Tonight I end a 21-year blogging career. I wrote my very first blog post on 3 March 2003 on an old, long-dead blog in what seemed like another lifetime ago. In fact, it was. Blogging connected me to the world at a time my life was isolated and controlled in an increasingly abusive marriage. It gave me a way to learn and to share my knowledge with others, and when my husband died from brain cancer it gave me a way to support my family, to contribute to my oldest’s wedding, and to put my youngest through college. That was possible not just because I could reach readers through Google, but because I could turn my thoughts and knowledge into an ad-supported commodity that attracted others who wanted to know what I knew. That has been taken from me now. Google has claimed my work as theirs. They make it freely available without attribution. I can no longer turn my knowledge into an income — but Google has. And I had no say in it. I was not asked if I was fine with my personal insights or experience being paraphrased and turned into machine-regurgitated answers (which are often wrong because they fail to grasp the nuances involved). “It’s just info.” That’s what people who don’t actually create anything keep saying. They’re wrong. It was so much more than “just info.” It was knowledge acquired through personal experience. It was time spent writing that knowledge in a way that was accessible and understandable. It was all the weeks and months that went into building and maintaining a site to hold that knowledge in wait for someone who might need it. It was years spent learning to optimize that site, years spent learning and relearning with every algorithm change, every new technology, every new online fad. It was my creation. It was my accomplishment. It was my life. It was the food in my family’s mouths, the clothes on our backs, the medicine I need just to walk. It was mine and Google stole it. I am not feeding that evil beast again.
@thatkatieberry I think I started blogging around the same time. I’m sorry. 😔
@thatkatieberry This is just another terrible consequence of what is happening with AI and search and I believe that this will ultimately not be better for the searcher experience. Especially true when smart people go silent.
Hi Katie. A fellow blogger here. Are you referring to something they announced during #GoogleIO ? I haven't watched anything yet and the only big thing I see here about that event is just Rebillet (if that means anything). Let me also play the devil's advocate here. I don't monetize my blog and don't care very much about traffic...it also true the opposite, that till today your blog could be monetized thanks to the traffic it provided to your blog, right? I'd say that if your content is good, your community will remain and you can keep on monetizing. But I am pretty sure that something will happen if Google shows content grabbed for free on the web on shows that through a webpage originated for the occasion (again I haven't watched the show but I am assuming this is the news you are talking about)
@thatkatieberry In your case, it's surely possible to set up a community, isn't it?
@thatkatieberry Powerfully written Katie. I'm so sorry to hear that. It's a travesty what Google has done to so many good businesses, blogs and information sites. It's now obvious that Google has demoted our sites to make way for its own AI product.
@thatkatieberry I am very sorry. Best of luck in your next chapter. I hope some things shift so we can save human creativity. 🌈🙏🍀
@thatkatieberry Start writing and create even more content. Write on social media. Things have changed and you need to spread everywhere to have success. Plus you can write a book and sell it or give it away for free to your follower base. That’s how it is these days.
@thatkatieberry Sorry Katie. I’m in a similar boat. Disgusting what they are doing. Can’t believe it’s even real.
@thatkatieberry So many stories like this at the moment. So many people who worked so hard to do something good for the world. All displaced by a toy and reddit by Google for no apparent reason other than I suppose it must be greed and arrogance.
@thatkatieberry Sorry to hear that Katie. That’s a heart breaking post to read. So much for thier mantra of “do no evil”
@thatkatieberry @googlesearchc @searchliaison @dannysullivan
@thatkatieberry This is very disappointing to hear, Katie. Why give up your career? Block all the scraping sites you dislike and keep going. I agree that Google is a major player, but it's not the end of the world. Don't give up. The world needs strong and vocal women like you. Best wishes!
@thatkatieberry @BarefootNomads I’m filled with rage. What they have done to you and everyone else is despicable and evil.
@thatkatieberry The perverse silver lining here (im that guy, sorry) is you got in under the wire, before synthetic thought. You contributed 20 yrs of your personal best & brightest human thoughts to the machine before all future bloggers got de-incentivized to do the same. a real win, of sorts.
I'm so sorry - this is the worst kind of bad that can come from something like this. Google doesn't seem to care that the SERPs are littered with garbage and spam (some of it of their own AI creation) all the while hammering hardworking people with false positive deragtory classifications and taking your hard-earned traffic from you.
@thatkatieberry Unfortunately, I made the same decision. After 10 years of blogging I stopped this year and it does not look like it worth it to continue 😕
@thatkatieberry That sucks. Really sucks. It isn't fair. But you're bigger and more than what you did and you'll be just as awesome doing the next thing 👊
@thatkatieberry Are you on Medium? It’s human-only and you can earn thousands per month with good writing.
@thatkatieberry And then there's me, writing blogs for people that only use them for revenue. Good for you.
@thatkatieberry I love that last line! Wise decision...Wishing you the best...
@thatkatieberry Thank you for sharing your story 🥰and Fk Google,they are allowed get away with crimes like this using the illusion of choice to also confuse people with highlighting widely accepted inside wide lies ,All by Design,it screwed up their own AI and no one is trying to stop them 💯
@thatkatieberry Sorry Kate... Same boat but what can I do?. It's well
@thatkatieberry I feel this deeply. We’ve been at it for 17 years. Such a difficult and demoralized time.
@thatkatieberry I lived the same, it's hard. I wonder if it's the end of an era of if we should fight building a new way to distribute real content to real people.
@thatkatieberry This is very emotional and frustrating. I hope Google will be sued soon for all of this