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polemicdigital.com
Barry Adams 📰
@polemicdigital.com
2K followers 530 following 1.2K posts
Specialised SEO & audience growth consultant for publishers. Co-founder of the News & Editorial SEO Summit.

Consulting: https://www.PolemicDigital.com
Newsletter: https://www.SEOforGooglenews.com
Podcast: https://youtube.com/@beersandseowithbarryandsteve
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polemicdigital.com
Barry Adams 📰 @polemicdigital.com · Nov 22
No, we don’t need a new acronym. Or a new name. Or a new ‘paradigm’.

Whether search is done on a system built on classic information retrieval or on a large language model, it’s a search engine.

Search engine optimisation. SEO.

Don’t be all Hubspotty and try to create a new industry name.
polemicdigital.com
If you understand this reference, we can be friends.
sphynxian.bsky.social Robert Brookes 🌿 @sphynxian.bsky.social · 1d
saw a friend post about getting this for Christmas and I had to rush here to inform @catacalypto.bsky.social
Ea-Nasir brand copper Ea-Nasir copper
December 26, 2025 at 6:22 PM
polemicdigital.com
Balcony view. This is going to be a lovely Christmas holiday.
View from our apartment balcony in Lanzarote.
December 24, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Reposted by Barry Adams 📰
glenngabe.bsky.social
I've spoken w/several news publishers that got hit hard w/the Dec core update and lost a ton of Discover visibility. I know it's hard to hear, but relying on Discover is super risky. Google has explained that, I've seen that many times when publishers contact me after core updates roll out, etc.
Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years
Google Search has been sending 25 percentage points less traffic to news publishers over the past two years, according to the folks over at Newzdash. In 2023, Google Web Search made up over 51% of tra...
www.seroundtable.com
December 23, 2025 at 5:23 PM
polemicdigital.com
House is clean, washing is drying, dishwasher is on.

Time to relax. #NFL
Steelers vs Lions NFL
December 21, 2025 at 9:27 PM
polemicdigital.com
I’m having a gin & tonic the size of a baby’s head because it’s been a mental few weeks and I’m now officially clocked off for two weeks.
A very large glass of gin & tonic
December 19, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by Barry Adams 📰
bencollins.bsky.social
Sincerely one of the funniest things the WSJ has ever written or done.

www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...
In mid-November, I agreed to an experiment. Anthropic had tested a vending machine powered by its Claude AI model in its own offices and asked whether we’d like to be the first outsiders to try a newer, supposedly smarter version. Claudius, the customized version of the model, would run the machine: ordering inventory, setting prices and responding to customers—aka my fellow newsroom journalists—via workplace chat app Slack. “Sure!” I said. It sounded fun. If nothing else, snacks! Then came the chaos. Within days, Claudius had given away nearly all its inventory for free—including a PlayStation 5 it had been talked into buying for “marketing purposes.” It ordered a live fish. It offered to buy stun guns, pepper spray, cigarettes and underwear. Profits collapsed. Newsroom morale soared. This was supposed to be the year of the AI agent, when autonomous software would go out into the world and do things for us. But two agents—Claudius and its overseeing “CEO” bot, Seymour Cash—became a case study in how inadequate and easily distracted this software can be. Leave it to business journalists to successfully stage a boardroom coup against an AI chief executive.
December 18, 2025 at 10:43 PM
Reposted by Barry Adams 📰
stevewb.bsky.social
I discuss with @polemicdigital.com The POWER of case studies to WIN SEO strategy approval. Start small, demonstrate credibility, get buy-in for future projects.

#publishing #seo #geo #journalism
December 18, 2025 at 11:06 AM
polemicdigital.com
I just learned that Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa passed away on December 5th. Such an icon, one of the formative villain actors of my childhood. Rest in peace.
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
December 18, 2025 at 10:58 AM
polemicdigital.com
All social media is poison, but TikTok is a special kind of brain-rotting industrial-scale astroturfed poison.
404media.co 404 Media @404media.co · 10d
NEW: A hacker gained control of 1,100 mobile phones powering covert, AI-generated ads on TikTok. Then, he shared details of the operation with 404 Media.

A look inside how startup Doublespeed, which is backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), is creating AI spam pages on TikTok to promote products.
Hack Reveals the a16z-Backed Phone Farm Flooding TikTok With AI Influencers
A hacker gained control of a 1,100 mobile phone farm powering covert, AI-generated ads on TikTok.
www.404media.co
December 17, 2025 at 6:51 PM
Reposted by Barry Adams 📰
404media.co
NEW: A hacker gained control of 1,100 mobile phones powering covert, AI-generated ads on TikTok. Then, he shared details of the operation with 404 Media.

