Imagine earning money from your website. Okay,
now imagine doing that without a single person
ever clicking on it. Sounds almost like a riddle,
doesn't it? But, well, it's not only possible,
it's actually happening. One website reportedly
made almost $2 ,000 that way. $1 ,971. No clicks,
just its information being used. Welcome to the
Deep Dive. Today we're going to unpack a really
big shift happening in the digital world. One
that's kind of reshaping how content creators
can actually get paid. We're talking about Cloudflare's
new pay -per -crawl idea and what it means for
creating content now, you know, with AI everywhere.
Yeah, and our mission today is basically to give
you a blueprint, a way to navigate, maybe even
dominate, in what we're calling the zero -quick
era. We'll get into Google's recent big content
purges, how AI is changing what content is even
worth, and what Cloudflare's move really signals
for your website or your online stuff. We'll
look back a bit at how content creation got here,
explore why AI is, well... both a bit scary and
a huge opportunity. And then we'll lay out some
real practical strategies and tools you can use
to succeed in this new landscape. Let's really
explore this. So let's start with this paper
crawl thing. Cloudflare, they're a huge company
basically running parts of the internet's plumbing.
They announced something pretty groundbreaking.
AI companies like Google, OpenAI, those guys
might actually start paying websites just for
the right to crawl their content. Right, just
for the bots to read it, not for humans clicking.
Exactly. That almost $2 ,000 figure we mentioned,
that was earned directly from AI using the content.
No human clicked through. It's kind of like a
giant library charging an AI for every single
book it scans and learns from, even if nobody
ever checks that book out. It's a completely
different way of thinking about value. And what's
really interesting is how this tackles what we
call the zero -click problem head -on. You know,
for years, the deal was simple. Make good content,
search engines, send people, people click, you
make money from ads or selling stuff. Simple
loop. That was the handshake, yeah. But AI summaries,
those little boxes at the top of Google, they
break that handshake. You search, say, how to
tie a Winsor knot. Google's AI gives you the
steps right there. Boom. You got your answer.
And the website that originally wrote those steps?
Gets nothing. No click. No traffic. Gone. And
this isn't small potatoes. Similar web data suggests
something like, what, 69 % of Google searches
now end with zero clicks. 69%. Wow. Yeah. That's
slowly squeezing the life out of creators who
rely on that old traffic model. So Cloudflare's
pay -per -crawl is like a direct challenge saying,
hey, if you want our data, you got to pay. So,
okay, if your content isn't getting clicks like
it used to, what's its actual value now? How
do you measure it? Well, the value shifts, doesn't
it? It becomes about how useful your data is
to the AI, not just how many humans click on
it. To really get a handle on this, and it helps
to look back a bit, the SEO wars, right? For
those of us who've been doing this a while, you
remember the early days, the real Wild West?
Just stuffing keywords in, like repeating blue
widgets 50 times, hoping to rank. Oh, yeah. The
good old days. Maybe not so good. Right. And
then Google dropped. Panda and Penguin updates,
big crackdowns on low quality stuff, spammy links.
People's traffic just vanished overnight. Absolutely.
Google's always been moving towards rewarding
real value and punishing the tricks. Fast forward
to late 2022. Chat GPT arrives. Suddenly, everyone's
panicking. SEO is dead. AI will just answer everything.
I remember that panic well. But it wasn't that
simple, was it? First, smart people used AI to
make their content better, richer. But then came
the flood. Just tons and tons of cheap, mass
-produced AI articles hitting the web. Junk.
Mostly. So by now, 2025, those SEO is dead worries.
They're kind of coming true, but not how we thought.
It's the AI overviews, the zero click answers
right in search results. And that's the perfect
setup for Cloudflare to step in and say, OK,
AI engines, you want to learn from our publishers
hard work for your answers. Time to pay up. It's
a whole new game. And speaking of rewarding value,
we absolutely have to talk about the great purge.
Google's updates in March 2024. That wasn't just
a tweak. It felt like an earthquake for a lot
of site owners. Imagine losing like half your
business overnight. Yeah, it was brutal for some.
Google basically said, enough is enough. They
were making a massive statement about cleaning
up unhelpful content. It hit on two fronts. First,
the core spam update. Right. Just a direct attack.
