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Google Is Killing Retro Dodo & Other Independent Sites
(retrododo.com)
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this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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Huh... I'm not sure. Retro Dodo is got nice enough YouTube videos, but their written content could be summarized as:
"Reviews" for devices that didn't come out yet, with extremely generic predictions and very little content.
"Top games" lists or other low effort retro gaming content, some of which was borderline AI generated given the whole "Super Mario is a classic that all gamers must play, move Mario and jump to excite your day"
And reviews for actual products that came out, though often suspiciously positive and unaware of issues other reviews had caught.
Which ultimately is going to get interpreted by Google as low effort content farming, which is indeed how Google should interpret it, as it's correct.
You're right. Everything is suspiciously wordy, substance is sparse, and every headline is clickbaity. It's like they tuned the content specifically for google, not human readers...
EDIT: Because my comment was also lacking substance: e.g. the Steam Deck review in "30 Best Retro Handhelds Of 2024 [All Reviewed]" says "Yes it’s big, and the battery life… pretty terrible", then gives no further information about size or battery life, which seems extremely relevant to potential buyers. They wrote 8 paragraphs and shared only 3 shallow facts.
That's the point. This entire thing is complaining about SEO. If your business model is serving ads with SEO and not retaining people with quality content, I'm not going to get too upset about it.
Google is killing itself with this shit, but it doesn't really matter. People will move back to Link aggregators and actually working to get the search results they need.
For link aggregators you mean social media like Lemmy or Reddit, or pages like FMHY which curate its content thoroughly? I found the latter a very good resource, I'd waste too much time finding all the links shared there using any search engine.
Any of the bug. I left i vague because I think there's still a chance for a disruptive force to enter the market.
TBH I have always found his videos pretty average, good shots but much blah blah blah, Retro Game Corps, and heck even Wulff Den provides better reviews.