Hi SODP community,

Let’s recap on what’s been happening, the new content, industry updates, tips, and more.

TIP OF THE WEEK

Personalisation is no longer optional for publishers; it’s the key to staying visible in Google top stories and building long-term audience loyalty.

Google’s top stories carousel continues to shape how readers access breaking and trending news. But as algorithms shift, it’s not just about speed or keyword targeting anymore. The deciding factor is relevance, that is, how well your content aligns with a reader’s preferences.

When readers consistently engage with stories from certain publishers, those signals strengthen the likelihood of that publisher’s content reappearing in their personalised feeds. This means publishers who can encourage subscriptions and repeat engagement will gain more stable visibility.

Encouraging audiences to subscribe, whether to newsletters, browser alerts, or site accounts, goes beyond retention. It helps send stronger intent signals to Google that your content is a preferred source. These micro-commitments from readers (sign-ups, frequency of visits, article saves) all contribute to authority in personalised ranking.

Many publishers focus personalisation efforts only on the homepage or recommendations widget. However, sitewide personalisation is what reinforces the habit. Examples include:

• Content tags and filters that let readers prioritise coverage of topics, authors, or regions.

• Dynamic internal linking that adapts to what the reader has engaged with.

• Contextual modules that recommend similar stories or background explainers.

This creates a cycle where readers shape their own experience, spend longer on site, and provide feedback signals that search engines can measure.

Editorial and SEO teams should treat personalisation as an extension of optimisation. Beyond metadata and structured data, building systems that allow readers to express preferences strengthens both discoverability and user loyalty. Personalisation helps to future-proof against traffic volatility by creating stronger recurring engagement pathways.

Here are key takeaways for publishers:

1. Personalisation drives visibility – Google’s Top Stories isn’t just about speed; it’s about relevance and aligning with reader preferences.

2. Engagement builds authority – Subscriptions, repeat visits, and micro-commitments (like saves or follows) strengthen ranking signals.

3. Go beyond homepage widgets – Sitewide personalisation (tags, filters, dynamic links, contextual modules) builds deeper reader habits.

4. SEO + personalisation = future-proofing – Treat personalisation as part of optimisation to reduce reliance on one-off viral hits.

5. Stable traffic > short spikes – Creating pathways for recurring engagement ensures stronger, long-term visibility in top stories.

The path to sustainable visibility in Google top stories lies in connecting two priorities: optimising for personalisation signals in search while simultaneously creating pathways for readers to subscribe and shape their on-site experience. Publishers who combine both will see stronger recurring traffic and reduced reliance on one-off virality.

SODP POSTS

Deinfluencing Shapes How We Think About Shopping, and Our Economy

Valued at more than US$250 billion, the influencer industry is the centre of the digital economy.

Popular haul videos, where influencers display and discuss a recent collection of purchases, and unboxings — videos where content makers open, showcase and review new products — have long been promoting endless streams of consumer goods that can be purchased with an easy click.

But what happens to influencer culture and popular consumption practices when many are worried about their financial futures?

Social media feeds become full of content-makers encouraging us to save our money — influencers telling us not to buy trendy, perhaps unnecessary, goods, like tons of Halloween decor or luxury skincare products.

This comes as American tariffs wreak havoc on the global economy and youth unemployment soars, and points to growing economic uncertainty. Consumption, the social practice that becomes publicly and hotly debated during times of economic uncertainty, is back on our radars.

For the past year, social media users have declared almost everything and anything as “recession indicators.” Influencer Kate O’Brien’s viral TikTok, for example, showing users how to squeeze out the remaining beauty product from its packaging to not waste anything, is one of many examples.

As talk of a recession continues to build, social media trends like deinfluencing help us understand how popular culture navigates economic downturns.

READ MORE

JOB BOARD

➡️ ClickZ Media is looking for an AI content editor for their flagship finance publications, Accountancy Age and The CFO, who will lead editorial strategy for two of the UK's most influential finance brands, and combine traditional editorial excellence with cutting-edge AI integration, positioning such at the forefront of modern content creation. (London). SEE MORE

➡️ LexisNexis Capital Monitor™ is on the lookout for a dynamic News Editor to join their Canberra-based team at the Parliamentary Press Gallery in Australian Parliament House who will support the editorial team on shift by playing a central role in their mission to deliver comprehensive parliamentary intelligence services to their clients. (Australia). SEE MORE

COMMUNITY BUZZ

Industry News

➡️ In the last quarter of the 2024-25 financial year, we celebrated the first million links added through The Wikipedia Library; added the Wall Street Journal in English, Chinese and Japanese; and secured a more memorable domain name. Collections from Dow Jones & Company, including the Wall Street Journal are now available to editors who are eligible for The Wikipedia Library. Through this partnership, Dow Jones will be providing experienced Wikipedia editors access to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Barron’s, MarketWatch and Investor’s Business Daily. A number of Wikipedia volunteer editors will also get access to the Japanese edition and the Simplified and Traditional Chinese editions of the WSJ. READ MORE 

➡️New week, same traffic panic, amirite? In news that raises both questions and blood pressure, Google has announced it’s bringing AI Mode directly to Chrome’s address bar. Essentially, we’ll be able to enter the kind of long, complex queries we bombard the likes of ChatGPT with straight into the address bar, then be directed to a response that opens up in directly AI Mode. Head to Google’s blog to see the full gif and more changes coming to Chrome. What does this mean for traffic to publishers? Well, AI Mode isn’t trackable in Google Search Console (the tool SEOs use to monitor search traffic) but I don’t think we need a dashboard to tell us this isn’t good news. READ MORE 

➡️ The Spokesman-Review had a problem: Subscribers were lapsing. To solve said problem they decided to test out text messaging as a strategy. From mid-June to mid-September, they sent 35 messages as part of a win-back campaign. They received 191 payments, representing a 10% conversion rate, totaling nearly $20,000 in direct payments. Not bad for text messages. Media veteran Aaron Kotarek, chief operating officer at The Spokesman-Review since November, had been wanting to try out SMS as a communication strategy but hadn’t had the means to do so before finding out about Subtext from a colleague. READ MORE 

Social Media Discussions

➡️ Niklas Buschner on LinkedIn:

ChatGPT dropped 90% of citations overnight on September 11th. Even Wikipedia and Reddit - their most cited sources - got cut.

I monitor AI visibility for our growing portfolio of clients with Peec AI, tracking daily citation patterns across B2B and B2C accounts.

Here's what the data shows:

• ~90% citation drop across ALL accounts after September 11th

• This includes Wikipedia and Reddit

• Pattern consistent across different industries and content types

• No correlation to content quality or domain authority

My hypothesis after testing:

ChatGPT appears to be limiting web searches for free account users while maintaining them for paid subscribers.

CONTINUE READING

These are the highlights for the last week.

Until next!

Vahe Arabian and the editorial team at SODP