WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.619 Matt: Jono Alderson, welcome to the WP minute. 00:00:02.619 --> 00:00:03.499 Jono: Thank you very much for having me. 00:00:03.529 --> 00:00:04.269 What a treat. 00:00:05.079 --> 00:00:06.209 Matt: What a treat indeed. 00:00:06.269 --> 00:00:06.999 What a week. 00:00:07.069 --> 00:00:08.059 What a view. 00:00:09.359 --> 00:00:10.949 Jono: yeah, it's a nice, nice distraction. 00:00:10.979 --> 00:00:12.009 Matt: have this conversation. 00:00:12.019 --> 00:00:13.749 Yeah, I mean, I've seen you in the space. 00:00:13.749 --> 00:00:14.249 Of course. 00:00:14.259 --> 00:00:17.079 I've seen you in post that I've seen you on Twitter Largely about like 00:00:17.089 --> 00:00:22.569 WordPress and SEO and stuff You had brought up one of the more critical 00:00:22.579 --> 00:00:25.959 milestones that have happened in the last six or so months Which was the? 00:00:25.959 --> 00:00:27.439 Dot com versus dot org. 00:00:27.739 --> 00:00:31.209 com doing this whole plugin mirroring thing, which we 00:00:31.209 --> 00:00:32.459 can probably get into today. 00:00:32.599 --> 00:00:36.609 That was the, the Genesis, uh, of us, of me reaching out to you 00:00:36.609 --> 00:00:38.359 saying, Hey, you want to, want to chat about this on the show? 00:00:38.359 --> 00:00:39.179 You want to talk about it? 00:00:39.689 --> 00:00:42.249 Uh, there's some other stuff that's happened since. 00:00:43.079 --> 00:00:44.219 Jono: It's related, I guess, right? 00:00:44.219 --> 00:00:46.789 It's the same, same kind of root topic behind all of 00:00:46.939 --> 00:00:48.489 Matt: Yeah, same root topic behind it. 00:00:48.769 --> 00:00:50.749 And we'll talk about that as well. 00:00:50.959 --> 00:00:53.999 First and foremost, you're an independent technical SEO consultant. 00:00:54.029 --> 00:00:55.269 That's the Twitter bio. 00:00:55.459 --> 00:00:56.629 The website is JonoAlderson. 00:00:57.799 --> 00:01:02.629 com if you want all things SEO consulting from Jono. 00:01:02.629 --> 00:01:04.929 But what else do you do in SEO? 00:01:04.949 --> 00:01:07.779 How do you frame that in today's world of SEO? 00:01:07.994 --> 00:01:10.264 Um, if somebody's like, I want to hire this guy, but what does it mean? 00:01:11.389 --> 00:01:12.279 Jono: That's a big question, isn't it? 00:01:12.309 --> 00:01:15.109 Because yeah, SEO continues to morph and change. 00:01:15.169 --> 00:01:20.199 Um, I think it's, in some ways it's, it's far harder to characterize what that is 00:01:20.209 --> 00:01:21.409 now, but in some ways it's far easier. 00:01:21.409 --> 00:01:22.419 It's just website quality. 00:01:23.029 --> 00:01:24.979 Um, this is what it's always been. 00:01:25.039 --> 00:01:28.989 Google, like, users want good websites where good is amorphous and big and 00:01:28.989 --> 00:01:31.029 complex, and Google wants to reward that. 00:01:31.099 --> 00:01:32.499 So, it's everything. 00:01:32.539 --> 00:01:36.549 It's user experience, it's technical integrity, it's performance, it's 00:01:36.549 --> 00:01:39.439 security, it's accessibility, it's a hundred other areas. 00:01:39.619 --> 00:01:44.149 Um, and I I'm deeply into many of those areas and the bits I'm not, I know 00:01:44.149 --> 00:01:46.829 enough to connect the right people and understand what good looks like. 00:01:47.069 --> 00:01:48.829 So it's working out, where are you today? 00:01:48.899 --> 00:01:50.459 Turns out you're probably at six out of 10. 00:01:50.859 --> 00:01:53.049 How, where, where does it make sense to aim for? 00:01:53.049 --> 00:01:56.779 Because 10 is usually not feasible, but if you can get up to eight out of 10, 00:01:56.979 --> 00:01:58.039 are you going to double your traffic? 00:01:58.059 --> 00:01:59.139 Are you going to please your users? 00:01:59.169 --> 00:02:00.289 Are you going to increase revenue? 00:02:00.509 --> 00:02:03.309 So yeah, I work with businesses to go, how do we build a roadmap to do that? 00:02:03.529 --> 00:02:05.449 Largely focusing on the kind of more technical side. 00:02:05.759 --> 00:02:09.794 Um, Partly because WordPress is awesome, and that's the bit I enjoy, 00:02:09.834 --> 00:02:12.244 but mostly, that's the bit where people have the most room to improve. 00:02:12.324 --> 00:02:15.474 Most people really often haven't kind of gone down and really looked at their 00:02:15.474 --> 00:02:16.984 website and said, is this inherently good? 00:02:17.304 --> 00:02:20.464 Um, so yeah making it faster making it better tying up all the things 00:02:20.584 --> 00:02:21.824 that's the stuff I really enjoy 00:02:22.234 --> 00:02:26.104 Matt: I noticed you didn't say backlinks, uh, in, in that. 00:02:26.394 --> 00:02:30.254 So, so help me as somebody I've steered clear of SEO largely 00:02:30.454 --> 00:02:31.574 Jono: yeah good well done well done 00:02:32.884 --> 00:02:36.004 Matt: largely because I've just been frustrated by it. 00:02:36.004 --> 00:02:37.204 And that was out on the way here. 00:02:37.204 --> 00:02:40.204 I was, I was listening to another podcast about creativity and 00:02:40.204 --> 00:02:41.294 storytelling and all this stuff. 00:02:41.764 --> 00:02:43.694 And, uh, you know, he brought up, you know, And actually, 00:02:43.694 --> 00:02:44.394 this is a friend of mine. 00:02:44.704 --> 00:02:45.814 I've known him fairly well. 00:02:46.154 --> 00:02:50.754 Um, and he, and he talked about the approach of content creators, not 00:02:50.754 --> 00:02:53.424 marketers, but just folks who are like creating content, kind of look out of it. 00:02:53.444 --> 00:02:55.304 Like look at it like this conveyor belt. 00:02:55.314 --> 00:02:56.634 Like I got to do this thing. 00:02:56.634 --> 00:02:57.444 I got to drop it in. 00:02:57.544 --> 00:02:58.494 Here comes the next one. 00:02:58.494 --> 00:03:00.344 I get to do the next post, the next video. 00:03:00.694 --> 00:03:02.604 I've always stayed away from that. 00:03:02.684 --> 00:03:06.044 Even though I have a fairly high cadence of content creation, I've 00:03:06.044 --> 00:03:07.714 always been like this content. 00:03:07.724 --> 00:03:08.794 Like I like the content. 00:03:08.794 --> 00:03:11.544 I care about this post or this video. 00:03:12.239 --> 00:03:14.179 So maybe it doesn't come out every week. 00:03:14.459 --> 00:03:17.319 Maybe it takes me a couple of weeks to make a podcast episode 00:03:17.319 --> 00:03:18.859 or a video or blog posts. 00:03:19.059 --> 00:03:23.919 But all the technical SEO strategies I read about is volume, 00:03:23.929 --> 00:03:27.169 you know, consistency, keep it going, keep it going out there. 00:03:27.169 --> 00:03:29.509 And sometimes I feel like, man, I'm on this hamster wheel. 00:03:29.789 --> 00:03:31.349 Don't you want me to make good content? 00:03:31.349 --> 00:03:33.249 So, so break it down for us. 00:03:33.249 --> 00:03:35.069 Like, are we, am I doing it wrong? 00:03:35.389 --> 00:03:35.749 Just for 00:03:35.994 --> 00:03:36.334 Jono: No, no, 00:03:36.459 --> 00:03:36.949 Matt: am I doing it 00:03:36.954 --> 00:03:38.924 Jono: absolutely right Everyone else is doing it wrong. 00:03:38.924 --> 00:03:40.924 Um, no, you've got exactly the right attitude. 00:03:41.004 --> 00:03:46.234 Um, so there's two things I guess one is um, Content and links, 00:03:46.454 --> 00:03:47.334 they're interrelated, right? 00:03:47.334 --> 00:03:50.864 So, links are an important part of how Google determines whether a site is 00:03:50.864 --> 00:03:52.274 good or not, and whether it should rank. 00:03:52.594 --> 00:03:54.044 Links are essentially endorsements. 00:03:54.544 --> 00:03:57.614 So, of course, we now have an entire SEO industry with a kind of dirty 00:03:57.614 --> 00:04:01.084 underbelly, which goes, you can buy links for money, or you can spend 00:04:01.104 --> 00:04:04.294 money with an agency who will go and produce content, or hassle some 00:04:04.294 --> 00:04:05.734 journalists in order to get you links. 00:04:05.934 --> 00:04:07.664 Or you can go like sponsor things. 00:04:07.804 --> 00:04:12.304 So there's various degrees of, you can turn money into links, which Google 00:04:12.444 --> 00:04:14.094 attempts to shut down and ignore. 00:04:14.114 --> 00:04:15.134 And they are getting better at that. 00:04:15.184 --> 00:04:16.004 And it's getting harder. 00:04:16.374 --> 00:04:19.254 So as a result, we now have this content marketing thing, right? 00:04:19.304 --> 00:04:22.884 Where everybody says, go and have a blog and write three things 00:04:22.884 --> 00:04:28.144 a day, and pick a keyword and write 500 words with structure. 00:04:28.164 --> 00:04:29.204 Like, what is the thing? 