Content Aware media news: July 27, 2023

SEO secrets from the experts, Glide updates, and "junk news" AI-sites exposed - all in this week's Content Aware.

Published: 07:00, 28 July 2023

GPP updates 1: Getty Images integration
If you are reading this, there is a very good chance you use Getty Images - the world's biggest image library, and supplier to countless sites and newspapers. If you ever found image management an intimidating or fiddly process, you'll love the latest Glide platform update: direct integration with Getty Images. Users can now search, select, and import images from their Getty account without having to leave the Glide screen - a huge time-saver, and a handy enforcer of good SEO practices too. GPP users will be able to see and (where authorised) benefit from the changes shortly. Want to know more about using Getty? Speak to any of your GPP reps.
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SEO secrets 1: Googlebot crawl and how to get it
Your site's Googlebot crawl rate is one of the key factors in SEO and ranking results. Barry Adams regularly shows publishers worldwide that he is seemingly better educated about Google's methods than Google themselves, which is why his latest newsletter 'Advanced Insights into Googlebot Crawling' is crucial reading for anyone trying to get content sent further and seen more. As a bonus, he reveals a theoretical blocker to prevent AI LLMs from scraping your site too.
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SEO secrets 2: How one of the biggest does it
Big publishers all have their own SEO and web performance techniques, so it's unusual to get one of the largest to outline its internal SEO guidelines, and publish them as a guide on its site. If you've ever wondered how the Washington Post does it, have a look here. A useful guide for staff rather than some algorithm buster - but very handy and on the nose.
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Corbidge comments on... the engagement paradox for platforms
It's interesting to look at research into what users on the large search and social platform like to engage with - and what a bind it can put those same platforms in terms of what content they promote or bury in feeds. In short, they might not like what you like - and not want to show it to you. Against this, what advantages do publishers have? Rob investigates.
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GPP updates 2: Arabic right-to-left support
One of the greatest challenges for large and professional publishers in the Middle East and Arabic-speaking nations is often the lack of support by publishing technology and CMS for right-to-left Arabic writing and reading by writers and editors. We are proud to announce that as a continuation of our i18n Internationalization and Localization programme, Arabic RTL support will be introduced to Glide in the next few days. As with other upgrades to GPP, it will become available to organisations without their needing to make any changes.

United we stand
Publishers from around the world met to discuss a unified approach to making Big Tech pay for content. As the platforms talk down the value of news and use news shutdowns as a weapon, a tough approach is urged. "If you move together they cannot break you,” is how one attendee put it.
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The humans behind "magical" automation
Cleaning and checking the data used by Machine Learning models is a vastly less automated process than many people believe. Here the WSJ reports on the workers in Kenya who must sift through some pretty awful stuff in order to make sure that ChatGPT doesn't spit out bad and offensive poetry (or whatever it might emit).
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Reports from the Canada News War
The reaction to Canada's implementation of a law requiring platforms to pay for using and monetising news content has been quite volatile. Despite being all about the internet and content, the giants fear that Canada is a little too close to the US geographically and worry of a legislative spill-over heading south if the Canadian model is at all successful.
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Do you know what a UAIN is?
UAIN stands for Unreliable AI-Generated News and information website - a junk news site generated by AI just to scoop up automated ad spend. Newsguard has been tracking such sites, and unearthed a list of generic-named bot-driven examples. "In many cases, the revenue model for these websites is programmatic advertising under which the ad-tech industry delivers ads without regard to the nature or quality of the website." Quite.
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Continental selection of success
Three European publishers with very different audiences explain how they're making the revenue mix work for them, and in particular how a concentration on existing subscribers reaps its own rewards.
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We're caught in an auto-regressive trap, there's no turning back
Getting a chatbot to double down on its initial error is the name of the game. Once you've set it up, watch it make mistakes. Here's how you do it.
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