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Fighting for journalism and profitable news media
SEO parasites buying and killing websites | Guardian source tech sees 'higher quality’ tips
And profitable hyperlocal newsletter to expand to more coastal towns
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Good morning from the team at Press Gazette on Thursday, 26 March.
Today’s newsletter is brought to you in association with Opinary by Affinity – the audience engagement platform behind polls in The Economist, FT, The Times & more.
Their latest case study shows how The Economist Insider uses reader polls to deepen subscriber relationships and drive show engagement. Discover what a virtuous cycle between newsletter and video looks like in practice.
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🪱 Our latest Reality Wars investigation exposes the world of parasitic SEO.
In particular we look at one UK company that appears to have acquired viable newsbrands in order to harvest their site authority with Google to promote content that sends gamblers to offshore casinos.
The MO of this company appears to be to sack paid journalists, replace them with AI characters and then pack the sites with casino content until Google itself cottons on and pulls the plug (delisting the sites from search).
Once Google has taken this drastic measure a site is effectively dead, because even if you type its own name into Google you won’t find it.
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We found out how the tech works, why it is so hard to protect sources in the digital age and how other newsbrands can deploy this product for free.
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🌊 And a former magazine journalist has ambitions to save local journalism (on the coast at any rate).
She says she has a waiting list for advertisers and a growing audience of paid subscribers, alongside ambitions to launch more titles in coastal communities around the UK.