SODP Dispatch - 9 January 2025

Announcing 2nd Annual WP Publisher Success Week!

Back by popular demand is the second edition of an event focused on WordPress best practices for digital publishing and news media sites.

🗓️ 24-28 February 2025
📍 Online

Register for a single session or the entire event.

We are once again partnering up with Multidots to bring our network of publishers a series of workshops, presentations, and panel discussions covering subjects like:

✅ What's coming in 2025
✅ Streamlining editorial workflows
✅ Migration essentials
✅ Security and maintenance at scale
✅ AI potential for media publishers

Grab you pass to this excellent educational and networking opportunity.

📈 Google Trends Chrome extension

Supercharge Google Trends with absolute search volume numbers, rich insights, advanced tracking, superior trend discovery, and more.
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🌎 Local & International Google SERP Checker

This is an easy way to get localized SERPs at an exact location without any additional tools.
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By Vahe Arabian

➡️ Future trends in first-party data

Even Google has still not identified clear-cut viable alternatives to third-party cookies in 2024. That is why the phasing out of third-party data on Chrome is getting delayed further.

But there is no doubt that third-party data's days are numbered.

Harry Brockbanks from Ezoic highlighted three potential future trends for first-party data collection at PubTech2024:

• The use of email lists will only increase as they are relatively easy to acquire and offer excellent performance for both publishers and advertisers.

• When email is not available, contextual data solutions like Google Protected Audience API also hold some promise.

• Publishers may also want to invest more in audience segmentation for a chance at better PMP deals.

In the immediate future, email offers one of the best ways for publishers to monetize first-party data using ID solutions. Advertisers have shown that they are willing to spend more when users are identified. Even on your audience side, the users are getting much better, higher-quality ad experiences.

Harry Brockbanks had this to say to publishers who are on the fence about investing in first-party data, especially email lists and ID solutions: “Right now, the demand is really high (for secure first-party data solutions). But in comparison, the supply of websites able to provide large amounts of first-party data is really low. So the time to really start taking advantage of this is now.”

Google AI Overviews Appear in 18% Of Publisher-Related Queries | SEJ

Data indicates that 63% of sources cited in AI Overviews are not found in the top 10 traditional search results. The study also notes that Google is using YouTube content in AI Overviews. This change could give publishers with video strategies more visibility opportunities.
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Reuters, Gannett to sell bundled subscriptions | Axios

Reuters, the global newswire, and Gannett, America's largest local newspaper company, are launching a new content bundle. The partnership opens up a new content syndication revenue stream for Gannett and expands Reuters' reach into local news.
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Google’s ‘Daily Listen’ lab is a personalized podcast based on your Discover feed | 9to5Google

This personalized AI-powered audio experiment will appear in the “Space” carousel underneath the Search bar at the top of the Google app on Android and iOS. Tapping the Daily Listen card, which is dated and labeled “Made for you,” launches a fullscreen player.
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Google algorithm updates 2024 in review: 4 core updates and 3 spam updates | Search Engine Land

The March 2024 core update was massive, updating several systems within the core algorithm, plus bringing in a few new large spam policies.
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Academics team up to address the biggest challenges in local news research | NiemanLab

“A lot of people assume that there is some list somewhere of all the local news outlets in particular places. And that just doesn’t exist.”
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