00:04:29.214 --> 00:04:30.144 How do I do the thing? 00:04:30.144 --> 00:04:31.004 Where do I get the thing? 00:04:31.214 --> 00:04:32.804 And the whole internet's full of this garbage. 00:04:33.244 --> 00:04:37.004 And for a while it worked to a degree because Google needed 00:04:37.464 --> 00:04:39.844 that content to disambiguate. 00:04:39.844 --> 00:04:40.984 What are people searching for? 00:04:41.094 --> 00:04:43.464 What are the kinds of things these websites have expertise on? 00:04:43.584 --> 00:04:44.644 What problems do they solve? 00:04:45.124 --> 00:04:47.084 Um, and that for a long time was the industry. 00:04:47.134 --> 00:04:51.154 And now I think we're almost coming out of that with the rise of AI 00:04:51.354 --> 00:04:53.084 powered results and generative search. 00:04:53.344 --> 00:04:54.644 Google doesn't need that anymore. 00:04:54.934 --> 00:04:58.454 Um, like there are so many of these spaces where we're just producing 00:04:58.454 --> 00:05:00.249 content about keywords that don't exist. 00:05:00.909 --> 00:05:02.259 Those problems were already solved. 00:05:02.679 --> 00:05:05.109 So if you're, I don't know, you've got a company selling insurance or 00:05:05.109 --> 00:05:09.459 cupcakes, what are you possibly going to write that's going to add new value 00:05:09.459 --> 00:05:12.479 that Google doesn't already understand that's contributing to the corpus 00:05:12.479 --> 00:05:16.399 of human knowledge, like you're just rehashing information about, uh, eight 00:05:16.399 --> 00:05:20.409 ways to avoid your plants freezing at Christmas, or my vegan cupcakes are better 00:05:20.409 --> 00:05:22.039 than your vegan, none of it's useful. 00:05:22.319 --> 00:05:26.179 Um, and the thing that's really changed, which I think is great in the last year 00:05:26.179 --> 00:05:30.489 or so is Google has just got really, really good at ignoring all that stuff. 00:05:30.555 --> 00:05:33.944 But there are so, but all the information out there still says go and write things. 00:05:33.944 --> 00:05:37.624 So, so many brands think the good SEO looks like write three blog posts. 00:05:37.624 --> 00:05:40.354 So, we pick a keyword, tick the boxes in Yoast, et cetera. 00:05:40.774 --> 00:05:41.904 And some of that is foundational. 00:05:41.914 --> 00:05:44.974 Like you have to have content that talks about what you do and you have 00:05:44.974 --> 00:05:48.394 to have content that tells stories to your users, engages them, but you 00:05:48.394 --> 00:05:50.834 definitely don't need articles at scale. 00:05:51.094 --> 00:05:53.514 So, yeah, I think the velocity and the cadence isn't important. 00:05:53.664 --> 00:05:55.524 I think doing what you're doing, which is what I'm doing. 00:05:55.534 --> 00:05:58.134 Write stuff that you're passionate about, that you believe in, that is 00:05:58.144 --> 00:06:01.334 interesting, that is good, that is useful, that is relevant at the cadence 00:06:01.334 --> 00:06:04.284 that makes sense to do that, like do one a year, if that's what it takes 00:06:04.384 --> 00:06:06.924 to write something excellent, but yeah, the idea that we all need to be 00:06:06.934 --> 00:06:09.024 churning out words on pages is awful. 00:06:09.234 --> 00:06:14.964 Matt: Is that, is the essence of it brand building or, okay, so it's like a brand 00:06:14.964 --> 00:06:20.944 building because the way that I've seen everything is like, I've never, I grew up 00:06:20.984 --> 00:06:25.984 in a family that owned car dealerships, largely controlled by General Motors. 00:06:26.264 --> 00:06:29.834 And it was like, if you ever want to like frame the corporate man talking down to 00:06:29.834 --> 00:06:34.224 the little people, it's General Motors and a small family car dealership, right? 00:06:34.224 --> 00:06:37.434 Like, you will do this and you will accept it and you will take 00:06:37.434 --> 00:06:39.904 these cars that nobody wants to buy and you will try to sell them. 00:06:40.154 --> 00:06:44.214 So, ingrained in me is to never trust the man, right? 00:06:44.374 --> 00:06:46.784 Because I grew up in that setting. 00:06:47.124 --> 00:06:50.194 So I've always looked, and this is probably foolish to some degree, but 00:06:50.194 --> 00:06:54.759 I, I, again, I, I mean, I, I've thought about SEO, but I've never invested in it. 00:06:54.849 --> 00:06:59.259 I never got into PPC or, or buying ads and all this stuff, largely because 00:06:59.259 --> 00:07:02.029 maybe I didn't have a product that, that really needed that leverage. 00:07:02.409 --> 00:07:06.489 Uh, and I've always just looked at the, the algorithms to be something 00:07:06.489 --> 00:07:08.219 that isn't ever going to help me. 00:07:08.269 --> 00:07:12.029 Like it might help me in the short term, like a little boost kind of thing, but 00:07:12.029 --> 00:07:15.569 I've always said, I'm going to make my content and just push it out to people 00:07:15.599 --> 00:07:18.529 and tell people I've got this content. 00:07:18.969 --> 00:07:20.919 Um, are the days of. 00:07:21.239 --> 00:07:26.509 Of organic search data, or excuse me, organic search results going down 00:07:26.519 --> 00:07:28.849 because of, of AI and what's happening. 00:07:28.849 --> 00:07:32.889 In other words, should people be thinking about pushing their brand out more 00:07:32.889 --> 00:07:34.509 and getting their content out more? 00:07:34.509 --> 00:07:36.769 Like, nobody gonna help you except for yourself. 00:07:37.029 --> 00:07:38.679 How do you frame that, if, if at all? 00:07:38.699 --> 00:07:39.929 Jono: Yeah, yeah, for sure. 00:07:39.929 --> 00:07:42.269 I think the days of build it and they will come if you put the 00:07:42.269 --> 00:07:44.459 right keyword in it enough times are definitely on the way out. 00:07:44.460 --> 00:07:49.869 And we definitely see trends where the rise of AI powered results and also 00:07:49.869 --> 00:07:54.219 things like chat GPT usage and perplexity and stuff is changing how people search 00:07:54.229 --> 00:07:55.549 is changing what the results look like. 00:07:55.549 --> 00:07:59.619 And it's definitely reducing the propensity of people to see 00:07:59.619 --> 00:08:02.649 your website in a list of other websites and click that one. 00:08:02.984 --> 00:08:06.774 Um, like that's not really what that ecosystem looks like anymore. 00:08:06.934 --> 00:08:11.204 And the answer to that, who knows, but part of the answer to that is probably 00:08:11.314 --> 00:08:15.894 yeah, build a reputable brand that people will recognize and trust and already 00:08:15.904 --> 00:08:19.274 have influenced them with content of the stream and that higher in their journeys. 00:08:19.324 --> 00:08:24.034 So that when they ask perplexity, what's the best shampoo or, um, 00:08:24.054 --> 00:08:27.924 finally the best black Friday deals for a new PC monitor, whatever it is. 00:08:28.929 --> 00:08:32.029 When it says, okay, here are three really good ones, they recognize your 00:08:32.029 --> 00:08:35.559 brand and your messaging because six months ago they read a really interesting 00:08:35.559 --> 00:08:39.609 article that you wrote or, um, those kinds of influences and touch points 00:08:39.609 --> 00:08:41.259 and there's brand building activities. 00:08:41.479 --> 00:08:44.299 Um, so that you've got that reputation and recall and preference over time. 00:08:44.499 --> 00:08:47.319 Cause yeah, it's not going to be the case of, I wrote the best article. 00:08:47.319 --> 00:08:48.939 I ranked first in this list of links. 00:08:48.969 --> 00:08:51.629 People are going to click my thing because the whole landscape is changing. 00:08:51.919 --> 00:08:53.929 It's definitely going to be more about reputation. 00:08:54.409 --> 00:08:55.899 Matt: Let's talk a little bit more about WordPress. 00:08:55.909 --> 00:08:58.159 We're going to transition into talking about the whole. 00:08:58.389 --> 00:08:58.799 org versus. 00:08:59.009 --> 00:09:02.429 com thing, and maybe some of this other explosive news from the last couple of 00:09:02.429 --> 00:09:07.849 weeks, uh, post WordCamp US, keeping it in the frame of reference of WordPress. 00:09:07.869 --> 00:09:13.519 I consider my brand a flea on an elephant's ass is how I like to look at 00:09:13.519 --> 00:09:16.249 my brand in the overall WordPress space. 00:09:16.579 --> 00:09:20.639 Um, one of the things I've always found interesting with, uh, uh, chat 00:09:20.639 --> 00:09:26.669 GPT or, Or, uh, Claude, which are two that I, I use fairly often is this, um, 00:09:27.129 --> 00:09:30.819 uh, being trained on SEO results, the typical blog posts, the top, whatever. 