I'm hoping there's some web 1.1 news just over the horizon, in the meantime the database and filter quality have grown steadily. One of my page recommendations was a post that had some good links, including an indieweb mapping project.

Source.

At a glance, this looked similar to my implementation. It isn't, like many others it connects sites (rather than pages) based on hrefs. It also seems to be abandonware, the true scourge of the indieweb.


The graph looks kind of cool but also extremely busy.

Source.

Another link from the Shellsharks page took me to The Forest. Functionally, The Forest is a blogstumbler like some of the others I've come across. It distinguishes itself with superior aesthetics. The 'about' text doesn't directly say whether or not the name comes from the dark forest metaphor.

Source.

My web 1.1 recommendations have also included a hefty dose of vaccine-related content. Part of me wants to keep these links in the database; they're historical viewpoints that represent part of the 2020/2021 conversation. Moreover, I'm academically curious about the horticultural and economic benefits of using gelatinous human remains as plant fertilizer. On the other hand, nah.

Recently, a chunk of of Google's internal search API ostensibly leaked to some SEO bloggers.

SparkToro

Building up one's influence as an author online may indeed lead to ranking benefits in Google. But what exactly in the ranking systems makes up "E-E-A-T" [Ed: Experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness] and how powerful those elements are is an open question. I'm a bit worried that E-E-A-T is 80% propaganda, 20% substance. There are plenty of powerful brands that rank remarkably well in Google and have very little experience, expertise, authoritativeness, or trustworthiness, as HouseFresh's recent, viral article details in depth.

Most of the bloggers' API dissections amount to "here is what the API provides (since there is no leaked algo), here is a real-world example".

House Fresh

Better Homes & Gardens never mentioned conducting tests prior to the Google Product Review Update in July 2022. You can see clearly here how, on July 6th, there were no mentions of air purifiers being tested. Fast forward to July 26th (one day before the announcement of the Google update), and they're now saying they've tested 38 air purifiers. Zero to over 30 devices in just a few weeks without any prior mention of any sort of testing. This is also the first time we see some original photos.

Having occasionally poked my head into SEOland, I enjoyed the writeups.

House Fresh

At position #8, we have Popular Science, a magazine from 1872 that was sold to a private equity firm, North Equity LLC, in 2020. A year later, North Equity introduced Recurrent Ventures, a new arm of their business that runs all the media brands they acquired. A few months later, PopSci switched to an all-digital format. Two years later, in 2023, PopSci stopped being a magazine altogether.

Somehow Google allowed private equity firms to Red Lobster them.

Related - internal

Related - external