Google claimed it cut down spammy, unoriginal
stuff by 40, 45 percent. 45 percent. That's huge.
It targeted things like scaled content abuse,
just churning out tons of low quality pages automatically.
Yeah. Expired domain abuse, buying old websites
just for their link juice. Right. Trying to game
the system. Yeah. They also hit site reputation
abuse. That's basically junk content piggybacking
on a trusted site's reputation. Think like those
CNET coupon directs. that got hit. Yeah. And
it wasn't just small sites. Big names like Forbes
Advisor, Business Insider reportedly saw huge
traffic drops. CNN, USA Today, too. Google sent
a message. A loud one. But here's the really
fascinating bit. The insight for where AI SEO
is going. A lot of those pages that got penalized
in normal search results, they kept showing up
inside Google's AI overviews. Whoa, wait. So
good enough for the AI to learn from. Exactly.
Good enough for the AI to scrape and summarize,
but not good enough for Google to actually recommend
directly to a human. That's the new dual standard
we're dealing with. So does this mean AI is kind
of finding a value differently than human searchers,
forcing us to rethink what quality even means?
It definitely means content values being redefined.
AI's needs and preferences are now a huge factor
in what succeeds. OK, so this new reality, this
dual standard, it forces Google to get way better
at spotting genuinely useful stuff. And their
framework for that is EEE. Right. The first E
is the big one, the new addition, experience.
Google's asking, seriously asking, has the author
actually done the thing? Use the product. Gone
to the place. No more AI writing travel guides
from a server room in Ohio about hiking the Alps.
That's kind of over. Then you have expertise.
Do you really know your stuff? Are you, like,
a certified mechanic talking about engine repair
or just someone who read a manual? Then authoritativeness.
Is your name, your brand, seen as a go -to source
in your specific little corner of the world?
And finally, trustworthiness. Is your info accurate,
honest? not just trying to sell something. And
the key insight here, I think, is focus, niching
down. It's way easier to be the number one recognized
expert on, I don't know, chair workouts for seniors
than just workouts generally. Find your zone.
That makes perfect sense. And it leads right
into debunking what you call the one post myth.
You know, for years, the advice was quantity.
Pump out content, hundreds of thousands of posts.
Yeah, the content treadmill. But the data now,
it just doesn't support that anymore. Quality
trumps quantity massively. Look at CNET's big
air fryer review article. Just one piece, super
detailed, lots of testing. Industry folks estimate
that one single page pulls in something like
$3 ,200 a month in affiliate commissions. That's
a lot per month. Per month. That's like almost
$40 ,000 a year from one article. It's incredible.
So the new strategy for AI SEO is clear. It's
not just about writing one great post instead
of 100 okay ones. It's about making that one
post so packed with real, provable experience,
unique insights, actual testing, that the AI
has to learn from it and humans feel compelled
to click and read the whole thing. So the big
question for creators then is, how do you actually
show your unique experience in this ocean of
generic AI stuff? Yeah, your personal stories,
the real -world proof, the photos. That's your
secret weapon now, isn't it? Mid -roll sponsor,
read mentioned script, not included. Okay, let's
shift to the playbook. The AI SEO playbook. This
isn't about finding loopholes. It's the real
blueprint for actually doing well, maybe even
dominating in this AI era. So if your site got
hammered by those Google updates, step one is
triage. You've got to stop the bleeding. Right.
First, audit and prune ruthlessly. You've got
to look at your content like, I don't know, a
battlefield surgeon. Does it scream E -E -A -T
or is it thin? Generic. Just kind of soulless
AI output. You have to be willing to do what
some people call the Thanos snap. Just delete
it. Or commit to a serious rewrite. No half measures.
Okay. Harsh but necessary. Then what? Step two.
Analyze your survivors. The stuff that didn't
get hit. Those are your North Stars now. Get
obsessed. Why did these pages survive? What experience
do they show? What questions do they answer uniquely?
Your whole recovery plan has to be built around
making more stuff like that. Got it. Focus on
how it works. Now for the new strategy for everyone
moving forward. Principle number one. go for
the head remember thor in infinity war wasted
his shot you gotta go for the head okay thor
analogy i like it what's the head in seo the
head is commercial intent stop chasing those
really broad high volume questions like what
is an air fryer the ai answers those directly
now zero clicks for you right focus instead on
keywords showing someone's ready to buy or make
a decision Best air fryer for a small apartment.