00:09:31.099 --> 00:09:36.499 Uh, in other words, if I go to either of these two, uh, chatbots, uh, and 00:09:36.499 --> 00:09:41.899 I type in, give me the best list of WordPress podcasts, it still recommends, 00:09:41.899 --> 00:09:46.369 uh, Matt report, which is a podcast I haven't done in about four years 00:09:47.129 --> 00:09:49.709 as one of the top podcast episodes. 00:09:49.749 --> 00:09:54.239 And it has, it doesn't reference the WP minute at all, largely because nobody has 00:09:54.239 --> 00:10:01.489 written a top WordPress podcast, a blog post in literally five, six years when 00:10:01.489 --> 00:10:03.229 WordPress podcasts had their heydays. 00:10:03.629 --> 00:10:08.259 So how is this stuff getting updated for like these little niche markets, 00:10:08.449 --> 00:10:11.329 or is it just so little volume that. 00:10:11.629 --> 00:10:15.349 It suffers from the same things that regular SEO suffered from. 00:10:16.579 --> 00:10:16.929 Jono: Yeah. 00:10:16.929 --> 00:10:17.729 And even worse, right? 00:10:17.759 --> 00:10:19.489 Like WordPress is in a weird place. 00:10:19.649 --> 00:10:21.589 We don't have a marketing function anymore. 00:10:21.909 --> 00:10:23.599 There's a lot of contributors have been in left. 00:10:23.599 --> 00:10:25.549 There's a lot of stuff has dried up and consolidated it. 00:10:25.549 --> 00:10:25.899 So you're right. 00:10:25.899 --> 00:10:28.049 There's not a lot of new content being produced. 00:10:28.249 --> 00:10:28.839 WordPress. 00:10:28.849 --> 00:10:32.229 org, which we'll come on to in a minute, I'm sure, is not great 00:10:32.289 --> 00:10:33.799 when it comes to SEO politely. 00:10:33.959 --> 00:10:35.409 So we're not fighting our own battles. 00:10:35.409 --> 00:10:36.459 We're not creating content. 00:10:36.529 --> 00:10:37.729 We're not telling our own stories. 00:10:37.729 --> 00:10:41.444 And meanwhile, The Wix's and the Shopify is obviously very, very noisy. 00:10:41.604 --> 00:10:44.614 So yeah, when you, when you were creating these systems for advice 00:10:44.614 --> 00:10:47.284 and information in this context, what are they drawing from? 00:10:47.285 --> 00:10:50.444 It is going to be stuff from 2012 because there's not a lot else out there. 00:10:51.254 --> 00:10:54.374 And even if there were, the volume and reach of that is going to 00:10:54.374 --> 00:10:55.794 be lower than everyone else's. 00:10:55.804 --> 00:10:57.304 So yeah, I think this is going to be a real problem. 00:10:57.314 --> 00:11:00.344 We are going to be very underrepresented in those kinds of results 00:11:00.344 --> 00:11:01.664 collectively and as a platform. 00:11:01.954 --> 00:11:05.524 Um, if only we had some kind of marketing team who could be thinking about that. 00:11:07.389 --> 00:11:09.359 Matt: One last question on the AI, just because I'm curious. 00:11:09.379 --> 00:11:13.329 Is this all built off of the back of stolen content? 00:11:13.389 --> 00:11:17.339 Like, do you believe it to be like that bad? 00:11:17.369 --> 00:11:18.319 Jono: hard a question, right? 00:11:18.319 --> 00:11:18.729 Isn't it? 00:11:18.730 --> 00:11:26.559 Um, I'm privileged enough to come from a position where my livelihood isn't 00:11:26.599 --> 00:11:29.689 threatened by this, and I find it a very useful tool that accelerates me. 00:11:29.699 --> 00:11:33.609 So I'm very lucky to be able to say, uh, academically, no, I don't think so. 00:11:33.609 --> 00:11:38.049 I think, um, there are only so many ways that you can recombine factual 00:11:38.059 --> 00:11:42.799 statements and words and a significant proportion of the use cases are, 00:11:42.799 --> 00:11:44.569 oh, or pixels for images, right? 00:11:44.599 --> 00:11:46.774 It's just soup, and then you unsoup it. 00:11:47.934 --> 00:11:52.634 But yeah, it's trained on a corpus of information that it wasn't granted 00:11:52.664 --> 00:11:58.464 permission to to utilize and Even if it's not theft, there ought to 00:11:58.464 --> 00:12:00.794 have been a consent at some point. 00:12:01.454 --> 00:12:04.214 Um, even now we still don't really have a good model for that, that we're starting 00:12:04.214 --> 00:12:06.224 to see some options, but it's too late. 00:12:06.284 --> 00:12:09.284 I think, uh, even if, even if it was theft, it's too late. 00:12:09.344 --> 00:12:10.814 The genie genius out the bottle. 00:12:10.904 --> 00:12:13.304 Even if open AI never becomes profitable and they fail, 00:12:13.304 --> 00:12:14.894 something else will fill the space. 00:12:15.194 --> 00:12:16.334 All the information is out there. 00:12:16.424 --> 00:12:17.714 It's on common call. 00:12:17.714 --> 00:12:19.334 It's been produced in a million places. 00:12:19.574 --> 00:12:20.714 This is now the model. 00:12:20.894 --> 00:12:22.784 And even if we don't like it, I think we're stuck with it. 00:12:22.784 --> 00:12:24.284 So yeah, it's pretty unpleasant. 00:12:24.309 --> 00:12:26.659 Matt: And Google can't sue them because they stole it from us. 00:12:27.819 --> 00:12:31.839 So, so really it's us, you know, individuals who have been pumping 00:12:31.869 --> 00:12:36.829 content, uh, into the web and, and Google just enhancing that searchability. 00:12:36.829 --> 00:12:40.159 And then these chatbots coming in and go, well, let's just leverage search 00:12:40.159 --> 00:12:43.249 and find, you know, take from this index they've already stolen from the people. 00:12:43.489 --> 00:12:47.199 Uh, so it's just a crazy, uh, crazy world at this 00:12:47.479 --> 00:12:50.639 Jono: There was a, there was a nice new feature from Cloudflare, I think announced 00:12:50.639 --> 00:12:53.779 last week or so, where they, they're describing this as a third category thing. 00:12:53.779 --> 00:12:56.389 So it said, we've always had bad bots and good bots, like 00:12:56.389 --> 00:12:57.559 scrapers and search engines. 00:12:57.679 --> 00:13:00.989 And now this is a third category, where they're learning and consuming, and 00:13:00.989 --> 00:13:03.879 they're rolling out tools to monitor it, and eventually hope to kind of do 00:13:03.879 --> 00:13:06.239 a cost per access monetization model. 00:13:06.249 --> 00:13:08.919 Whether or not that's meaningful, I don't know, but I thought it was interesting. 00:13:09.349 --> 00:13:10.799 Matt: You mentioned WordPress marketing. 00:13:10.809 --> 00:13:13.919 It's obviously a hot topic, has been a hot topic for many years. 00:13:13.919 --> 00:13:18.809 We saw that team, the make team, uh, marketing team sort of shuttered 00:13:18.809 --> 00:13:23.049 and, and, and closed out, uh, I forget roughly six, eight months ago. 00:13:23.319 --> 00:13:31.319 Um, and it was sort of put in place was the, uh, media core team, which Josefa, 00:13:31.709 --> 00:13:37.519 um, and then led by Reyes Martinez from automatic, both of which have now left. 00:13:37.754 --> 00:13:38.364 Automatic. 00:13:38.634 --> 00:13:41.914 Or at least, uh, Josefa stepped down from the director role. 00:13:41.924 --> 00:13:45.324 I haven't seen the automatic end on her LinkedIn profile 00:13:45.449 --> 00:13:45.889 Jono: Indeed, 00:13:46.094 --> 00:13:48.704 Matt: Uh, but I saw she stepped down from the director role. 00:13:48.734 --> 00:13:50.684 Reyes has left automatic. 00:13:50.684 --> 00:13:52.094 She reached out to me to let me know. 00:13:52.354 --> 00:13:58.124 So I don't know what the what the, uh, life holds for the media core team. 00:13:58.889 --> 00:14:02.849 All of this is to get to this, this, this issue with marketing WordPress. 00:14:03.309 --> 00:14:08.249 I've always said, man, it's tough to do marketing from a volunteer 00:14:08.249 --> 00:14:14.059 led team with no access, no data, no social media accounts, no budget, 00:14:14.079 --> 00:14:16.759 no direct, uh, channel to a product. 00:14:16.759 --> 00:14:18.359 Who is the product team? 00:14:18.619 --> 00:14:23.149 How can we even do this in a volunteer led system? 00:14:23.769 --> 00:14:27.839 Your thoughts on, on marketing WordPress. 00:14:28.359 --> 00:14:30.849 Jono: that laundry list of things you just said were not allowed is 00:14:30.849 --> 00:14:31.969 pretty much the problem, right? 00:14:31.969 --> 00:14:34.629 And I think Giuseppe summed that quite well, summed that up quite well 00:14:34.629 --> 00:14:37.379 in her, she published a thing saying essentially why we're not going to 00:14:37.379 --> 00:14:39.919 have a marketing team and why the media call was the way forward. 00:14:40.109 --> 00:14:43.229 And it essentially boils down to, you are all asking for the right things and 00:14:43.229 --> 00:14:47.276 asking the right questions, but I either cannot or will not provide you with these 00:14:47.276 --> 00:14:48.604 for logistical or political reasons. 