SODP Dispatch - 23 January 2025

WP Publisher Success Week: New Panelists

Two new panelists are joining the second edition of WP Publisher Success Week.

The panel – Website Migration Essentials – will cover best practices for SEO retention, site speed optimization, and hosting selection. You will also have a chance to engage in a Q&A where the panelists will address specific attendee challenges in these areas.

WP Publisher Success Week - 5 days, 5 sessions. Register for an individual session or the entire event.

🗓️ 24-28 February 2025
📍 Online

Universities Are Mapping Where Local News Outlets Are Still Thriving − And Where Gaps Persist

Local news mapping in communities goes back more than a decade. But ever since researchers at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University created a first-of-its-kind interactive news map of New Jersey in 2020, similar projects have exploded.

🤖 Tasks automation

ChatGPT dropped a new feature called Tasks - and it lets you automate actions inside ChatGPT with zero technical skills. It’s basically your personal AI agent, now available to everyone.
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🔍️ HTTP header & redirect checker

This Chrome extension flags up 301, 302, 404 and 500 HTTP Status Codes as well as client side redirects like Meta and Javascript redirects, bringing potential issues that may not otherwise be seen to your attention immediately.
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By Vahe Arabian

🚀 Publisher SEO resources

As we're all aware, publisher SEO is a relatively niche subset of SEO, and information can sometimes be hard to access in the public domain. I've compiled a list of great industry contributors that can greatly aid in navigating your publisher's SEO journey.

1. Search Engine Journal - Your go-to source industry for the latest in SEO, content marketing, and digital strategy.
   

2. Lily Ray's Twitter - Lily Ray goes beyond E-E-A-T into the trenches and provides her findings and perspectives on the changing SERP landscape for all to apply.
   

3. SEO for Google News - An irregular newsletter by Barry Adams 📰 with insights, expertise, tips, and updates for anyone interested in optimising for Google News and Discover.
   

4. WTF is SEO? - a newsletter for news publishers by Jessie Willms and Shelby Blackley.
   

5. NewzDash - Your go-to monitoring and analytics platform for comprehensive top stories by John Shehata.
   

6. Trisolute News Dashboard - This is your one-stop destination for real-time news analytics and performance tracking.
   

7. Google News Initiative – A global program designed to support quality journalism and empower news organizations with playbooks and resources on audience development, reader revenue, and journalism.
   

8. Glenn Gabe's Twitter - With years of experience and a knack for decoding search engine trends, Glenn's tweets offer valuable insights to stay ahead in the ever-changing SERP landscape.
   

9. Detailed.com - is your go-to resource for in-depth analysis on top-performing publishers by Glen Allsopp.
   

10. SHE Media - SHE Media Workshops offer immersive training for content creators and digital entrepreneurs. Jiji Ugboma is doing an awesome job leading more audience development and analytics training.

Google’s documentation update contains hidden SEO insights | SEJ

Google quietly updated their Estimated Salary (Occupation) Structured Data page with subtle edits that make the information more relevant and easily understood. The changes show how a page can be analyzed for weaknesses and subsequently improved.
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NYT eyes U.S. subscription bundle partners | Axios

The Times has been using partnerships to bolster its international subscriber base for the last few months. Now, it's in the early stages of bringing that strategy to the U.S. by focusing on deals that offer access to its lifestyle subscription products, such as cooking, games and sports.
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Substack advertising is turning writers into part-time sales reps | The Wall Street Journal

A look at growth of sponsorships and ads for independent newsletters on platforms like Substack and Beehiiv: rates, formats, and management tools vary widely.
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Google: Sometimes doing SEO can cause more problems | Search Engine Roundtable

John Mueller of Google said that sometimes doing SEO can cause sites more problems with search and search rankings. Sometimes not doing SEO, might be better, John implies.
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Bluesky launches a custom feed for vertical videos | TechCrunch

Bluesky’s mobile app now has a trending videos section in the Explore tab, and like with any other short video app, you can swipe up to see more videos. You can pin the feed to have it show up on your home screen or add it to your list of feeds.
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