SODP Dispatch - 3 July 2025

A Publisher’s Engagement Playbook!

🚀 We’ve launched the first industry research report in partnership with Glide Publishing Platform!

Join global publishing leaders, product owners, data strategists, and tech innovators to benchmark how your team personalizes, engages, and grows using first-party data.

🔍️ What’s in it for you?

• Benchmark CDP Engagement, Adoption & Performance

• Discover Emerging Personalization Trends

• Access Actionable Best Practices

• Learn From Real-World Challenges & Wins

Whether you're using behavioural signals, AI-powered tools, or topic-based tagging, your insights matter. Help shape a report that reflects what’s really driving results across the industry.

👉️ Take the survey now! We need 300 respondents, and the survey closes on the 30th of July, 2025. Be the first to receive exclusive insights.

Using TikTok Could Be Making You More Politically Polarized, New Study Finds

By Zicheng Cheng

People on TikTok tend to follow accounts that align with their own political beliefs, meaning the platform is creating political echo chambers among its users. These findings, from a study my collaborators, Yanlin Li and Homero Gil de Zúñiga, and I published in the academic journal New Media & Society, show that people mostly hear from voices they already agree with.

We analyzed the structure of different political networks on TikTok and found that right-leaning communities are more isolated from other political groups and from mainstream news outlets. Looking at their internal structures, the right-leaning communities are more tightly connected than their left-leaning counterparts. In other words, conservative TikTok users tend to stick together. They rarely follow accounts with opposing views or mainstream media accounts. Liberal users, on the other hand, are more likely to follow a mix of accounts, including those they might disagree with.

Our study is based on a massive dataset of over 16 million TikTok videos from more than 160,000 public accounts between 2019 and 2023. We saw a spike of political TikTok videos during the 2020 U.S. presidential election. More importantly, people aren’t just passively watching political content; they’re actively creating political content themselves.

Some people are more outspoken about politics than others. We found that users with stronger political leanings and those who get more likes and comments on their videos are more motivated to keep posting. This shows the power of partisanship, but also the power of TikTok’s social rewards system. Engagement signals – likes, shares, comments – are like a fuel, encouraging users to create even more.

🔍 Edge of Search 2025

The 2025 edition of this in-person conference brings together leading search marketing professionals to share real-world strategies, future-focused SEO skills, and proven frameworks. You will learn how SEO really works, sharpen your search skills for what’s next, and boost the performance of your digital team with insights built for action. See more ▸

🤖 AI Monetization Layer Framework V1

Off the tail of last week's AI Monetization Layer POV, I've drafted up a V1 framework that goes even deeper into each bucket, the sub-buckets in each, there are 10 in total in the V1. Inside the framework, I've broken down each of the 10 sub-buckets with an explanation of what it is, why you as a pub might or might not want to consider it, and some thought-starting tips for each. See more ▸

📚 LearningSEO.io: AI Search Optimization Toolkit

LearningSEO.io offers an AI Search Optimization Toolkit to help SEOs stay ahead of AI-powered search engines and chatbots. As traditional search engines evolve with AI technologies, it's crucial that content not only ranks well on Google but also remains visible to AI-based search engines, such as chatbots and generative engines. The toolkit provides a curated set of tools designed to optimize performance across key AI search areas such as GEO, AEO and LLMO. See more ▸

By Vahe Arabian

📉 From clicks to commitment: why publishers must prioritize dwell time

You’ve got 3 seconds – or you’ve lost your reader. That’s why dwell time now beats CTR as the metric that matters most for publishers.

Search and social algorithms are shifting: clicks are no longer enough. Instead, they reward content that holds attention. Chartbeat and others report a 200% YoY surge in publishers tracking scroll depth, engaged time, and attention metrics.

CTR shows interest. Dwell time shows value. It’s the difference between a visitor skimming a headline and someone staying to consume your story. HubSpot notes that 55% of visitors spend fewer than 15 seconds on a page – if you don’t hook them immediately, they bounce, and the algorithm notices.

This “3-second rule” is more than a headline gimmick – it’s how modern content survives.

🔧 How to boost dwell time on your stories:

• Hook-driven intros: Make your first few lines irresistible. Summarise the “so what” fast.

• Interactive assets: Drop in videos, charts, polls, or timelines. Break up the scroll and earn more minutes.

• Scroll-triggered CTAs: Turn deep readers into subscribers. Place CTAs after key engagement points – not just at the top or bottom of the page.

📌 Here are the takeaways for publishers:

1. Dwell time > CTR: Focus on holding attention, not just earning the click.

2. Depth beats virality: Algorithms favour scroll depth, time-on-page, and return visits.

3. Engagement is the new growth engine: Improve it with sharp intros, dynamic assets, and smart CTA placements.

ChatGPT referrals to news sites are growing, but not enough to offset search declines | TechCrunch

Referrals from ChatGPT to news publishers are growing, but not enough to counter the decline in clicks resulting from users increasingly getting their news directly from AI or AI-powered search results, according to a report from digital market intelligence company Similarweb. Since the launch of Google’s AI Overviews in May 2024, the firm found that the number of news searches on the web that result in no click-throughs to news websites has grown from 56% to nearly 69% as of May 2025.
Read more ▸

Millions of websites to get 'game-changing' AI bot blocker | BBC News

Millions of websites - including Sky News, The Associated Press and Buzzfeed - will now be able to block artificial intelligence (AI) bots from accessing their content without permission. The new system is being rolled out by internet infrastructure firm, Cloudflare, which hosts around a fifth of the internet. Eventually, sites will be able to ask for payment from AI firms in return for having their content scraped. Many prominent writers, artists, musicians and actors have accused AI firms of training systems on their work without permission or payment.
Read more ▸

‘Go niche or go broke’: Commercial pressure hits general publishers hardest as platforms renege on deals, forcing revenue diversification scramble | Mi3

Social platforms are where Australians increasingly look to get their news fix, per the University of Canberra’s Digital News Report 2025, but squeezed publishers hoping to monetise those growing social audiences would be bitterly disappointed. The unwillingness of multinationals like Meta to share revenue gleaned from publisher content has forced many news companies to turn off platform. Read more ▸

Google's latest proposal to EU regulators could reshape how search results are displayed, with potential ripple effects for advertisers across key verticals. | Search Engine Land

Google submitted a revised proposal to the European Commission in a last-minute effort to avoid a new antitrust fine tied to allegations it favors its own services in search results, according to a confidential document reviewed by Reuters. Why it matters. The proposal comes just days before a pivotal July 7–8 workshop in Brussels, where Google will meet with competitors and regulators to discuss its practices under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). Read more ▸

Cloudflare Sparks SEO Debate With New AI Crawler Payment System | SEJ

Cloudflare’s new “pay per crawl” initiative has sparked a debate among SEO professionals and digital marketers. The company has introduced a default AI crawler-blocking system alongside new monetization options for publishers. This enables publishers to charge AI companies for access, which could impact how web content is consumed and valued in the age of generative search. Read more ▸

Google’s customizable Gemini chatbots are now in Docs, Sheets, and Gmail | The Verge

Google is giving Workspace users a way to access “Gems” — customizable versions of its Gemini AI assistant that specialize in specific tasks — without opening the Gemini app. Gems are now available directly in the side panel of Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, Drive, and Gmail, allowing users to access custom chatbots they’ve created or a selection of pre-made offerings without switching between apps. Read more ▸