00:14:48.604 --> 00:14:51.834 You're like, then yeah, how do, how do you How do you market? 00:14:51.834 --> 00:14:54.514 And all the stuff we were saying about the evolution of SEO just now into 00:14:54.514 --> 00:14:55.704 branding and awareness and preference. 00:14:55.894 --> 00:14:57.214 That's the whole of marketing, right? 00:14:57.374 --> 00:14:59.134 Consumers are educated and informed. 00:14:59.294 --> 00:15:00.574 They make their own decisions. 00:15:00.684 --> 00:15:02.534 They want to evaluate, compare. 00:15:03.004 --> 00:15:04.564 They want to be led. 00:15:04.564 --> 00:15:06.124 They want to be told stories, et cetera. 00:15:06.334 --> 00:15:07.294 And we don't have that. 00:15:07.679 --> 00:15:12.429 Any of the infrastructure or processes or people or resources or systems to even 00:15:12.429 --> 00:15:14.409 start to ask what that would look like. 00:15:14.569 --> 00:15:17.209 And I think the hardest bit of that, of all that laundry 00:15:17.209 --> 00:15:19.029 list is the product, right? 00:15:19.039 --> 00:15:23.159 Like for better or worse, we have a roadmap to a degree. 00:15:23.159 --> 00:15:24.459 Gutenberg's doing things. 00:15:24.489 --> 00:15:27.209 People have varying opinions on whether that's the right direction 00:15:27.209 --> 00:15:29.669 or not, but we are, we are at war. 00:15:30.234 --> 00:15:35.801 With Wix and Squarespace and other platforms and Vercel 00:15:35.801 --> 00:15:37.724 and all these other things. 00:15:38.424 --> 00:15:42.444 And I'm not even sure we realize that we're at war and because we just say 00:15:42.444 --> 00:15:45.584 we've got 43 percent of the web and we keep saying that until we're not. 00:15:45.944 --> 00:15:48.854 And even if we are, those numbers are questionable anyway, right, depending 00:15:48.854 --> 00:15:50.654 on how you want to calculate that. 00:15:51.134 --> 00:15:55.749 And I, I see, certainly from an SEO perspective, There's still a huge influx 00:15:55.749 --> 00:15:58.629 of people who want to build websites for the first time, or don't understand 00:15:58.629 --> 00:16:02.349 what hosting is, or don't know how to do a thing, and they search for problems, 00:16:02.379 --> 00:16:05.209 whether they do that in Google or TrapGPT or wherever, and we're nowhere. 00:16:05.654 --> 00:16:09.734 And a WPBeginner and a whole bunch of Syed's networks are generally somewhere. 00:16:10.134 --> 00:16:14.964 Um, but WordPress collectively, other than com, which yeah, is contentious. 00:16:15.124 --> 00:16:15.474 WordPress. 00:16:15.474 --> 00:16:20.614 org is very rarely represented and there's very rarely educational hearts and minds 00:16:20.654 --> 00:16:25.024 onboarding kind of step on content because Wix is just paying their way in there. 00:16:25.064 --> 00:16:26.154 Or competing organically. 00:16:26.494 --> 00:16:27.504 So yeah, we, we're going to 00:16:27.819 --> 00:16:31.289 Matt: From a technical perspective, though, is the simple answer, because 00:16:31.289 --> 00:16:35.409 we've, the community, air quotes, has never invested in it for the 00:16:35.489 --> 00:16:37.319 org side, technically speaking. 00:16:37.319 --> 00:16:39.189 Like, we just never gave it a shot, is, is, 00:16:40.134 --> 00:16:42.724 Jono: I've been fighting with org for what feels like a decade now. 00:16:42.774 --> 00:16:45.234 Um, It's not the worst website. 00:16:45.414 --> 00:16:48.264 Um, I think we've put out a lot of the technical fires. 00:16:48.364 --> 00:16:52.064 There are still kind of existential crises there around how some of it 00:16:52.064 --> 00:16:53.604 works and its legacy as a tech stack. 00:16:53.604 --> 00:16:56.954 But the biggest problem is just there's no real kind of content strategy. 00:16:57.244 --> 00:17:00.864 And if you ask simple questions like, um, if somebody's Googling, 00:17:01.104 --> 00:17:05.934 uh, how to write, how to set up a blog, where should they land? 00:17:06.464 --> 00:17:10.354 Because at the moment, best case scenario, it's probably some itty bitty forum 00:17:10.354 --> 00:17:13.384 post that somebody wrote three years ago that gets a whole bunch of disput 00:17:13.394 --> 00:17:16.884 and helpful answers that somebody shut down because they posted something 00:17:16.884 --> 00:17:17.994 that didn't align with the WordPress. 00:17:17.994 --> 00:17:19.384 org rules and so on, yadda, yadda. 00:17:19.504 --> 00:17:23.254 Like, none of those, there's no strategy behind how should this work 00:17:23.464 --> 00:17:25.274 and how should we guide people through. 00:17:25.584 --> 00:17:28.354 And then, We've got so many moving parts that are disjointed. 00:17:28.354 --> 00:17:31.884 So we've got the learn subdomain, which is doing some great work in educational 00:17:31.884 --> 00:17:33.954 content, but nobody's really reconciled. 00:17:34.154 --> 00:17:38.964 How does that relate to the, um, the developer site, which has similar topics? 00:17:39.184 --> 00:17:40.824 We haven't really retired the codecs. 00:17:41.054 --> 00:17:45.604 The forums are largely moderated in a way that just sprawls rather than 00:17:45.864 --> 00:17:47.714 answering questions in a consolidated way. 00:17:48.154 --> 00:17:49.884 All the tutorial stuff is over on dot com. 00:17:50.084 --> 00:17:55.744 Yeah, it's working out how do we, How do we market to people and how 00:17:55.744 --> 00:17:58.614 do we take them on journeys needs to happen before any of the kind 00:17:58.614 --> 00:17:59.904 of big technical stuff happens. 00:18:00.114 --> 00:18:03.314 Um, and there's no appetite and no resource to address any of those 00:18:03.334 --> 00:18:05.324 kind of huge philosophical questions. 00:18:05.709 --> 00:18:11.489 Matt: and it makes it difficult to you know, position, let's say the learn site. 00:18:11.499 --> 00:18:14.679 Like if we go back to earlier in this conversation and talk about my strategy 00:18:14.679 --> 00:18:18.449 of, I create content and I just try to go to the world and say, here's my 00:18:18.449 --> 00:18:22.149 content and I try to get it in front of people by, you know, pushing it 00:18:22.149 --> 00:18:26.019 out there and, and being that sort of outbound content marketer part of me. 00:18:26.309 --> 00:18:30.759 Um, nobody really wants to do that for like the learn site or for. 00:18:31.159 --> 00:18:31.539 org. 00:18:31.819 --> 00:18:35.129 Especially in these moments of community strife, right? 00:18:35.129 --> 00:18:38.319 When you just feel drained from doing this. 00:18:38.639 --> 00:18:41.889 So, like, even getting the, like, even if you said, Hey, we're not going to have 00:18:41.919 --> 00:18:43.639 an internal make team that works on this. 00:18:43.639 --> 00:18:48.429 It's very hard to get even agencies and freelancers to want to prop up this 00:18:48.449 --> 00:18:52.769 content too, because they're like, Oh God, we're just crossing this finish line of 00:18:52.769 --> 00:18:54.339 delivering this website to this customer. 00:18:54.609 --> 00:18:58.229 Now we got to, now you want me to like promote this content from within, like, 00:18:58.239 --> 00:19:00.299 this is, this is very, very difficult. 00:19:01.124 --> 00:19:01.424 Jono: Yeah. 00:19:01.424 --> 00:19:05.154 And I think this is the biggest existential crisis we face collectively. 00:19:05.424 --> 00:19:11.024 Uh, aside from the, the challenges of Matt's leadership and the challenges 00:19:11.024 --> 00:19:14.809 of all of these things, I think the biggest problem we have Is that 00:19:14.859 --> 00:19:18.899 everyone is burnt out and everyone is gone and we behave as if there's 00:19:18.899 --> 00:19:23.419 an infinite pool of contributors just coming in the door to replace them. 00:19:23.749 --> 00:19:26.929 But you see, as you've already mentioned, like two profoundly important 00:19:26.929 --> 00:19:30.079 people who were very active and have gone, they've not been replaced. 00:19:30.159 --> 00:19:31.019 They won't be replaced. 00:19:31.019 --> 00:19:33.849 There's nobody else coming up through the ranks or entering the doors to 00:19:33.849 --> 00:19:35.989 take their burden and their workload. 00:19:36.284 --> 00:19:40.654 And to ask the difficult questions and to do the big thinking, there's 00:19:40.654 --> 00:19:44.094 a lot of people who can be pointed at small tactical things ad hoc and 00:19:44.094 --> 00:19:47.574 they'll come and go, but I think there's only about six people left. 00:19:47.634 --> 00:19:50.174 Like in that, like you look at how inactive make WordPress is. 00:19:50.174 --> 00:19:51.054 It's like, where is everyone? 