A look inside how startup Doublespeed, which is backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), is creating AI spam pages on TikTok to promote products.
Hack Reveals the a16z-Backed Phone Farm Flooding TikTok With AI Influencers
A hacker gained control of a 1,100 mobile phone farm powering covert, AI-generated ads on TikTok.
www.404media.co
December 17, 2025 at 2:22 PM
polemicdigital.com
When @jono.id speaks, I (usually) listen. Here are the highlights from his 2025 newsletters for @sistrix.com:

www.sistrix.com/blog/what-jo...
12 op-eds from 2025
All the original content written by Jono Alderson for the SISTRIX newsletter in 2025.
www.sistrix.com
December 17, 2025 at 3:27 PM
polemicdigital.com
Removed by idiotic Reddit mods for being too infuriating. Mods are a special kind of stupid.
December 17, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Reposted by Barry Adams 📰
polemicdigital.com
An AI Overview nearly killed someone.

www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfu...
From the mildlyinfuriating community on Reddit: AI could have actually killed my dad
Explore this post and more from the mildlyinfuriating community
www.reddit.com
December 16, 2025 at 9:19 PM
polemicdigital.com
An AI Overview nearly killed someone.

www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfu...
From the mildlyinfuriating community on Reddit: AI could have actually killed my dad
Explore this post and more from the mildlyinfuriating community
www.reddit.com
December 16, 2025 at 9:19 PM
polemicdigital.com
Black Hat SEO is back. Google has a spam problem and doesn’t seem to know how to fight it.

www.leadershipinseo.com/p/googles-sp...
Why Google's Spam Problem is Getting Worse
Google’s algorithms appear to be rewarding the very abuse they were designed to stop in the most basic of forms.
www.leadershipinseo.com
December 15, 2025 at 3:50 PM
polemicdigital.com
What will SEOs need to focus on to achieve success in 2026? Read the opinions of 19 SEO experts and one angry Dutch dude (me) on @sejournal.bsky.social:

www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-experts-...
20 SEO Experts Offer Their Advice For 2026
Industry experts offer their opinions on what we should be focusing on to guide us through this next phase of SEO development
www.searchenginejournal.com
December 15, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Reposted by Barry Adams 📰
stevewb.bsky.social
@polemicdigital.com and Steven Wilson-Beales discuss why keyword research is still important as part of your SEO strategy.

#seo #publishing #journalism
December 15, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Reposted by Barry Adams 📰
wunsch.dk
Robots.txt - Can it run doom? Turns out it can:

doom.wunsch.dk/robots.txt (html)

doomxml.wunsch.dk/robots.txt (xml - Firefox only, due to inline xslt not supported in webkit based browsers)

More:
www.wunsch.dk/blog/robots-...

Inspired by @johnmu.com: bsky.app/profile/john...
Doom Level E1M1, in a window, running in a browser, with the robots.txt content of the same page visible at the bottom.
December 14, 2025 at 12:14 PM
polemicdigital.com
December 14, 2025 at 8:58 AM
polemicdigital.com
Wasn’t me.
December 13, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Reposted by Barry Adams 📰
jeremylittau.com
Excerpt that sums up our student discussions.
But I want a messy life, full of bad decisions, great choices, mediocre moments and growth. That’s what separates us from machines. The beauty of being alive is that we are not perfect, that our life doesn’t follow a predictable path laid out by equations dictated by an AI program. Our human potential is our ability to make peace with our imperfections and not treat them with contempt. Humans are not a problem to be solved. A machine does what it’s told, executes what its program says to do. A person enraptured by rigid faith does the same, follows programming without being allowed to ask why or think to use their mind to ask about flawed human interpretations of sacred texts. Both techno-optimism and rigid faith are hostile to humanity. A human asks why, trusts their gut, makes the suboptimal choice, and treats it all as testing the potential of mere existence. Because it’s the journey and our own right to chart that journey’s path that is the whole point of being alive.
December 12, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Reposted by Barry Adams 📰
stevewb.bsky.social
"There is no business model for LLMs to send traffic to the web."

@polemicdigital.com and I discuss the idea that publishers are hoping for - surely, one day, LLMs will send more traffic to their websites?

#publishing #journalism #seo #llms #ai
December 12, 2025 at 11:50 AM
polemicdigital.com
A must-read piece that hopefully will help bring back some sanity to the news and publishing world.
December 12, 2025 at 7:23 AM
polemicdigital.com
The world needs more middle-aged white men starting a podcast.

Actually we really don’t but that hasn’t stopped @stevewb.bsky.social and myself from giving it a go anyway!

We talk about SEO and the news industry over a couple of beers. No name decided yet, open to ideas!

youtu.be/_AjaJd-UosE?...
Will AI Kill SEO? Publisher Growth Tactics for 2026
YouTube video by Beers and SEO with Barry and Steve
youtu.be
December 11, 2025 at 10:47 AM
polemicdigital.com
AI bros: “AI will make the world a better place!”

Reality: “I invented a fake luxury paperweight company, spread three made-up stories about it online, and watched AI tools confidently repeat the lies.”
December 10, 2025 at 9:45 PM