> My main mission is to put new information on the internet. It's harder to do this if AI destroys the economics of it. It's also harder without an audience who provides feedback and encouragement.
I also run an online website that provides valuable information. However, we have a very different philosophy. The mission is very not not to "put new information on the internet." Rather, it is to provide a valuable and much needed service for people in our niche. While we do greatly benefit from SEO, we also work very hard to cultivate our audience, both in terms of finding new people, and nurturing our relationship with the existing ones. "Information on the internet" has zero inherent value without an audience. If you're not working to build that audience (outside of third party platforms), then it's going to be very tough in the long run, and you'll run into situations exactly like this.
FWIW, our SEO traffic has remained shockingly steady, though the search console has reported a dramatic increase in "impressions," likely due to featuring our website in AI generated summaries. We'll see if things change over the long-term, but for now, we're not changing any strategies based on this.
There is no "nowadays." There never an era of big Internet audiences without third party platforms. The early web only had small audiences, and the reason it worked was that people were okay with that.
I also run an online website that provides valuable information. However, we have a very different philosophy. The mission is very not not to "put new information on the internet." Rather, it is to provide a valuable and much needed service for people in our niche. While we do greatly benefit from SEO, we also work very hard to cultivate our audience, both in terms of finding new people, and nurturing our relationship with the existing ones. "Information on the internet" has zero inherent value without an audience. If you're not working to build that audience (outside of third party platforms), then it's going to be very tough in the long run, and you'll run into situations exactly like this.
FWIW, our SEO traffic has remained shockingly steady, though the search console has reported a dramatic increase in "impressions," likely due to featuring our website in AI generated summaries. We'll see if things change over the long-term, but for now, we're not changing any strategies based on this.