00:19:51.274 --> 00:19:52.304 It's a ghost town. 00:19:52.634 --> 00:19:53.938 Um, and that's not getting it. 00:19:53.938 --> 00:19:56.094 And that's part of the same marketing challenge in question. 00:19:56.334 --> 00:19:58.374 It's a different flavor of it, but it's the same problem. 00:19:58.644 --> 00:20:02.144 Um, yeah, I think that's the biggest impact and the biggest risk of all the 00:20:02.144 --> 00:20:03.244 stuff that's happening at the moment. 00:20:03.494 --> 00:20:04.294 That we all. 00:20:04.464 --> 00:20:06.694 We are not bringing people in and we're not raising them up. 00:20:06.829 --> 00:20:10.899 Matt: I have, uh, friends when we, when we, and I'm not, we're not going to talk 00:20:10.909 --> 00:20:14.449 about it on this podcast, but when we talk politics, people just say, I want 00:20:14.449 --> 00:20:18.269 to go back to cheaper gas, cheaper food. 00:20:18.389 --> 00:20:19.809 And I say, guess what? 00:20:19.809 --> 00:20:21.909 Everybody ain't going back. 00:20:21.979 --> 00:20:23.269 We might go down a couple. 00:20:23.439 --> 00:20:26.539 Yeah, we might go down a couple of dimes and nickels, but we're not 00:20:26.539 --> 00:20:28.609 going back to what we enjoyed before. 00:20:28.624 --> 00:20:29.734 It's not going to happen. 00:20:29.954 --> 00:20:31.694 We're in a new paradigm now. 00:20:31.694 --> 00:20:36.294 And I think that we're in this, this new, uh, you know, scenario in WordPress 00:20:36.304 --> 00:20:41.164 where now we have to look at, this is just my opinion and obviously you 00:20:41.164 --> 00:20:44.164 chime in with yours, but I look at the community now after this and the 00:20:44.174 --> 00:20:47.964 dust hasn't even settled yet, by the way, because we're still, We don't 00:20:47.964 --> 00:20:49.004 even know what's happening next. 00:20:49.064 --> 00:20:52.674 Um, I was going to say we're still in court, but we're not even there yet. 00:20:53.034 --> 00:20:58.544 Uh, so we have to figure out how are we going to repair the community and what's 00:20:58.544 --> 00:21:00.554 it going to look like moving forward? 00:21:00.594 --> 00:21:02.364 It's not going to be like it was before. 00:21:02.434 --> 00:21:04.644 WordCamps might not even be what it was before. 00:21:04.814 --> 00:21:08.364 We could, we could see a dramatic drop in people wanting to even do 00:21:08.364 --> 00:21:10.444 it, sponsor it, go to the event. 00:21:10.734 --> 00:21:13.414 What are we going to do moving forward looking differently? 00:21:13.694 --> 00:21:16.774 Um, and that's where I'm, that's where my mind is going, but also. 00:21:17.299 --> 00:21:20.679 Still waiting to see what happens, uh, with all the stuff with WP engine. 00:21:20.679 --> 00:21:23.199 So it's a very rocky, rocky road. 00:21:23.199 --> 00:21:24.769 It's back to being a human problem. 00:21:24.769 --> 00:21:26.779 Again, it's not even a technical problem. 00:21:26.939 --> 00:21:28.319 It's back to a human problem. 00:21:28.469 --> 00:21:30.399 How do we repair moving forward? 00:21:30.699 --> 00:21:33.359 Uh, I don't have the answers yet, but any, any thoughts from, from you? 00:21:34.504 --> 00:21:35.744 Jono: Yeah, I completely agree. 00:21:35.744 --> 00:21:38.124 And I think WordCamps are a really interesting example, and the event 00:21:38.124 --> 00:21:39.294 space more broadly outside that. 00:21:39.684 --> 00:21:43.649 I think, um, one of the things I gripe about occasionally is, I think 00:21:43.899 --> 00:21:47.409 WordCamps could be so much more, um, but again, it's the same problem as we 00:21:47.409 --> 00:21:49.009 need to kind of decide what they are. 00:21:49.229 --> 00:21:51.529 And that's a big philosophical complex question and there's 00:21:51.529 --> 00:21:52.609 nobody in the driving seat. 00:21:52.929 --> 00:21:55.649 Um, but if, if they are designed to be. 00:21:56.014 --> 00:21:59.904 recruitment for new contributors and onboarding, then they need 00:21:59.904 --> 00:22:02.804 to be resourced and budgeted and run in a way that reflects that. 00:22:02.804 --> 00:22:05.384 And at the moment they are, they are wonderful events, but they are 00:22:05.584 --> 00:22:09.254 part meetup, part get together, part education, part recruitment, part 00:22:09.324 --> 00:22:11.474 lunch, don't, don't really know. 00:22:12.074 --> 00:22:15.554 Like it's, it's just, it's us talking to us in the same way that the 00:22:15.554 --> 00:22:17.464 media corps was us talking to us. 00:22:17.814 --> 00:22:22.534 Um, and when, and I know there's been some vague conversations about starting 00:22:22.544 --> 00:22:26.054 to break out of that bubble and now everyone gets like 200 to go and put 00:22:26.054 --> 00:22:29.564 some flyers at the local train station, but that's, that's not going to fix it. 00:22:29.564 --> 00:22:33.524 It's like this, this is, this is microscopic and it's well intended, 00:22:33.524 --> 00:22:35.014 but it's so far in the wrong direction. 00:22:35.284 --> 00:22:40.564 Um, so yeah, I think, um, this is, this is all human problems. 00:22:40.864 --> 00:22:43.944 Um, and some of that is one human in particular, for better or worse. 00:22:44.094 --> 00:22:49.784 Um, but a lot of it cascades back to, um, we, we don't have the, 00:22:49.814 --> 00:22:52.114 um, my vocabulary's just dried up. 00:22:52.284 --> 00:22:57.424 We don't have the freedom and the ability to ask or take action on these big 00:22:57.434 --> 00:23:00.624 philosophical questions and these big people problems because everything stops 00:23:00.624 --> 00:23:04.444 back at Matt's door, and he's either not engaged or has a different opinion. 00:23:04.769 --> 00:23:07.979 So it just gets stuck and it drops and people get burned out and burn 00:23:07.979 --> 00:23:11.569 out and leave and word camps remain lovely, but somewhat ineffectual. 00:23:12.154 --> 00:23:16.774 Matt: so I've sort of built a career, uh, you know, questioning and, and being a 00:23:16.794 --> 00:23:19.394 critic, uh, of, of Matt and leadership. 00:23:19.394 --> 00:23:21.654 And I feel like I've done it in a professional light. 00:23:21.654 --> 00:23:24.514 Maybe some people would, you know, disagree, but I've never gone way 00:23:24.514 --> 00:23:26.414 overboard with conspiracy theories. 00:23:26.414 --> 00:23:30.084 And, and, uh, and, and in fact, you know, even to this day, still thinking 00:23:30.114 --> 00:23:34.044 I don't know anyone else who could lead the software project other than 00:23:34.044 --> 00:23:38.994 him, though, very questionable on the tactics side of things, uh, for sure. 00:23:39.324 --> 00:23:43.024 Um, Let's just start transitioning to talk about like some of the things 00:23:43.024 --> 00:23:48.514 that have felt kind of bad as, as community members, especially if you're 00:23:48.514 --> 00:23:52.424 a theme or plugin owner, and you have your themes and plugins on wordpress. 00:23:52.424 --> 00:23:55.364 org, going back to my knocking on your door. 00:23:55.864 --> 00:23:56.054 org. 00:23:56.284 --> 00:24:01.154 com, uh, can you outline for those that maybe don't remember because of 00:24:01.154 --> 00:24:02.964 all this stuff recently that happened? 00:24:02.984 --> 00:24:03.414 What did. 00:24:03.754 --> 00:24:05.844 com do that felt so bad? 00:24:07.019 --> 00:24:09.979 Jono: Yeah, so it does feel like years ago now, doesn't it? 00:24:09.979 --> 00:24:12.599 And it feels inconsequential in comparison, but it's the same route. 00:24:13.219 --> 00:24:17.269 So dot com essentially copied the whole plugin repository from dot org. 00:24:17.509 --> 00:24:21.239 They went, take it across, dump, this is now our version. 00:24:21.499 --> 00:24:23.389 Um, and that was really interesting for a few reasons. 00:24:23.399 --> 00:24:26.359 One is, I don't think that had been done at that scale beforehand. 00:24:26.699 --> 00:24:30.069 Um, and whilst, whilst Matt's response to a lot of critiques is, 00:24:30.269 --> 00:24:31.949 Oh, just go fork it and go copy it. 00:24:32.329 --> 00:24:35.819 Um, obviously, that's not as simple as it sounds, and there are huge 00:24:35.819 --> 00:24:36.909 overheads associated with that. 00:24:36.909 --> 00:24:40.689 The plugin repository not being a small one of those, but they did it. 00:24:40.989 --> 00:24:45.094 Um, and, um, And it was ostensibly to provide a kind of an easier 00:24:45.094 --> 00:24:48.354 routing for dot com customers to browse and install plugins. 00:24:48.754 --> 00:24:49.904 There's two big caveats with that. 00:24:49.924 --> 00:24:53.824 One is on dot com, that's a paid ecosystem. 