Zero Clicks #8: The end of Forbesitrage

Every week in Zero Clicks, we explore the interplay of AI, media, and commerce.

It’s not often that a blog on “parasite SEO” sets the blogosphere ablaze, but Lars Lofgren’s story on Forbes Marketplace has managed, bringing the raison d’etre of this newsletter to the top of Hacker News and beyond.

While Lars does a great job diving into the minutiae of Forbes’ SEO dominance and playing armchair ombudsman around the bizarre joint venture that powered their conquest, ultimately this piece is just the hundredth variation of the ‘16 companies that dominate Google search’ article. The real story here isn’t about subdomain affiliate arbitrage– it’s about a fundamental weakness in the Google machine that challengers can exploit.

By and large, Forbes is simply a microcosm of nearly every media conglomerate that dominates search, in that it is an amalgamation of both great hard news and service journalism. And a clusterfuck of slop that exists solely for some sort of programmatic or affiliate scheme. The degree to which the latter funds the former is the uncomfortable cumulonimbus cloud lurking over so much of modern, digital media. Make no mistake, this is the media landscape that Google has wrought.

But in its bureaucratic descent, Google can no longer answer about Forbes or any other media partner at scale this one question: Is X publisher a fundamentally credible source that creates helpful content on a particular topic?

It all starts with a basic set of principles that Google seems to have forgotten:

1. Value first-party reporting over derivative content that simply summarizes the work of others

2. Value specific, esoteric knowledge over generalist publishers feigning expertise outside of their core remit

3. Tread very carefully in allowing pay to play schemes masquerading as organic content

The challenge for search engines is that to the naked, untrained, algorithmic eye, deeply reported content and SEO optimized drivel published under Forbes’ or another large publisher’s banner look exactly the same.
Forbes writes some of the most respected reporting and scoops in finance and tech, courtesy of work from world-class journalists like Alex Konrad. And deep investigative journalism features such as this look at Eric Schmidt’s weapons ambitions that became the battleground article in Forbes threatening legal action against Perplexity for improper attribution. In affiliate, many of the writers for both Forbes Vetted and Forbes Marketplace work hard to create well reported and researched pieces.

Forbes also does a whole lot of grifty stuff. Marketplace notwithstanding, Forbes’ contributor network has regularly been a haven for crypto scams and other mindless "content" proudly served up under the Forbes.com domain. In addition, a company once called “a synonym for riches, success and a belief that business, left to its own devices, will create a better world” now publishes landing pages for erectile dysfunction brands that license the Forbes name for paid search arbitrage.

Thus, the greatest advantage that an emerging search engine can have over Google is a commitment to basic media literacy and fundamental interest towards the media partners that make their existence possible. No great search engine will be built without wading into the media abyss to separate the content wheat from the chaff.

In this respect, I say with no hyperbole that Open AI Media Partnerships Leader Varun Shettty is low-key the most important man on the internet. To help Open AI reach its ambitions and become a legitimate competitor to Google, he’ll need to staff a team of operators from deep in the media ecosystem who understand the nuances of large publishers and where each has deep expertise backed by legitimate reporting.

Your move, SearchGPT.

VP of Marketing, First Round

I have an obsession with impeccably crafted job descriptions– this is the pièce de résistance of the genre.

As Brett states, venture capital is not exactly a classic dream job for top-tier marketing talent. But after peeping this, how could any world-class CMO not be interested in the gig? Read Brett’s work as a lesson in how to write a JD.

Senior Manager, Corp Strategy/Corp Dev, Harry’s

Harry’s has been on perhaps the most fascinating journey of the entire DTC era. A darling of the frothy Facebook growth years, the company was inches away from cashing out for $1.37B before its merger with Edgewell Group was blocked over antitrust concerns. Since then, they’ve been on an admirable long-haul slog to build the omnichannel CPG conglomerate of the future, largely through smart M&A.

They’ve done some exceptional deals– Lume in particular is a powerhouse with massive growth potential– and I expect them to be perhaps the most important buyer in the space. This job will put whoever takes it right at the nexus of all the action in CPG.

Growth & Product Marketing Manager, Partiful

Since the glory days of Facebook events, I haven’t seen a product that has as much of a stranglehold on the yuppie social scene as Partiful. For the better part of two years, every rooftop hang, night of debauchery, or toddler’s birthday party I’ve been invited to has been on Partiful. I think it has the chance to be one of the breakout consumer tech products of the decade– go take this job and help make it happen.