Welcome to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast, where Spencer and Jared offer their thoughts on the latest news in SEO, Google and AI; talk about their side hustles; and share some funny and weird niche sites.

They kick things off by talking about the SearchGPT announcement. Spencer talks about how the tool looks like it will work and whether it will include links to sources.

They reference an article on Wired and talk about how SearchGPT’s initial search functionality would be limited, but what will it look like when and if it eventually expands? 

What type of approach will SearchGPT eventually be based on? How does this impact publishers?

Tune in to hear Spencer and Jared’s initial thoughts on this bombshell news item!

Moving along, they talk about how Google is planning to scrap its plans to kill 3rd party cookies in Chrome. This news is quite shocking, as Google has been talking about killing those cookies since 2020. People have been preparing for it for years!

Why does Spencer think they made this decision? And what trend does Jared highlight and question? How’s this going to play out in other countries? 

And what’s likely driving this decision by Google? Is this good or bad news for publishers?

Next up is more Google news. Google recently released its Q2 earnings and revealed some interesting data, such as growth in its search revenue.

Although the company beat some of its estimates, where did its projections fall short? And where does its stock price stand? What does Jared point out about CEO vs public perception? And does this performance suggest that there’s room for SearchGPT to get a piece of the pie?

Also, what’s the status of AI Overviews, according to Sundar Pichai?

It’s on to the Shiny Object Shenanigans, and Spencer kicks things off talking about his experience in the Facebook Performance Bonus Program.

After just 2 months, things are going very well. In the first month he earned slightly less than $3k and this month he expects to surpass that.

How often is he posting? How has his strategy changed? What does this mean for the niche website associated with the Facebook page?

For Jared, he talks about a side hustle within a side hustle: Creator Connections inside the Amazon Influencer Program.

He recently discovered higher-paying opportunities within the program. How did he find out about them and how do they work? And why did he and Spencer describe them as “free money?”

Check out the episode to hear all the details!

Spencer shares his weird niche site first when the time comes: Test My Thumbnail, which allows you to upload a sample of a thumbnail and see what it will look like alongside others on YouTube and tweak it accordingly.

The site offers lots of other features and functions, such as a/b testing thumbnails and YouTube revenue calculator.

What does the traffic look like? What do Spencer and Jared have to say about this site?

When it’s Jared’s turn, he goes pretty weird with Gift Wrap My Face which, as the name suggests, lets you print your fact on wrapping paper.

This DR27 site doesn’t get a lot of traffic and isn’t ranking for a lot of keywords, but what’s so interesting about it, according to Jared? What’s the story behind the brand?

Jared also checks back on a weird site that was featured previously. Find out how that site is doing!

And that takes us to the end of another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! 

Don’t forget to come back next week for some more insight, inspiration, and fun!

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