In 20 years, I never saw a legit copywriter use an "eyebrow." Now AI loves that shit, it's everywhere. And I have to tell every designer/dev that they rarely help, especially when they're generic throwaway copy. And they reek of AI.

Just spun up a branded subreddit for a client. Got our first comment! ... It's an AI comment!

As a rough rule, search traffic is down 25% YoY for 3 years in a row. imo, here's why: 1) Google AIOs drive little traffic 2) Google is shoving more ads into everything 3) Users are bailing to LLMs, the pie keeps shrinking I don't see this stopping. Proceed accordingly.

If I ever get to speak with whoever came up with EEAT at Google, I'll tell them 3 things: 1) I admire the aspiration of EEAT. Terrible fucking acronym though. I feel like a toddler at the dentist every time I say it. EEEEEEEEat.

This is the little shit that scammed me out of $60. Isn't it adorable? Don't be fooled! If you see this cute cow on Instagram, you're about to be scammed (most likely). Want to see how the scam works in detail? Link below.

I have one goal for 2026. Only one KPI. - - - Do people that I respect like my shit? That's it. Every other metric can fuck off. And no, I'm not measuring any of this. Gonna read the tea leaves.

Absolutely pro move by the OpenAI comms team: announcing a security incident the night before Thanksgiving. Someone got into Mixpanel and grabbed a bunch of OpenAI user data (names, emails, geo, org info, etc). Sounds like OpenAI already booted Mixpanel out of production. lol

how many email marketing campaigns just got postponed by 24 hours?

A lot of the GEO/AEO agency work has become a sanitized label for Reddit astroturfing.

A Reddit mod has spent years tearing down the coding bootcamp space, relentlessly attacking the leading bootcamp: Codesmith. This is, by far, the most fucked up thing I've seen on Reddit: larslofgren.com/codesmith-re...

The Story of Codesmith: How a Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp By Becoming a Reddit Moderator

Let’s say you decide to start a coding bootcamp. Your background is in pedagogy and you love teaching. Your parents were teachers. You find a co-founder, raise a bit of money, and pour your soul into ...

larslofgren.com

Easiest way to know I'll have to overall a WordPress site? # of plugins. Less than 10: Things are tight. Nothing to worry about. 10-20: Some loose ends to deal with. 20+: Buckle up.

Investigative research is just like product development. Once you stop getting surprised by stuff, it's time to build and ship.

An idiot going nowhere and a true pro going long is often indecipherable for years at a time.

Amazing, just got my first fake DMCA takedown. Holy shit are these things easy to abuse.

I gotta admit it, when you start with really high quality content and ask an AI tool to create content based on it (headlines, promotional emails, social posts, etc), that AI content gets exceptionally good. It's all about having that quality base though. No base = AI slop

No black color for the Apple 17 Pro. da fuq First time in a decade I'm not immediately buying the new one

So far, the Google monopoly ruling appears toothless to me. If I was a Google exec, I'd be celebrating right now. Some reporting requirements, need to build a syndication service and offer it at cost, and no more exclusivity contracts. Pretty easy to check all those off.

I take enormous delight in writing a take down piece on a shady company and then ranking for their brand term in google. Just saw a new one pop. Hit #3 for vendafly. I cackle like an idiot every time this happens.

One of the most frustrating parts of this AI hype cycle is how it completely sucks the air out of the room for any other type of content.

There's a non-zero chance that Reddit gobbles up high-intent search demand, then ChatGPT, etc grab everything else. Leaving Google with fuck all

Dead giveaway for AI content: "Why X Matters". AI tools love that god damn phrase.

I never thought I'd think wistfully of featured snippets, like a long lost childhood toy

Sigh... the #1 rank for "calendly alternatives" is an exact match .org domain. It's also the top listed resource in the AIO. -DR of 16 -An extremely low effort 1 page website -No affiliate links My bet is they're selling placements on the page to some of the vendors.

So is Google's AI push killing the open web? I'm already seeing it first hand. I know of multiple sites (DRs of 90+ and 1 is a top 100 domain) that are slashing content budgets. Blogs are on life support. They've decided to ride the decline. Everyone is starting to move on.

So about those HCU sites getting a bump in the current Google algo update... Can confirm. If you're wondering if I did anything to site: I unpublished about 30% of the site when it was first hit and then haven't touched it in 9 months. So not much.

I'm about to show you how to save 75 CENTS per month on your Medium subscription. Let's ignore any questions about why someone would have a Medium subscription in the first place. 1. Go to you billing and then choose to cancel. 2. You'll get a 15% discount for 3 months. BAM. You're welcome.

I may have gotten another affiliate scammer banned. And there's a Medium affiliate scam loophole that's wide open for getting page 1 rankings in Google. Anyone can do it. larslofgren.com/medium-affil...

The Stupidly Simple Medium Hack That's Generating Page 1 Rankings in 2.5 Months - Lars Lofgren

Reddit ain’t the only cheatcode to ranking in Google. Medium is also ripe for the picking. I’ve seen a bunch of Medium articles ranking on page 1 for super valuable terms in Google. So I decided to fi...

larslofgren.com

Since everyone is abusing the fuck out of brand mentions and social upvotes, links might become the best signal of quality again. The irony.

I'll start getting optimistic about Google algo updates when Google stops forcing their teams to roll them out during major holidays.

Someone tipped me off about a sketchy corner of the internet selling dodgy Windows keys via Reddit and Google. So what did I do? I bought one. Then I mapped how these sites get their traffic. So did the Windows key work or not? Read on: larslofgren.com/windows-key-...

The World of Sketchy Windows Key Resellers - Lars Lofgren

I was hoping for a blatant scam: fake Windows keys sold through Reddit rings, Groupon, and half-assed websites. So I bought what I assumed to be a fake Windows key that would fail the authentication. ...

larslofgren.com