provide an accessible website called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG for short, that is widely known as the gold standard for accessibility.

Despite the fact that the text of the ADA does not mention websites in any manner, many other courts (i.e. not the Eleventh Circuit) have found that websites, in certain instances, are places of public accommodation under Title III of the ADA. Therefore, under these court rulings, website owners must make their websites accessible.

In fact, many of us have known website owners who have been served demand letters or been sued for failing to make their website accessible under the ADA.

So, you are probably wondering — what on earth do I do now?

The courts are split; Congress hasn’t done anything, and I really want to avoid that dreaded lawsuit.

We believe it is a best practice to follow the WCAG 2.1 Levels A and AA. There is no doubt that the plaintiff will appeal the Gil decision to the Supreme Court.

If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, we may finally have some clarity. In the meantime, two members of Congress have introduced a new law, the Online Accessibility Act, which, if passed, would bring websites under the scope of the ADA.

Until that time, though, get to know WCAG, update your websites (alt text is a good place to start) and feel pretty great that you have an accessible website.

Jamie Lieberman, owner and founder of Hashtag Legal has been a practicing lawyer for 15 years. As an experienced entrepreneur, Jamie understands the unique needs of business owners at different stages in their organization’s growth. Today, she partners with clients across verticals including influencer marketing, creative services and e-commerce. She has a deep commitment to making legal accessible and regularly speaks about legal matters, the art of negotiation and entrepreneurial topics at leading industry events such as Alt Summit, Podcast Movement and FinCon, and as an expert source for media outlets like Digiday and Forbes. She also offers courses teaching legal basics through the (un) business school.

Don’t miss our conversation with Jamie all about accessibility guidelines.

The post The Latest Web Accessibility Case And Why It Matters appeared first on Mediavine.

I’m always surprised to see the ongoing popularity of this post, fittingly titled “Ad Revenue By The Seasons,” and its relevance to publisher earnings ever since it was first published.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised though. History tends to repeat itself, as the saying goes, and in our case, the advertising industry proves no exception.

In this edition of Behind the Numbers with Brad (BTNWB), we’re diving into seasonality once more, this time with a definitive guide to specific dates (and printable eCPM prediction calendar!) to keep in mind throughout the year.

The beauty of being in the publishing world for 15+ years and representing nearly 8,000 sites in nearly every lifestyle niche that exists is that Mediavine has data.

Billions and billions of points of data.

Again, history repeats itself, even during the trying times of a pandemic. Life as we know it has changed in many ways, but spending patterns around major holidays and events — and lower spending patterns around the ends of fiscal quarters and years — persist.

In order to outline the exact dates that you, a publisher, should focus on to optimize content and earnings, I’ve teamed up with Cynthia, Director of Mediavine’s Business Intelligence team (a.k.a. the keeper of the data), to isolate the hottest (and coolest) days of the year.

So to speak. These don’t always correlate with the weather outside.

To arrive at these “hot or not” days, we’ve analyzed eCPMs by calendar day, using the last few years for comparison. Mediavine calculates eCPM by looking at the average CPM and multiplying it by the fill rate on an individual day.

CPM and fill rate are both heavily influenced by increased competition, which results from advertisers eagerly positioning themselves to get in front of the right audiences during the periods of higher consumer spending, such as holidays.

Without further ado, here’s our eCPM guide for 2021!

(If you’d prefer a printable version, we got you! Print either the color or grayscale PDF to pin to the wall behind your desk. You can also find them in this Google Drive Folder for easy cloud storage.)

The beautiful graphic above, put together by the amazing graphic designers on the Marketing team, is a perfect illustration of each quarter and month, complete with major holidays and events associated with each and how low or high we would expect eCPMs to be.

Going forward, this will be my favorite graphic to reference as we move through the year, and as a publisher it should be high on your list as well because it beautifully illustrates the best days of each month (and each month does have them), from the slower times of January (new quarter, new year) to late November (holidays).

As you can see, it also clearly illustrates how the end of the month is almost always better than the beginning of the month, no matter the time of year.

So, how can you put this graphic to use as a publisher?

First, print it out. Now, laminate it, and hang it above your desk, on the refrigerator or on the mirror. I mostly kid but not entirely.

Think of this as your content roadmap for the rest of the year. Take a look at the upcoming days with the best eCPMs, and look back at your previous content.

Is your content relevant to the holiday or events around those days?

For example, did you have a recipe or travel post that performed really well last year around Memorial Day? 

If so, shine that post up! Add images, link to relevant content or even just break up those larger paragraphs into smaller paragraphs to maximize your advertising real estate. 

Focus on promoting that post ahead of the days in question and allow that momentum to carry you into the highest earning day of that holiday cycle.

Don’t have a post for that holiday? Well, now you know when to create one. Make and push out some new content to capitalize on the traffic and earnings when eCPMs are highest.

At Mediavine, we are always challenging our publishers to make the most of their hard earned traffic, and using this seasonal data is a powerful tool in your arsenal.

We hope that the data acquired and organized into this amazing graphic helps you meet the challenges throughout the year to make 2021 your best yet.

The post Best Days of the Year (with Printable) —Behind the Numbers with Brad appeared first on Mediavine.