Hey Reader,

I hate to say it, but I think Google is in the end-stage of enshitification.

If you aren't familiar with that term, it a relatively recent addition to the English lexicon, coined by one of my favorite authors, Cory Doctorow. He's got a new book out on it that I'm reading, called Enshitification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.

The title kind of says it all, but if you haven't heard this term before, here's how one dictionary defines it:

In the book, Cory give several examples of companies that have gone through this. He uses Amazon, Google, Twitter, and the iPhone as his case studies, but argues that there are too many examples of it in modern culture than he can list without becoming repetitive.

Because when enshitification happens, it happens in the same general three stages. To summarize:

Stage 1: Be kind to your users: Platforms provide a high-quality, often subsidized experience to attract a large user base. Think about those early days of Facebook, when your feed was filled with posts from people you actually cared about (and no ads or junk content), or back when Airbnb was the more affordable and more fun than staying in a hotel.

Stage 2: Abuse Users to Reward Business Customers: Once users are dependent, platforms pivot to benefit business customers (advertisers, creators, sellers) at the expense of user experience, because they need $$$$$. Think about how your Facebook feed slowly filled up with ads (benefit to businesses), or how Airbnb rates skyrocketed (beneficial to property owners, not guests).

Stage 3: A total pile of shit: In an endless quest to please shareholders and repay investors with more and more profits, the platform squeezes the hell out of both business and non-business users. But because it also eliminated the competition in the process, users are stuck with platforms that are total piles of shit (those are Cory's words). This is why Facebook has seen a mass exodus, and people are choosing to go back to hotels rather than pay high prices for a space they have to clean themselves.

So, what about Google?

Of course, I have thinking about Google as I've been listening to this book, since I'm a search specialist and for so long, Google has dominated the search arena.

Where is Google in the enshitification process?

Well, we're certainly past Stage 1. If you are in your 30s or older, like me, you can probably remember Stage 1, when Google was nothing more than a list of blue links to the most relevant sites available. And it certainly locked us in --- back in the day, there were MANY search platforms to choose from (AskJeeves, anyone?). But Google ended up knocking most of them out of the picture.

Then, somewhere in the 2010s, we moved on to stage 2. The quality of search results started to tank, as Google found ways to reward businesses owners. The obvious example of this is paid ads, which slowly started to eat up more and more of the front page.

But Google's algorithm still rewarded organic content, whether or not it was produced by businesses, bloggers, or folks like me, who for years created high-quality, long-form content for companies.

I would say that was stage two, because it was much easier for businesses, with marketing budgets, to rank their content or pay for advertisements --- to the detriment of search results quality.

And so, we enter stage three.

I believe we are getting there now. With AI Overviews, Google is aiming to keep people on its platform, and making it increasingly difficult for business customers to get clicks without paying a hefty advertising price.

So now, the experience of using Google is less enjoyable for all. But here's the twist --- we are seeing alternatives to Google pop up. Check out this graph from SparkToro that shows how much traditional search has slipped in the past few months:

For most of my career, Google has had a 90% or higher grip on the search industry. When you added in other traditional search engines, you got pretty dang close to 100%.

Look how much has changed, in such a short time. Those big dogs of search now have just over 80% of a hold, and we see AI tools --- which didn't even exist a few years ago --- eating up 3% of the search industry.

I don't like to brag, but I said this would happen. Because I knew that Google was getting shittier, and I knew that would mean once there were alternatives out there, people would flock to them.

Right now, it really is often a better search experience on an AI platform than Google. You can talk to it conversationally, and often get good, accurate information without having to click around. (Of course, we all know it ain't perfect.)

And it's free! And there are so many options to choose from! And... wait a minute...

Oh right. We're in Stage 1 of enshitification for ChatGPT, Claude, and all the rest. Right now, they are treating us day-to-day customers nicely, so that we become locked into them as the platform of choice.

And then... well, we'll see. 💩

Riding the waves of enshitification 🏄‍♀️

There are things businesses can do to take advantage of this shift rather than get swallowed by it.

The short version: your content strategy needs to work in two directions at once. First, you want your content and brand showing up in both traditional search results and AI overviews. Second, you want to be visible on the other platforms that are picking up the slack — social media, newsletters, podcasts, communities, and the AI tools themselves.

That's the thinking behind my Search Evolution Strategy --- a four-phase process that helps businesses figure out where they stand, get more out of the content they already have, build a roadmap for what comes next, and train their teams to execute it without needing to pay for expensive long-term SEO assistance.

I have room for 2-3 more of these right now, and given where things are headed, sooner is better than later.

If you want to talk through whether it's a good fit, reply to this email or book a free 30-minute strategy call.

-- Liam

PS Did you know I started a podcast for freelancers? You can subscribe and listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

​The Search Evolution Strategy​ 👆 My gameplan for the new age of AI 🙋‍♂️ Did someone forward you this email? Subscribe here. ​Content Strategy & Consultation | Content & SEO Training​ ​Freelance Community​

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