00:24:54.124 --> 00:24:56.994 Like you have to be on whatever particular tier it is of usage 00:24:56.994 --> 00:24:59.664 in order to access and use those, which is not the case with dot org. 00:25:00.259 --> 00:25:03.989 And then the SEO angle is quite interesting because com is a big 00:25:04.099 --> 00:25:08.359 authoritative website with a marketing team and a strategy and lots of great 00:25:08.359 --> 00:25:12.199 useful content that now has its own version of all of these pages, which 00:25:12.539 --> 00:25:18.029 until then, individual plugin vendors and individual users searched for 00:25:18.029 --> 00:25:19.969 and managed and found through org. 00:25:20.119 --> 00:25:22.039 And suddenly we have this competitor. 00:25:22.099 --> 00:25:28.349 Where com is accidentally, question mark, um, stealing, question mark, 00:25:28.529 --> 00:25:34.489 um, traffic and visitors who might otherwise have found the org pages and 00:25:34.499 --> 00:25:36.729 downloaded and installed a thing for free. 00:25:37.474 --> 00:25:41.984 And now potentially getting confused on our potentially signing up for dot 00:25:42.044 --> 00:25:46.194 com hosting plans where they might not otherwise have done so, and it all just 00:25:46.194 --> 00:25:51.454 gets a little bit murky and it looks, looks like a play, right, it looks 00:25:51.454 --> 00:25:54.684 like it's a how do we monetize this traffic, which it may or may not be. 00:25:58.079 --> 00:26:01.509 It's, it's part of a bigger question about the com versus org relationship, 00:26:01.509 --> 00:26:03.619 which is another question we're not allowed to ask or answer or be 00:26:03.619 --> 00:26:06.279 involved in because we just accept that it's a philosophical nightmare. 00:26:06.839 --> 00:26:10.199 Um, but the SEO angle was the first time that had come up, is what happens when 00:26:10.359 --> 00:26:12.949 com starts eating market share from org? 00:26:13.429 --> 00:26:17.829 Um, and I think what's really interesting about that is if you look back as far as 00:26:17.959 --> 00:26:25.579 circa 2011, 2012, org is five or six times the size in terms of visibility of com. 00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:28.499 You run any off the shelf SEO tool and it'll give you an estimate 00:26:28.519 --> 00:26:30.839 of how big is this site in terms of how, what does it rank for and 00:26:30.839 --> 00:26:32.019 how much traffic does it attract. 00:26:33.419 --> 00:26:37.249 org is scoring, I don't know, 20 points and com is scoring four points. 00:26:37.469 --> 00:26:40.789 Now, 2024, they are almost level. 00:26:41.099 --> 00:26:44.399 Because org is decaying over time because it's not loved. 00:26:44.589 --> 00:26:46.199 It doesn't have a marketing strategy. 00:26:46.429 --> 00:26:47.489 It's a little bit on fire. 00:26:47.989 --> 00:26:50.899 All the problems we've discussed, whereas com is growing, not 00:26:50.959 --> 00:26:53.889 enormously and not at a hockey stick pace, but they're doing well. 00:26:53.889 --> 00:26:55.159 They've got a content strategy. 00:26:55.159 --> 00:26:56.229 They've got SEO people. 00:26:56.409 --> 00:26:57.869 They now have a plug in repository. 00:26:58.229 --> 00:27:02.079 And it's, it's not yet at the point where it's massively cannibalizing org, but 00:27:02.079 --> 00:27:04.439 there are some really interesting points. 00:27:04.699 --> 00:27:09.029 Things like, um, Names of certain functionality that people are searching 00:27:09.029 --> 00:27:13.229 for, things like SSL certificates or, uh, how to reset their passwords. 00:27:13.469 --> 00:27:18.029 Some of those kinds of queries.com is starting to outrank.org with either the 00:27:18.029 --> 00:27:22.169 plugins repository or their own help documentation, which arguably then is 00:27:22.169 --> 00:27:24.089 just a cl of the, the learn stuff as well. 00:27:24.089 --> 00:27:27.209 So yeah, we now have a, we now have more than ever a big 00:27:27.209 --> 00:27:29.129 competitor and it's once again, us. 00:27:29.709 --> 00:27:35.339 Um, and, and Matt's there was a slight exploration of is there a way we can 00:27:35.339 --> 00:27:40.709 mitigate this if the intended use case is mostly just for logged in wordpress. 00:27:40.749 --> 00:27:44.359 com users, maybe we could know index it, maybe we could canonicalize it. 00:27:44.359 --> 00:27:47.639 There are SEO tactics we could use to lock that down so that it benefits 00:27:47.639 --> 00:27:49.529 everybody, but none of that's been done. 00:27:49.809 --> 00:27:52.419 And I know Matt's aware of those because he read my blog post on it and 00:27:52.419 --> 00:27:53.819 he commented saying very interesting. 00:27:53.819 --> 00:27:54.329 Thanks. 00:27:54.439 --> 00:27:55.829 Um, and I did nothing. 00:27:56.244 --> 00:27:59.034 So, yeah, this is, uh, this is not healthy. 00:27:59.434 --> 00:28:04.184 Matt: Uh, which against the backdrop of this W is alleged, 00:28:04.584 --> 00:28:07.664 uh, WP engine trademark issue. 00:28:08.074 --> 00:28:12.184 It's very concerning and there's a headline in the verge. 00:28:12.244 --> 00:28:15.534 Uh, we are recording this on Tuesday, October 8th, 2024. 00:28:15.894 --> 00:28:20.114 Uh, there's a headline on the verge, Matt Mellenweg quote WordPress. 00:28:20.114 --> 00:28:21.464 org just belongs to me. 00:28:21.644 --> 00:28:27.344 And, you know, end quote, uh, and this is, this is why I think so 00:28:27.344 --> 00:28:32.234 many of us, though we question, um, this move of like mirroring. 00:28:32.234 --> 00:28:37.004 org to dot com, we, those of us in the know, like you, me, and probably 00:28:37.004 --> 00:28:40.354 most of us listening to this, are just like, we can't do anything about it. 00:28:41.319 --> 00:28:44.849 Like we can rant and holler and do all this stuff, but really 00:28:44.849 --> 00:28:46.929 we can't do anything about it. 00:28:46.999 --> 00:28:50.869 And I think that's the biggest struggle because of the passion that we have for 00:28:50.869 --> 00:28:56.119 WordPress, but also at the same time, we're just boxed in to these decision 00:28:56.129 --> 00:28:57.859 makings and things like that, that. 00:28:58.569 --> 00:29:00.789 Look at the end of the day, I don't, I don't know. 00:29:01.799 --> 00:29:09.379 Uh, I guess I have a, I don't know if it's an optimist look outlook on this, but 00:29:09.669 --> 00:29:12.239 does it help plugin and theme owners that. 00:29:12.709 --> 00:29:16.329 com is ranking if, if the end user is using their theme and 00:29:16.329 --> 00:29:17.659 plugin, it just happens to be on. 00:29:17.949 --> 00:29:18.889 com or 00:29:19.004 --> 00:29:21.874 Jono: Yeah, this was Matt's argument, right, that more marketplaces is more 00:29:21.874 --> 00:29:24.964 good because it's more reach, it's more exposure, it's more discovery, 00:29:24.964 --> 00:29:28.774 and in theory, then more people find stuff except this whole pay dangle. 00:29:28.774 --> 00:29:33.144 So right now, if you search for Gravity Forms in the US, com 00:29:33.144 --> 00:29:35.194 ranks second and org ranks sixth. 00:29:36.019 --> 00:29:40.349 So there is definitely a non zero chance that you as a user who doesn't really 00:29:40.349 --> 00:29:44.129 know what you're doing is going to end up paying money for a hosting plan to unlock 00:29:44.129 --> 00:29:45.899 that instead of getting it for free. 00:29:46.069 --> 00:29:49.039 Maybe that's, maybe that's 10 people, maybe it's one, maybe it's 1000, 00:29:49.259 --> 00:29:52.309 but that's distributed across a long tail of a whole bunch of scenarios. 00:29:52.619 --> 00:29:54.079 Is that net positive? 00:29:54.219 --> 00:29:58.439 Would those people have gone and self hosted something and got the free version? 00:29:58.449 --> 00:29:59.769 Maybe, maybe not. 00:29:59.859 --> 00:30:02.569 Maybe they do want the handholding of a managed hosting plan and to get it 00:30:02.569 --> 00:30:05.699 through a package or just just feels. 00:30:05.914 --> 00:30:09.884 a little bit murky and disingenuous to be presenting them as they're the same 00:30:09.894 --> 00:30:11.224 thing and this is net positive, right? 00:30:11.404 --> 00:30:12.934 And to your point on there's nothing we can do. 00:30:12.934 --> 00:30:18.274 Yeah, Matt owns both websites, but my livelihood to a degree and yours and 00:30:18.274 --> 00:30:22.294 many others is tied somewhat to the success of WordPress and therefore we're 00:30:22.294 --> 00:30:26.274 all invested in how do we make this successful and grow its reach, etc. 00:30:26.474 --> 00:30:28.474 And yeah, good strategy comes with compromises. 