Tips Tuesday – WP Drama, AI Paying Creators, Video Reviews Pay

Tips this week include:

• Check your WP 7.1.1 update
• Roadmap to WP 7.2
• Matt returns as CEO
• Cloudflare changes to mixed-use bots
• Google pilots AI Payouts for creators
• AI accused of stealing from content creators
• Will we ever see a class action lawsuit?
• The biggest issue for content creators now
• Why video will rule
• Why to do demos and reviews
• Substack is good for written content

WordPress Tips

WP 7.1.1 Update

This rolled out last Thursday and should have been an auto update for you. 

But do check that it did update and do it manually if needed.

There were multiple security fixes in this release and they are being actively exploited on any sites that have not updated yet.

Roadmap to WP 7.2

The wishlist for inclusion in WP 7.2 is out.

THE big thing on that list is the REACT 19 upgrade.

This is the thing they wanted in WP 7.0 and 7.1 that could bork some of our plugins.

They can’t keep putting it off forever, and my bet is that it will make it into this release. Why do I say that? Because Matt Mullenweg himself is the lead and he is not beyond shoving something down everyone’s throat, ready or not. Remember him releasing Gutenberg before it was ready?

And why or why they want to do such a thing on a release that hits right in the middle of the holidays is beyond me. (It’s due out in late December.)

I can tell you now that we likely won’t be doing this upgrade until January no matter what’s in it.

Matt Returns as CEO

Well, that didn’t last long!!!

You may recall last week that I reported that he was asked to step down from the CEO position and the CFO took over.

Well, two days later Matt Mullenweg was reinstated as the CEO of Automattic, with the full board’s support.

Three of the four folks who “conspired” to have Matt removed as CEO have left the board and two of them left their jobs at Automattic. All of this was tied to the dispute between WP and WP Engine, although no one involved would publicly comment on it.

And there are more changes.

Matt removed all Slack admins from the company workspace.

So, this shake up may not be over yet and more Automattic employees may be freshening up their resume.

SEO Tips

Cloudflare Changes to Mixed-Use Bots

There are 3 main types of bot crawls on your site:

• Search Engines – like Google and Bing
• AI Search – similar to Search Engine bots, but for AI citations
• AI Crawl – for training AI models

The problem we’ve always faced is how to block the bots for training while not blocking the ones for search.

That’s because some bots are multi-use and do both during a single crawl.

Cloudflare says they have now found a way to disentangle this bot crawl mess and reports it has given us a way to let AI Search bots through while blocking AI Crawl bots for training.

I don’t trust this new method any further than I can spit. That’s especially true with the wide variety of Google bots – there are at least 5 of them.

Nor do I trust Cloudflare’s sorting method.

Even with zero blocking rules of the above bots, Cloudflare still turns some of them away – in droves.

I had to add an Allow rule for the legit bots and AI user bots that we DO want to access our sites just to get around Cloudflare’s own goofy rule set.

NOTE: You have to be SUPER careful with the way you do that as there are 100s of bad bots that try to spoof the names and headers of the legit bots. And we most definitely do want those spoofs blocked. I have rules for that on Cloudflare too.

So, we most definitely will not be relying on Cloudflare’s new sorting feature. We’ll keep what we’ve got for now.

Google Pilots AI Payouts for Creators

Google announced a new pilot program that will pay publishers for AI answers that appear in Search.

They say the pilot is “a new way to partner with websites whose content meaningfully contributes to the “freshness and factuality” of generative AI responses through grounding.”

Basically, they reward publishers whose content significantly shaped the AI response. 

They may or may not link back to that source, though.

The whole thing runs through Google Search Console.

They didn’t say how many publishers they approached or how many of them accepted this offer.

But, I am 100% positive that whatever payment Google does offer will be pennies compared to the ad revenue the source site could make if a link were provided to that content – you know, the way Search used to work before AI summaries.

AI Accused of Stealing from Content Creators

Duh!!!! We’ve known that for years now.

The NY Times vs OpenAI lawsuit has been making its way through the courts for years.

And now they have released unredacted statements from it, including this one:

“Executives working on AI at Microsoft and OpenAI admitted what its critics have been saying all along: Large language models are predatory pieces of technology that have been built on what a Microsoft executive called “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” and the “largest theft of labor in human history.” An internal Microsoft document said generative AI products have created a “doom loop” that is killing “the entire web.”

The NY Times is now asking the judge for a summary judgement.

Will We Ever See a Class Action Lawsuit?

Here’s the thing.

AI didn’t just steal info from big news outlets and book publishers. It stole from every creator with a website, or a video that has transcripts available, plus everyone who has ever made a post or comment on a forum such as Reddit.

No matter what becomes of this one case, we need a class action lawsuit to ensure every creator is repaid for the use of their content.

And then we need another lawsuit for the “doom loop” mess they have turned the internet into.

There is no longer any platform you can go to online to escape AI.

The Biggest Issue for Content Creators Now

AI is a very serious problem for content creators of all flavors.

But the very worst thing that happened to us was Google turning its back on its primary mission – which was a parser of all content and a server of the best fit for the query.

Google had NEVER created its own content prior to AI summaries.

It relied on US to create content that it ranked and served to searchers.

The whole point of Google was to use it to find the info you were looking for and then leave.

Google’s new mission is to have you stay on the Search Engine for as long as possible. 

No matter what becomes of the big AI companies, until Google actually rewards legit content creators again, the internet will remain borked.

Their offer to pay creators for “shaping” AI summaries is not even close to going in the right direction. That still keeps searchers on Google, not on the creator’s site.

Video Will Rule

The only saving grace in this is video.

Google still ranks YouTube videos at the top of search results when one is relevant for the query. And YouTube is still a viable search engine in itself.

And that may be what it comes down to for the whole internet.

The only way folks can trust the info they are getting is to see it being delivered from a real person.

Of course, there are plenty of fake AI avatars now and some are very convincing. But folks are going to weed those out eventually, IMO.

Demos and Reviews

And AI still can’t do “hand demos” very well, where you see someone’s hands putting together a recipe on their kitchen counter, even if they don’t show their faces.

AI can’t do product reviews well where folks are shown how to use the thing either.

And now with the YouTube/Amazon partnership, you can put an active link in the video now too.

I’m in the process of creating new product reviews this week and I’ll be making use of this new feature. Plus, I’ll be revamping my older product review videos to put a clickable link in it too, if that’s possible.

There are plenty of folks who have already made bank with TikTok Shop for years as well.

FYI, my product review videos also show unboxing and assembly, when that is appropriate. And that brings in a LOT more traffic than just doing a review of the product use.

Substack is Good for Written Content

There are still plenty of folks who prefer to read content created by a person rather than search AI summaries or watch videos.

They have made a nice collective for themselves on Substack.

I tried Substack for BlogAid, but honestly, that’s not where my type of site owner peeps are. Same with Heartwood Art. It’s just not a good fit there for me.

But, I’ve had several clients make a go of Substack and they are doing well with it – some are doing better there than they were with their sites, that includes foodie bloggers.

So, if you’re all into writing, and want to attract folks who love to read, then Substack may be the best fit for you now.

Keep in mind that it is not a “broadcast only” type of platform. To do well, you need to engage on the social media part of it too.