so you didn’t get this newsletter the last two thursdays. maybe you noticed. maybe it literally didn’t occur to you bc why would it, our inboxes are so full omg.

there are reasons: i turned 40 and had the unexpected joy (sincere) of surprise guests in town to help me celebrate. my husband and i got ourselves ready for our big 40th birthday vacation (i’m writing this from bordeaux right now, which has been the literal hottest city in the world all week long). but maybe the biggest reason is that the “well, actually” segment for this particular edition started with some research…then a lil more…then it was a full-blown rabbit hole network with probably 100+ tabs open at once plus the need for a new highlighter extension for my browser.

as a result, this particular edition is a bit shorter as a newsletter, but the “well, actually” segment will link to a much longer blog post with a REALLLLLLY comprehensive overview of the recent changes Google has made to their search engine algorithm and experience, and why you, dear reader, should give a shit, even if you don’t work in any real relation to Google itself.

bonjour, au revoir, see you next week, bon appetit. 🥐🥐

in this edition:

*a quick promise to you: our newsletter will always only ever be written by humans and never by robots. we wish we could say that this is out of love & respect for writing & the environment, and while those are both true, it’s mostly that we really tried a couple years ago for months on end to get the robots to write in this very weird (but always hilarious, obvi) tone and it just…has not delivered. easier AND funnier to keep it highly manual and we are very okay with that. thank you for your understanding.

while normally how a mansplainer gets his water, “well, actually” will explore the different angles of an argument or conversation & favor celebrating nuance & complexity over the short-term satisfaction of “hot take culture”.

As I said in the intro of this edition, as well as alluded to in the last edition of this newsletter, Google made some pretty radical changes to their Search algorithm and experience, as announced at their annual I/O conference a month ago. Right on time, The Internet made a lot of claims about these changes that not only weren’t true (what was that about engagement bait again?) but created a lot of weird misinformation about what would happen next.

Luckily, though, you have people like me, just out here doing all the deep research on this for the fun of it (we all define “fun” differently right) to make sure you know what’s ACTUALLY going on.

This week’s Well, Actually is a deep dive. Like…scuba deep. It is long because it is thorough—it’s one of those pieces I recommend you set aside some time for. I’ve gone real, real deep on what Google announced, what’s actually happening, what you can expect from your experience, how it impacts all of us, and what I think is going to happen next. The great news is that you do NOT have to work in marketing or technology or own a business in order to understand all of it: I made very specific primer sections for you so that you can understand EXACTLY how the sausage is made (instead of relying on monetized social media creators to explain it, bc i’m out here doing this for freeeeee, babyyyyyy).

There’s a lot here, but it’s really fucking important, and it’s what I’m calling a true “Canary Moment,” one of those watershed moments where we are seeing the metaphorical Man Behind the Curtain and how this move is designed to re-shape everything about our internet experience moving forward. I hope you’ll embrace the long-form, absorb all this new information, and dig in with me—we aren’t cattle, we don’t need to be herded, and we can push back against these changes as long as we actually understand them and know what to do next.

danielle has too many tabs open, but she swears they’re mostly interesting.

no need to buy anything. this newsletter is free, and i appreciate your readership AND if you just click this ad, you can help me get paid just a lil bit with someone else’s cash.

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a statistic that made us go “hmmm” (likely not written on a bathroom stall) & some color to explain it.

each week, we’ll end our newsletter with action item(s), or “what TF are you supposed to do about all this now?” we hope they help. 🤞🏻