00:30:28.474 --> 00:30:30.664 So we need to go, okay, if we can't do X, we need to do Y. 00:30:30.894 --> 00:30:35.224 But why is also political and everywhere we turn you end up with an insurmountable, 00:30:35.224 --> 00:30:36.944 okay, we don't have the resources, we don't have the budget, we don't have the 00:30:36.944 --> 00:30:38.854 permission, Matt says no, yada, yada. 00:30:38.904 --> 00:30:41.794 And I think the thing that we're all frustrated with and why so many people are 00:30:41.794 --> 00:30:44.464 leaving is we cannot see a route forwards. 00:30:44.764 --> 00:30:48.554 All we can see is kind of maintain the status quo, hang on tight 00:30:48.584 --> 00:30:50.174 to whatever drama comes next. 00:30:50.574 --> 00:30:52.854 Well, we'll shake off a few more contributors and we'll have to 00:30:52.854 --> 00:30:53.784 take on more of the workload. 00:30:54.004 --> 00:30:56.979 And there's no, There isn't a route, certainly, that I can see where we 00:30:56.979 --> 00:30:58.209 go, Okay, now we're beating Wix. 00:30:58.429 --> 00:30:59.999 Now we are moving forwards. 00:30:59.999 --> 00:31:00.619 Now we're growing. 00:31:00.619 --> 00:31:01.589 Now we're doing great stuff. 00:31:02.169 --> 00:31:02.609 Scaring. 00:31:02.610 --> 00:31:05.459 Ha. 00:31:05.599 --> 00:31:05.889 Matt: account. 00:31:05.889 --> 00:31:08.539 I have a paid 300 a year wordpress. 00:31:08.539 --> 00:31:11.859 com account for a website that I, another newsletter that I have called the podcast 00:31:11.869 --> 00:31:14.119 setup where I write about podcasting. 00:31:14.569 --> 00:31:18.709 And, um, I noticed it's been a couple of weeks since I've published anything there. 00:31:18.709 --> 00:31:20.089 So it's been a couple of weeks since I've logged into. 00:31:20.289 --> 00:31:22.469 com, but I've noticed now when I log into. 00:31:22.699 --> 00:31:29.539 com marketplace is right under plugins and it, and that, Sort of distinction wasn't 00:31:29.549 --> 00:31:33.049 there before or at least I certainly hadn't seen it in the last month or 00:31:33.049 --> 00:31:39.509 so So the marketplace is now getting pushed on dot com at least in my plan 00:31:39.799 --> 00:31:44.379 much more visibly One of the things I was thinking about through this whole WP 00:31:44.379 --> 00:31:47.579 engine thing was well, maybe they were I mean, they're enterprise software. 00:31:47.599 --> 00:31:50.689 I used to sell against them as a Pagely account executive. 00:31:50.689 --> 00:31:51.669 I was there for three years. 00:31:51.899 --> 00:31:57.349 So they are for every account a software enterprise company. 00:31:57.389 --> 00:31:58.199 They're vicious. 00:31:58.739 --> 00:31:59.639 They are cruel. 00:31:59.879 --> 00:32:04.689 They are tactful in their sales as any enterprise software company is right. 00:32:05.079 --> 00:32:07.149 Um, so I wouldn't had it. 00:32:07.289 --> 00:32:08.509 have put it past them. 00:32:08.559 --> 00:32:14.109 If WP engine was going to launch what I call the HubSpot esque sort of marketplace 00:32:14.119 --> 00:32:17.169 where HubSpot has a marketplace, you can buy stuff, but guess what? 00:32:17.169 --> 00:32:23.049 If you go from HubSpot to say Salesforce or, uh, Asana or whatever, um, you're not 00:32:23.059 --> 00:32:25.479 taking that marketplace stuff with you. 00:32:25.479 --> 00:32:26.399 It's there, right? 00:32:26.549 --> 00:32:32.649 And WP engine launching something like that to really challenge, 00:32:32.709 --> 00:32:34.759 um, the, the ecosystem. 00:32:35.309 --> 00:32:36.859 But now as I see it. 00:32:37.174 --> 00:32:41.944 Well, dot com has a marketplace, uh, and Matt kind of like thrust them to 00:32:41.944 --> 00:32:44.364 create their own mirror of dot org. 00:32:44.534 --> 00:32:48.944 Maybe that's just going to thrust them to make a marketplace, uh, faster 00:32:48.954 --> 00:32:52.984 than what they had maybe previously planned or maybe had never thought of. 00:32:52.984 --> 00:32:56.714 And now they're like, aha, we'll call this a marketplace and we'll 00:32:56.714 --> 00:32:58.124 start selling stuff through it. 00:32:59.079 --> 00:33:01.609 Jono: You know, the best thing that will happen there is we'll then have 00:33:01.609 --> 00:33:04.569 an even more reinforced confusion between WordPress and WordPress. 00:33:04.569 --> 00:33:07.179 And then the solution will be we'll add a marketplace on org. 00:33:07.339 --> 00:33:10.259 So we'll just have like all these confusing mirrors of each other. 00:33:10.259 --> 00:33:10.489 Why not? 00:33:10.489 --> 00:33:10.509 Ha 00:33:10.524 --> 00:33:10.814 Matt: Right. 00:33:11.044 --> 00:33:15.314 And that made me start to think about, well, if you go back like a decade 00:33:15.314 --> 00:33:20.084 or 12 years when the Avada theme and visual composer was out there, you 00:33:20.084 --> 00:33:21.874 were buying stuff from theme forest. 00:33:21.904 --> 00:33:23.854 And Matt was really like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. 00:33:23.874 --> 00:33:26.604 That's not the WordPress experience I want people to have. 00:33:26.884 --> 00:33:27.114 Right. 00:33:27.114 --> 00:33:28.344 So it was that same thing. 00:33:28.344 --> 00:33:32.404 But now it's like a mega hosting company is, is kind of doing that. 00:33:32.794 --> 00:33:36.674 Um, it is like, again, I don't have a particular angle on 00:33:36.674 --> 00:33:38.224 this, but I'm just observing it. 00:33:38.244 --> 00:33:39.144 And I'm like, wow. 00:33:39.389 --> 00:33:44.309 The marketplace thing could happen sooner across multiple 00:33:44.339 --> 00:33:46.869 entities because of all of this. 00:33:47.009 --> 00:33:49.539 And is that the outcome we really wanted? 00:33:49.984 --> 00:33:51.874 Jono: Yeah, I, I think it's exactly what happens. 00:33:51.874 --> 00:33:52.934 I don't think it's the outcome of one. 00:33:53.134 --> 00:33:56.544 I, I would be very surprised if, um, New Fold, Strip, Bluehost 00:33:56.544 --> 00:33:57.834 don't do the same thing as well. 00:33:58.114 --> 00:34:02.344 And everybody's hosting onboarding flow now has some kind of, and 00:34:02.344 --> 00:34:05.194 you can premium upsell to these plugins, et cetera, that they do from 00:34:05.194 --> 00:34:07.634 their own mini curated repository. 00:34:07.824 --> 00:34:08.094 Yeah. 00:34:08.134 --> 00:34:13.464 And WordPress becomes a fragmented distributed thing where wherever you 00:34:13.464 --> 00:34:16.634 happen to run your website, you're tied into, you've got your plugins 00:34:16.634 --> 00:34:17.859 here, you've got your add ins here. 00:34:18.089 --> 00:34:19.249 This is proprietary. 00:34:19.249 --> 00:34:20.249 This works differently. 00:34:20.629 --> 00:34:25.149 Yeah, all that portability stuff goes away, which I think certainly, 00:34:26.559 --> 00:34:28.139 and I'm being very lenient about it, there are huge advantages 00:34:28.139 --> 00:34:29.169 to WordPress and I love it. 00:34:29.199 --> 00:34:31.559 And one of the huge advantages, certainly one that Matt praises a 00:34:31.559 --> 00:34:32.819 lot, is the portability angle, right? 00:34:32.889 --> 00:34:35.589 There's all the data transfer portability stuff happening at the moment. 00:34:36.019 --> 00:34:40.409 Yeah, that's, that's at risk, I think, if we end up in a landscape of marketplaces 00:34:40.409 --> 00:34:42.749 and verticals, individual little silos. 00:34:42.769 --> 00:34:46.229 Matt: last shoe to drop for me on these dot com plugin and theme 00:34:46.239 --> 00:34:48.669 pages will be if they have like a. 00:34:49.019 --> 00:34:52.599 You know, running your own WordPress, install this plugin with Jetpack 00:34:53.169 --> 00:34:56.489 and then people will be like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. 00:34:56.509 --> 00:34:59.379 Because they have that site management angle, right? 00:34:59.379 --> 00:35:00.049 So does dot com. 00:35:00.049 --> 00:35:03.499 But so does, I mean, so does Jetpack where you could kind of use Jetpack 00:35:03.499 --> 00:35:08.129 services like a managed WP or, you know, name your favorite kind of management. 00:35:08.519 --> 00:35:09.339 Plug in service. 00:35:09.609 --> 00:35:10.669 They could do the same thing. 00:35:10.669 --> 00:35:13.159 We're like, Hey, if you're running this on your own site, you can just install 00:35:13.159 --> 00:35:16.339 jetpack and we'll install this plug in for you and and keep it updated. 00:35:16.739 --> 00:35:20.789 Um, that would be a very, very interesting thing to watch because then I would 00:35:20.789 --> 00:35:23.449 say, Yeah, we've got an issue here. 00:35:23.549 --> 00:35:27.169 Um, how did the plug in and theme authors get a cut of this traffic? 00:35:28.114 --> 00:35:28.584 Jono: Yeah. 00:35:28.824 --> 00:35:29.084 Yeah. 00:35:29.084 --> 00:35:29.594 Sheesh. 