Steve

Once came 2nd in a nearest-the-pin comp 😂

[Steve @GolfHackerSteve]

4 Feb 2009 – 11 Nov 2026.

After many years of building websites and creating content, I'm calling it a day.

Google has slowly killed the search engine that helped independent websites thrive, I'm one of the casualties.

I'm off to play golf and think about a new career :)

[Steve @GolfHackerSteve]

@engineeringolf think Lofts got jacked to give the illusion of more distance, then we were told we need four or five wedges to fill the gaps. But on the bright side manufacturers can now sell 7w, 9w to replace those hard to hit long irons

Love your info 👍

Cheers

[Steve @GolfHackerSteve]

@MyGolfSpy Cobra Speedzone

[Steve @GolfHackerSteve]

@PeterFinchGolf @MorayGC Well played Pete 💪🍻

[Steve @GolfHackerSteve]

@vietnamsounds10 @MyGolfSpy

[Marcin Dudek | WordPress speed + AI @MythThrazz]

https://t.co/ZvDuOLqqcp

[Steve @GolfHackerSteve]

@mgaak1dev My first hello world with WordPress was on 4th February 2009

A lifetime ago 🍻

[GeneratePress @GeneratePress]

We're excited to announce 4 new Starter Sites for charities and nonprofits. These professionally designed sites make creating sites for organizations doing critical work easier than ever. https://t.co/PGbIZoHDsv

[Steve @GolfHackerSteve]

Awesome for Rory, it was a hard watch

I didn't win...finished top 1% but don't know exactly where

It was fun while it lasted...golf won 🍻

[Steve @GolfHackerSteve]

I'm cheering for Rory

also currently in 1st place in the Masters Fantasy...

Not sure my nerves can take this 😀

[Nate Hake @natejhake]

Google's AI Overviews = theft 🚨

And Google just got smacked with a lawsuit by Chegg -- and it's utterly fantastic ⚖️

I'm a former commercial litigator turned online travel publisher -- here are my notes from reading the complaint (link in next tweet) 👇

(warning, this summary is long & took me all morning to put together -- if you're a publisher please take 10 minutes to actually read it & share it with others)

1) Chegg is represented by the Susman Godfrey firm -- which means they are not messing around. Susman has quite the reputation as savvy, hard-charging litigators

2) Importantly, the compliant is grounded in antitrust law (NOT copyright, as I initially expected). And, goodness, it's a real banger ....

3) The complaint says the "exchange of access for traffic is the fundamental bargain that has long supported the production of content for the open commercial Web." 🎯

4) It continues: "But in recent years, Google has begun to tie its participation in this bargain to another transaction to which Chegg and other publishers do not willingly consent. As a condition of indexing publisher content for search, Google now requires publishers to also supply that content for other uses that cannibalize or preempt search referrals."

5) Chegg talks not just about AI Overviews, but also references featured snippets

6) 🫶this part -- "Google’s foray into digital publishing is designed to make Google a destination, rather than a search origination point to other websites."

7) Even if Google provided a separate opt-out for AI Overviews, it wouldn't work - because Google's monopoly power creates a collective action problem

8) A lot of fantastic points about how Google unfairly leverages its monopoly power to bend the open web to Google's will

9) Paragraph 13 is chef's kiss 🫰... "Google’s conduct is already eroding incentives for Chegg and other publishers to produce such valuable and useful content. If not abated, this trajectory threatens to leave the public with an increasingly unrecognizable Internet experience, in which users never leave Google’s walled garden and receive only synthetic, error-ridden answers in response to their queries—a
once robust but now hollowed-out information ecosystem of little use and unworthy of trust."

10) Search engines are supposed to be intermediaries between users and web publishers. The complaint quotes old-school Google saying "We may be the only people in the world who can say our goal is to have people leave our website as quickly as possible."

11) Search is a uniquely important channel for publishers. Other channels of traffic like social media can never replace search, because that traffic is not intentional

12) "Put simply, Google’s search monopoly gives it control over online distribution for digital publishers. Google uses that power to force digital publishers to give up their content. Google then itself acts as a publisher, either by republishing portions of other digital publishers’ content or by using GAI to summarize the content. The end result is that users increasingly consume other web publishers’ content on Google’s SERP, either in abridged or derivative form, which starves those publishers of traffic and revenue."

13) Chegg calls Google's strategy for publishers "embrace, absorb, extinguish"

14) Next is an entire fantastic section recounting the history of "Google’s Transformation from a Search Engine to Web Publisher"

15) Google appropriated publisher's content in 2 phases. Phase I it calls the 'republishing phase.' The complaint talks about featured like featured snippets & People Also Ask

16) Hilariously, paragraph 63 includes a screenshot of Sundar Pichai's mug inside a SERP for "who is google's ceo"

16) "Google refers to Featured Snippets, Top Stories, and People Also Ask as “search features.” But they are separate and distinct products from search results. This is Google acting as an answer engine—not a search engine."

