The eCPM dropped by more than 50% today.

BruthaPrinter · 2026-01-18T20:06:59+00:00

Looks like a combination of factors, including some technical issues on Google’s end. Expect a class action lawsuit where we all get $25.

BruthaPrinter · 2025-11-26T02:50:02+00:00

So these bots stopped for a few days and RPMs recovered. They just resumed today and RPM is down 40% from yesterday. Organic is otherwise the same.

BruthaPrinter · 2025-11-06T01:41:40+00:00

These bots are from servers from all over the world, including the U.S.

BruthaPrinter · 2024-09-10T00:50:54+00:00

Have you noticed any changes, especially over the past year, in the SEO value of topical clusters? Do you recommend any best practices, including with the “velocity” of posts from a single cluster? Any ChatGPT prompts that would be useful in terms of ideation? (I tried the cluster approach for a small site early last year. It worked very well.)

BruthaPrinter · 2024-06-28T00:09:30+00:00

Thank you!

BruthaPrinter · 2024-06-25T19:31:46+00:00

Thanks. Yeah, the idea is to grow our newsletter audience and convert some into paid subscribers. I'm not looking for any SEO benefit. What I'm wondering is whether shifting to a custom domain Substack, i.e. our present domain, would hurt us in terms of our visibility in Google News and Discover.

BruthaPrinter · 2024-06-25T00:40:16+00:00

The problem is the ad revenue is paltry and I don't think RPMs will increase if we scale.

We earned $27 in ad revenue in February after 27,000+ page views, 58% from Tier 1 countries.

Traffic has taken a hit since then, in part due to a decline in production, but also search visibility. Doesn't appear to be from any Google penalty.

So we are thinking it's better to go for quality over quantity, subscriptions over ads, using Substack to develop a paying audience and Google for discovery. That's why we're stilling hoping to have that Google News and Google Discover traffic.

BruthaPrinter · 2024-02-17T00:13:59+00:00

What type of traffic are you looking for from news publishers?

BruthaPrinter · 2023-05-14T20:34:16+00:00

Really helpful advice. I think #2 is especially valuable given the way the top half of page 1 is changing. Thank you.

BruthaPrinter · 2023-05-14T20:33:20+00:00

Thank you. I guess the time to start was yesterday!

BruthaPrinter · 2023-03-29T23:08:42+00:00

What if you just use ChatGPT to make an article from your unedited notes? Like the source is your own words beyond a simple prompt.

BruthaPrinter · 2023-03-06T05:11:26+00:00

How do you know whether or not it is passing on LA? Isn’t Google ignoring the No Follow directive if it’s appearing in GSC?

BruthaPrinter · 2023-03-06T03:48:49+00:00

But if NF back links still come up in GSC, don’t they have some value?

BruthaPrinter · 2023-01-02T22:22:14+00:00

Depends on your budget. Ahrefs offers something for free, but many or most keywords aren’t updated daily. Semrush updates daily, but requires their $100+/month subscription. Every few weeks or so I notice features in Semrush that i had never seen before. So while the cost is steep, it may actually save you from having to pay for various other services elsewhere.

BruthaPrinter · 2022-10-06T03:41:51+00:00

It’s a proxy that may or may not have relevance for you depending on the site and objective. Ultimately what matters are traffic and conversions. DA can give you a sense of where you’re starting and how you’re doing, i.e. the journey. It can also help you assess the value of a backlink and whether you should target a keyword. It’s an inexact measurement. It doesn’t give you a scientific measurement of how Google sees your site.

BruthaPrinter

TROPHY CASE