00:35:29.659 --> 00:35:30.364 Matt: Um, yeah. 00:35:30.684 --> 00:35:31.994 Let's start wrapping it up. 00:35:32.024 --> 00:35:32.364 I've 00:35:33.104 --> 00:35:33.524 Jono: Deep breath. 00:35:33.854 --> 00:35:34.464 Deep breath. 00:35:34.474 --> 00:35:35.944 Matt: we're not quitting WordPress. 00:35:35.964 --> 00:35:37.804 People are like, I'm not quitting WordPress. 00:35:37.834 --> 00:35:38.144 I can't. 00:35:38.474 --> 00:35:43.244 Uh, um, but from your angle on the SEO side, like I said before, 00:35:43.274 --> 00:35:46.534 uh, I saw some folks saying, Hey, we'll just switch to Laravel. 00:35:46.544 --> 00:35:49.184 Like, yeah, just make your, yeah, just switch to Laravel, Matt. 00:35:49.184 --> 00:35:49.464 What do you think? 00:35:49.714 --> 00:35:50.664 Oh yeah, sure. 00:35:50.664 --> 00:35:51.594 It's the same thing. 00:35:51.964 --> 00:35:53.244 Um, from the SEO side. 00:35:53.394 --> 00:35:54.044 Jono: from ACF. 00:35:54.044 --> 00:35:54.544 Yeah, sure. 00:35:54.554 --> 00:35:55.214 Matt: So it's easy. 00:35:55.214 --> 00:35:56.054 It's very easy. 00:35:56.384 --> 00:36:01.124 Um, what do you see in the SEO world, uh, that that is something that 00:36:01.124 --> 00:36:04.024 is a, a kind of an off, off ramp? 00:36:04.144 --> 00:36:04.684 WordPress? 00:36:04.684 --> 00:36:05.554 Is it a Wix? 00:36:05.554 --> 00:36:06.544 Is it a Squarespace? 00:36:06.574 --> 00:36:07.564 Is it static? 00:36:07.564 --> 00:36:09.604 Like what other CMSs do you look at? 00:36:09.604 --> 00:36:09.784 Go. 00:36:09.784 --> 00:36:10.054 Okay. 00:36:10.054 --> 00:36:13.384 They're, they're doing a fairly good job, but nowhere near as, as good as WordPress. 00:36:14.474 --> 00:36:16.134 Jono: There's nothing even remotely close. 00:36:16.194 --> 00:36:18.984 Uh, this is my biggest gripe as a, as a lousy technical SEO. 00:36:18.984 --> 00:36:21.914 I spend a lot of time poking at WordPress and other platforms. 00:36:22.379 --> 00:36:25.199 And my word, just the, pick anything else, name it. 00:36:25.239 --> 00:36:28.579 And you've got a year of work to do employing a team of half a dozen 00:36:28.579 --> 00:36:32.179 developers to even get parity to where WordPress was last year. 00:36:32.399 --> 00:36:34.319 Nevermind to maintain the velocity to stay ahead. 00:36:34.709 --> 00:36:38.809 So many of the, the sites and businesses I work with are running, I don't know, a 00:36:38.809 --> 00:36:42.729 Sanity or a Wix or a Headless something or other, or they've done a thing 00:36:42.729 --> 00:36:45.839 in React with a backend on something you've never heard of on a Gatsby or 00:36:45.839 --> 00:36:47.959 brr, they're all awful universally. 00:36:47.989 --> 00:36:52.389 Like they're, some, some of them are very good at one thing, Like a lot of 00:36:52.389 --> 00:36:55.109 them preference developer experience, which I'm never sure is a good thing 00:36:55.109 --> 00:36:57.489 to preference if you're trying to run a business like preference, 00:36:57.509 --> 00:36:59.169 marketing, marketing tools, etc. 00:36:59.209 --> 00:36:59.599 But whatever. 00:36:59.809 --> 00:37:00.789 Some of them are very fast. 00:37:00.799 --> 00:37:02.159 Some of them are accessible. 00:37:02.429 --> 00:37:06.549 Some of them, it's very easy to do custom post type like stuff. 00:37:06.799 --> 00:37:09.939 None of them are good at technical SEO and none of them are good at 00:37:09.979 --> 00:37:11.059 all the things across the board. 00:37:11.219 --> 00:37:13.499 And not always WordPress out of the box, but it's extensible and 00:37:13.499 --> 00:37:17.589 customizable enough that if you know the right tools and tips and tricks, 00:37:17.829 --> 00:37:18.889 it's easy enough to get there. 00:37:19.259 --> 00:37:20.869 Um, I don't see. 00:37:21.819 --> 00:37:22.819 And this is the most frustrating thing. 00:37:22.819 --> 00:37:25.549 I don't see anything else even being able to catch up. 00:37:25.559 --> 00:37:31.649 We have such a moat when it comes to extensibility and inherent capabilities 00:37:31.909 --> 00:37:36.659 and resourcing, even as diminished as we are, and yet still we're losing the war 00:37:36.689 --> 00:37:41.129 because we can't tell that story because all the big scary philosophical questions. 00:37:41.200 --> 00:37:42.589 Very, very frustrating. 00:37:42.669 --> 00:37:47.439 Matt: haven't asked this, uh, uh, low hanging fruit question since probably like 00:37:47.439 --> 00:37:53.179 my first dozen or so podcast episodes, but your favorite SEO plugin, your favorite 00:37:53.179 --> 00:37:55.749 collection of plugins that you use on your 00:37:55.759 --> 00:37:56.339 Jono: Oh, wow. 00:37:56.339 --> 00:37:57.379 Let me go see what I'm running. 00:37:57.599 --> 00:37:58.749 So yeah, disclosure. 00:37:58.749 --> 00:38:01.779 I worked at Yoast for five years, so I will say Yoast. 00:38:01.789 --> 00:38:05.779 Um, but that's, I worked at Yoast because I believed in the plugin and because 00:38:05.779 --> 00:38:09.109 I thought it was the best one, not the other way around, so I'll still say Yoast. 00:38:09.149 --> 00:38:11.389 I think, um, I'm a little bit frustrated. 00:38:12.079 --> 00:38:14.409 With them organizationally in the teams partly why I left it would 00:38:14.429 --> 00:38:17.539 be nice to see them ship some new features that aren't just the AI thing. 00:38:17.719 --> 00:38:20.419 I think that's very exciting, very shiny, but there's definitely more work to 00:38:20.429 --> 00:38:22.579 be done in workflows and other areas. 00:38:22.579 --> 00:38:26.739 But yeah, Yoast SEO definitely is my SEO plugin for choice, just because it does. 00:38:27.084 --> 00:38:29.844 It does a thousand things behind the scenes that most people shouldn't 00:38:29.884 --> 00:38:33.324 ever need to care about that none of the others do like silly stuff like, 00:38:33.384 --> 00:38:38.504 um, There's a no index HTTP header on your RSS feeds so that Google doesn't 00:38:38.554 --> 00:38:41.754 spend ages calling and indexing them that nobody else does because nobody 00:38:41.754 --> 00:38:43.074 else has even asked that question. 00:38:43.354 --> 00:38:44.234 Um, and there's a thousand of those. 00:38:44.564 --> 00:38:45.204 That's really nice. 00:38:45.364 --> 00:38:49.659 Um, other stuff I really like, um, Do do do do do. 00:38:49.759 --> 00:38:51.559 What am I using at the moment? 00:38:52.139 --> 00:38:53.319 String back recently. 00:38:53.359 --> 00:38:54.739 Um, all the usual stuff, right? 00:38:54.739 --> 00:38:57.349 User role editors, really nice stuff that should be canonical plugins. 00:38:57.349 --> 00:38:58.929 Not that we know what canonical plugin means. 00:38:59.139 --> 00:39:01.739 Um, all the stuff that the Google performance team are doing. 00:39:02.039 --> 00:39:04.059 So, the, um, performance lab stuff. 00:39:04.059 --> 00:39:06.639 The speculative loading plugin that came out the other day. 00:39:06.949 --> 00:39:09.669 Um, speculation headers are really cool for performance. 00:39:09.729 --> 00:39:10.659 Sitekit's cool. 00:39:11.059 --> 00:39:14.429 Um, yeah, yeah, nothing, nothing too surprising. 00:39:14.719 --> 00:39:19.269 Um, ACF obviously is architecture really nice for SEO because inevitably 00:39:19.269 --> 00:39:24.179 you wind up wanting to do things like, um, this is a cupcake page and I need 00:39:24.179 --> 00:39:25.479 to know what color frosting it has. 00:39:25.479 --> 00:39:27.409 And I want to grab that value and I want to incorporate it 00:39:27.409 --> 00:39:30.319 into the meta description, um, that sort of stuff's really nice. 00:39:30.539 --> 00:39:30.809 Yeah. 00:39:30.809 --> 00:39:32.629 Otherwise nothing, nothing too unusual. 00:39:32.629 --> 00:39:32.839 I don't 00:39:33.059 --> 00:39:33.739 Matt: Fantastic. 00:39:34.049 --> 00:39:35.659 Uh, he is Jono Alderson. 00:39:35.669 --> 00:39:37.029 You can find him at Jono Alderson. 00:39:37.759 --> 00:39:38.189 com. 00:39:38.189 --> 00:39:40.254 One of the last blog posts, uh, at times of the year. 00:39:40.264 --> 00:39:42.944 At the time of this recording is the death of the category page. 00:39:43.114 --> 00:39:46.354 I'm going to be diving into this blog post right, right after this, 00:39:46.354 --> 00:39:48.234 because is the category page dead? 00:39:48.484 --> 00:39:50.414 Well, you have to find out on Jono Alderson. 00:39:51.194 --> 00:39:51.604 com Jono. 00:39:51.604 --> 00:39:52.334 Thanks for hanging out today. 00:39:52.334 --> 00:39:52.764 It's been fun. 00:39:53.259 --> 00:39:53.949 Jono: No, thanks for having me. 00:39:53.949 --> 00:39:54.749 It's been really lovely. 00:39:54.749 --> 00:39:55.149 Excellent.