17) Republishing is not automatically bad, but the problem is that Google forces it on publishers as a condition for appearing in Search (of which it has a monopoly)

18) "The decision to opt out of republishing by disallowing snippets or withholding Search Index Data is a Hobson’s choice. "

19) Phase II of Google's strategy to dominate online publishing centers around AI Overviews ("GAI")

20) Complaint notes that the non-monopolists like OpenAI and Perplexity have been forced to do licensing deals with many publishers, whereas Google has largely avoided this cost thanks to its search monopoly

21) Complaint walks through the differences between LLM pre-training and RAG (a point I've been trying to educate publishers on for months and months)

22) Next is a recap of Google's LLM product history: Bard, SGE, Gemini & AI Overviews

23) @rustybrick commentary is cited quite a bit (see footnotes on pages 40, 41)

24) The transition to AI Overviews "all but completes Google’s evolution from a “search engine” to an “answer engine” that publishes answers to user’s queries. Its formerly symbiotic and complementary relationship with publishers has now become overwhelmingly parasitic and competitive."

25) Google's own marketing language directly admits that the purpose of featured snippets & AI Overviews is to prevent users from clicking throughs to publishers

26) Next section talks about how Google's unauthorized use of publisher content for AI training

27) "Google has been intentionally vague in identifying the precise data sets used to train the LLMs underlying Gemini and AI Overviews"

28) "Google’s Terms of Service indicate that it uses all the information that it collects for search indexing to train its LLMs, including Chegg’s data. "

29) Google announced Google-Extended in Sept 2023, but blocking it doesn't change that Google trained on your content or that Google uses it for RAG

30) Next section: Google poses a "fundamental threat" to online publishing 👏👏

31) Lots of discussion on how AI Overviews directly compete with and seek to replace online publishers

32) Oh WOW - in paragraph 121, Sussman dug up a pretty damning admission in a 2023 Google DeepMind presentation: Google admits Generative AI in search would "reduce referrals to content providers hurting their ability to monetize"

33) Lots of outside observers recognize the risk AI Overviews present to publishers. Footnotes cite @timsoulo among others

34) AI Overviews increase "zero click" searches

35) AI Overviews will cause a downward spiral in publishing quality - as the incentive to create gets less, quality degrades, and the whole web suffers

36) Google has put publishers in an awful position - by publishing content, they feed the very AI beast that is consuming publishers alive

27) Next, the complaint walks through the actual legal claims -- which, IMHO, are quite strong

28) First - "reciprocal dealing," an antitrust concept which "occurs when a firm with market power refuses to sell product X to a customer unless that customer agrees to sell (or give) product Y to it. In this case, the product Google is selling to (and threatening to withhold from) digital publishers is Search Referral Traffic."

29) Second - "monopoly maintenance." Basically argues that Google's use of AI constitutes a form of "rent extraction" on publishers.

30) Google is using AI to illegally entrench its search monopoly

31) Third - "Unjust enrichment" - which basically means Google has unfairly benefited at the expense of publishers via wrongful conduct.

32) "The value of Google’s models and AI products is directly related to the quality of the works that it acquires to train them and ground their outputs."

33) Finally - a recital of the counts:
I - Reciprocal Dealing in Violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act
II - Reciprocal Dealing in Violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act
III - Tortious Conduct in Violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act
IV - Unlawful Monopoly Leveraging in Violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act
V - Unlawful Monopolization in Violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act
VI - Unlawful Attempted Monopolization in Violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act
VII - Common Law Unjust Enrichment

34) Lastly, Chegg's request for relief is of course damages and attorney fees, but also for a permanent injunction preventing Google from engaging in unlawful conduct

35) Chegg demands a jury trial

***link to complaint in next tweet***

My overall takeaway?

This is a truly fantastic complaint.

The only thing I think it missed is Google's admission in a blog post in summer 2023 that robots(.)txt is not a sufficient consent mechanism in the AI age. But, other than that, they really did their homework and hammered a ton of points I've been railing about for years.

If you are a publisher - please share so others see! 👏👏👏

[Steve @GolfHackerSteve]

👍

[The Critical Drinker @TheCriticalDri2]

@JeffBezos This guy. Just cast him. Cast him right now and don't screw it up, and you'll make billions.

[Steve @GolfHackerSteve]

@UKCarlBroadbent Good luck Carl. Just rebooted one of mine too 🤣🍻

[GeneratePress @GeneratePress]

Something big is on its way.

Stay tuned. We'll be sharing all of the details real soon.

[Calendar Club UK @CalendarClubUK]

🎉 We're Back in Town! 🎉
Our stores are starting to open! You can now find us in 9 locations across the UK. 🏠

Need help finding us? Use our Store Locator to discover your nearest location! https://t.co/ZVtj2UFMHC

[Jamie Marsland - Head of WordPress YouTube ❤️ @pootlepress]

Buckle up! 👇

Join me and @thekevingeary for the launch of our brand-new podcast! 🎙️

Episode 1: 'The Journey Begins' 📅 11th September, 7pm UTC

What topics should we dive into? Let us know!

