Joe Harby

Chief Editor @downtimebros, covering all things gaming, film & TV, and internet culture.

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

Dead Island 2 was such a surprise banger. Well worth checking out if you want some laid-back fun that doesn't take itself too seriously.
https://t.co/3IwL5J1FIC

[GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT @GFRobot]

This is it. Giant Freakin Robot is done. This is our last day in operation as a website. Going forward you'll only find us on YouTube.

Here's why... https://t.co/QdJUz92Zbd

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@ThisHouseFresh Me too, but the future doesn’t look promising 😕

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

Sadly, the damage has already been done and it’s too late for most independent websites (like mine). Four years of hard work was destroyed in one night in September 2023 - thanks, Google.

[HouseFresh @ThisHouseFresh]

We are on our way to Google HQ to spend a day discussing the current state of Google Search with other independent web publishers and Google engineers.

We hope we will come out of the meeting with actionable next steps towards a better way forward for the open web. Wish us luck.

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@iambrandonsalt The day our business died and never recovered. Thanks, Google.

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@Katie16282772

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@TomWard_SEO @JohnMu @GenSkinJob @Katie16282772 @glenngabe I don’t, just asking the question that needs to be asked.

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@JohnMu @GenSkinJob @Katie16282772 @glenngabe Additionally, any information you can provide on a possible date/timeline for the next update would no doubt be highly appreciated by countless site owners - it really is make or break right now for many, many real people who are on the brink.

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@JohnMu @GenSkinJob @Katie16282772 @glenngabe Is this a semi-acknowledgement that G may have gone too far in obliterating livelihoods and is now looking at steps to (somewhat) reverse things? That would be great.

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@Jake_Boly Looks exactly the same for my site. Posts from our socials linking to our articles rank higher than the articles themselves - if they even appear at all. 99% of the time, our articles don’t appear even with exact search queries + the site name. Make it make sense 🙄

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@Jake_Boly Thank god for all the helpful Google advice and guidance which clearly shows actionable steps you can take to remove the HCU classifier... /s

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@MordyOberstein If “strong content” is so important, why does weak content from multi-million dollar companies and Reddit continue to do so well? Google regularly pushes content across search, Discover and News that is light on detail, has typos, provides no new info on the subject, etc.

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@searchliaison @Katie16282772 @dannysullivan This is all useful, but I’d just love to know if there have been any internal conversations about the negative financial impact recent algo updates have had on small/independent publishers. Does anyone at G actually care about all the real people who have LOST their livelihoods?

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@searchliaison @blogbizznass If you’re talking to each other, why can’t you then talk to publishers more effectively about what the ‘problems’ are? With so many livelihoods lost over the last few months, the least G can do is provide clear examples of how to fix things - but it’s all so vague and *unhelpful*

[Brandon Saltalamacchia @iambrandonsalt]

It truly breaks my heart to make this video, after 5 years of building Retro Dodo Google has decided to remove it from their search engine, alongside thousands of other independent websites that are trying to build great website for users to discover. 😢

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@iambrandonsalt This is such an important video and message, thanks for sharing - you aren’t alone. We are in the gaming niche and down 98% year-on-year. Our readership declined rapidly from September and was almost entirely eliminated in March. We may as well be de-indexed completely.

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

Takes like this are infuriating. The man in question is a multi-millionaire. If your first thought when hard working people lose their jobs is "but what about the CEO", you need your head examined.

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@Qwik Won't somebody think of the multi-millionaire businessman?!? 😭😭😭😭

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@JepsenThomas How can Google expect sites to recover and improve when they provide no information about what they did wrong in the first place?

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@JohnMu @GenSkinJob @JepsenThomas This is all well and good, except for the fact that Google has provided essentially zero insight into what caused the HCU classifier to be applied to a website in the first place. If a site doesn’t know what it did wrong, how can it even begin to make effective improvements?

[Joe Harby @JoeEHarby]

@lilyraynyc What are the nuances for inclusion? Google does a terrible job of making the process transparent for those trying to get surfaced, and meeting their so-called requirements doesn’t seem to help at all