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Google's Local Business Service Woes: Persistent Bugs and AI-Driven Layoffs Spark Concern: 

There have been ongoing support and technical issues with Google Business Profiles. Major bugs affecting local business profiles have persisted for months and in several cases years, including image misassignments and overzealous suspension algorithms that remove legitimate reviews. Google's support and engineering teams have struggled to resolve these issues, partly due to significant layoffs aimed at funding AI projects. While Google’s local business services might not generate significant revenue for Google, they are crucial for the company's differentiation in the market. Is Google killing the goose by milking traditional resources for income and not investing enough to stay ahead of the competition.

CNET's Future Under Ziff Davis: Challenges and Google Opportunities/Difficulties Post-Sale:  Red Ventures recently sold CNET to Ziff Davis for around $100 million, a significant loss from the $500 million purchase price. Despite Red Ventures' strong SEO and digital product expertise, CNET struggled due to aggressive content strategies and controversies over AI-generated content. CNET, once a trusted tech review site, saw its reputation and traffic decline. Factors like Google's increased emphasis on shopping ads and affiliate revenue pressures contributed to CNET's struggles. The sale to Ziff Davis is viewed as a positive move, but the site's recovery remains uncertain and tracking whether CNET can recover in the SERPS is worth following to see if a well managed, strong domain with good content can overcome Google’s algorithmic whims.

Google's Antitrust Remedies: Implications for Apple, Mozilla, and the SEO Landscape: 

What will the repercussions of Google's recent antitrust liability be?. The potential remedies, such as breaking up Google, ending exclusive default search deals with Apple, and implementing data-sharing practices, all have limits and issues. The big question will be the impact on Apple and Mozilla if Google’s default search deals are prohibited. Apple has the potential to develop a robust search engine, considering its existing search index and AI advancements. Perhaps we are seeing the outline of that via Apple’s announced relationship with ChatGPT. Given that the settlement could take 4 years and a similar amount of time for Apple to fully implement generative AI across their full user base, changes to the landscape will be slow in coming.  The long-term effects of these potential regulatory changes could impact Google's market dominance. For now and the immediate future, SEO’s need not worry as things will change little and when they do it will be slowly.

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
Ep 169

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