[Calendar Club UK @CalendarClubUK]

Hey, hey, hey, it's now 10% off on all orders over £15 + Free Delivery!⁠
⁠
Don't miss out -head to our website to get 2025 ready now!⁠

https://t.co/H2YnObzsJL

[Kevin Geary @thekevingeary]

A major FALSE PREMISE (there's more than one) that most WordPress page builders, block themes, and block systems were designed and built around is this:

"People don't want to learn or understand web design, they just want it to be easy." 😮

YET, I discovered that the exact opposite is true when I started to get hundreds of comments and emails from people going through my free Page Building 101 course.

The reality is that people who see themselves as freelancers and agency owners (and this is even true for TONS of hobbyists, btw!) are VERY VERY hungry to learn and grow. 💪

Why? Because learning is empowering! Knowing what you're doing, why you're doing it, and what's happening under the hood FEEDS self-esteem and confidence while dramatically reducing frustration. 😎

It's true that tens or even hundreds of thousands of people use Elementor/Divi/Kadence/Beaver/etc., because "they're easy."

That's a misnomer, though! I wouldn't say the tools are "easy," I'd say they're "inviting." If you actually know the language of web design, these tools are terribly difficult to use because they're proprietary and antithetical to standard practice.

What lesser-skilled users don't realize is how much they've been held back by these tools skill-wise, and how unmaintainable, unscalable, and inaccessible their work is because of it.

Again, this isn't speculation. PB101 shined a spotlight on this. The beginning of PB101 shows the stark contrast between entry-level page builders and block themes and pro-capable tools.

Want to know what the average Elementor/Divi/Kadence/Beaver, etc. user thinks once their eyes are opened? We don't have to guess. There are hundreds of comments and I've gotten hundreds of emails about it. Here's the general sentiment:

- "I had no idea those tools had so many issues or I probably wouldn't have used them in the first place."
- "I had no idea I was being encouraged to learn so many bad practices this entire time."
- "I spent the last 3 years using these tools and I apparently still know nothing about actual web design."
- "I switched builders 1/4 of the way through PB101 and I'm so glad I did."
- "I've never had more confidence in my toolset and my work than I do after watching PB101."
- "I don't feel like an imposter anymore."
- "When I go back to work on old sites in those old builders, I feel like I'm using a cheap toy."

Let's set aside the fact that the Bubble Gum Builders are a race to the bottom from an industry perspective.

Let's set aside the fact that the sites being churned out by people using these tools have major issues which bring legitimate pain to CLIENTS.

Let's set aside all industry-wide ramifications and focus on the INDIVIDUAL...

The facts are that individual freelancers, agency owners, and people with aspirations in this industry:

1. Want to learn.
2. Want to use capable, quality tools.
3. Want to do good work.
4. Want to feel confident.
5. Want to do right for their clients.

And that, my friends, is truly AWESOME. 🎉🥳

Now, read that list again and take pause.

You MUST come to realize that the Bubble Gum Builders are antithetical to every single thing users actually want and that they were DESIGNED and BUILT around completely false premises.

PB101 shows this, because people that do PB101 stop using these tools as soon as they realize:

🤯 "I can't learn the language of web design in a page builder that doesn't respect it and doesn't leverage it."

🤯 "It doesn't feel good to know that I'm using an underpowered tool designed for amateurs and lay people while trying to tell my clients that I do professional work."

🤯 "It's physically impossible for me to do good work in a tool that that writes bad code, encourages bad practices, and lacks the necessary architecture to ensure things like maintainability and scalability."

🤯 "I can't possibly feel confident when the tool is a full-on crutch and I have zero real grasp of base-level fundamentals like HTML and CSS."

🤯 "I'm not doing right by my clients when I'm slapping their project together with duct tape and bubble gum."

It's hard to argue against any of this (though people will try - I've heard it all).

While it often hurts some people's feelings/ego/whatever, the facts remain true.

The questions I have for myself, and for those who agree with everything in this post are:

Have we fallen into a similar trap with the "pro-capable" tools we're currently using and praising?

Are there some realizations that we need to have in order to get us to a much better experience?

Are we truly happy with our stack, or are there some major challenges we're choosing to ignore and sweep under the rug?

Are we in a place where we love our horse because we haven't yet been introduced to the automobile?

Are we stuck in "Era 3" thinking?

By the way, did you know/realize that there have been three distinct eras of WordPress (2003-2010, 2011-2018, 2017-2024) all marked by completely different experiences?

Did you know that we're starting the shift from Era 3 to Era 4 NEXT MONTH?

And that this shift is once again marked by a brand new experience and a brand new category of tool that will set a new standard for how professional work is done in WordPress?

Yeah. That's what's happening. And you can be here for it! Ground floor team, LFG! 🎉🥳💪

Link is in bio (Etch) for people who want to know where to be and when to be there.

[Steve @GolfHackerSteve]

@pootlepress Hi Jamie

How about something that covers Affiliate Websites, Internet Marketing, coaching course sellers….

most of the people I know who do these things, use WP

Good luck with the new role, I’m sure you’ll smash it 🍻

[Steve @GolfHackerSteve]

@mgaak1dev Feb 2009. My first WP site was built using ProSense Blue by DoshDosh. I thought I was pretty cool at the time 🤦‍♂️🤣