MailChimp versus ConvertKit for authors. These
need opinions, comparisons, real experience.
Stuff AI really struggles to fake convincingly.
They're more defensible and honestly, usually
more profitable too. That makes sense. Defensible
ground. What's next? Principle number two, and
this is maybe the most important. Show your work.
This is how you build that moat the AI can't
cross. Remember that E for experience and E -E
-A -T. It's your superpower now. The old internet
joke, Pixar, it didn't happen. Yeah. That's basically
SEO now. OK, so real proof. Exactly. Don't just
list camera specs. Show original photos you took
with it. Tell a quick story about using it on
that messy family trick. Don't just write a generic
travel guide. Put a selfie of you looking tired
but happy at the summit for a recipe. Show photos
of your kitchen, maybe even the mess you made.
Add a note about that time you burnt the whatever
it is. That's the human stuff. That personal
touch, the authenticity. Yeah. And, you know,
full disclosure, I still wrestle with this myself
sometimes, making sure. every single piece really
shows my unique experience, not just summarizing
information. It's a constant effort. You have
to consciously decide to do it. Whoa. But imagine
the depth there, the sheer amount of unique human
experience, nuance, feeling you can share that
AI just fundamentally cannot replicate. That's
actually pretty powerful when you think about
it. It really is. Okay. Principle number three.
Speak robot and human. You've got two audiences
now, the human reading it, the AI scanning it.
You've got to be bilingual. Think C -3PO, fluent
in over 6 million forms of communication, or
at least two. Okay, C -3PO for SEO, how? For
the AI, make it easy to understand. Use structured
schema data. That's basically just code that
labels your content clearly for machines, like
putting big... bold tags on information. Use
clear headings, maybe phrase them as questions
the AI might look for. Okay, machine readable.
And for the human, write for the summary, but
win with the depth. Assume those first couple
of sentences might get pulled into an AI overview,
so make them tight, concise, packed with info.
But the rest of the article needs the good stuff,
the stories, the unique data, the troubleshooting
tips, the personality that makes someone want
to click through or read more. Got it. Hook them
fast, keep them with depth. Exactly. And principle
number four. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
Relying only on Google traffic, that ship has
sailed or it's sinking. You got to diversify.
Think like the Wu -Tang Clan advised, diversify
your bonds. Okay, Wu -Tang financial advice for
SEO. I'm here for it. Your main website or blog,
that's the hub. But turn those articles into
YouTube videos. Chop them up for TikTok or Reels.
Make Pinterest graphics, LinkedIn carousels.
Build a whole ecosystem around your core content.
Be everywhere your audience might be. That makes
sense. Build resilience. So what about tools
for this new era? Well, you'll need a new toolkit.
Look into AI SEO analyzer plugins. These are
popping up now. They can help monitor which AI
bots are crawling your site, maybe even let you
block some kind of, like a bouncer saying, you
shall not pass, getting ready for that pay -per
-crawl future. They also help you optimize for
AI readability, add that schema markup easily.
Useful. And for diversification, think about
traffic diversification tools. Stuff like video
creation software, maybe Canva or VizMay for
making those infographics and social media visuals.
Maybe even tools to build interactive things
like calculator. or quizzes to engage people
differently. So listening to all this, which
of these principles, these changes, feels like
the biggest hurdle for you to implement with
your own content? For me, it's probably balancing
that technical side, the machine readability,
the schema, with keeping the writing genuinely
human and engaging. That's a tricky tightrope
to walk. You know, all this change, these updates.
It's created a lot of confusion, maybe even fear
out there. Website owners, businesses, they're
scrambling. And that confusion, that's a massive
opportunity. Because there's suddenly huge demand
for people who understand this new landscape,
a new kind of expert, the AI SEO specialist.
Ah, so a new service industry is emerging from
this. Totally. Think about the services needed.
AI SEO audits, going through a site, checking
for EET, checking if it's machine readable, content
transformation, taking old posts. retrofitting
them with experienced data personality and traffic
recovery plans, figuring out why a site got hit
and building a strategy to get back on track
based on these new rules. It's a real high demand
consulting path opening up. That's a really interesting
angle, a legitimate career path born from this
disruption. So thinking about your own skills,
your own knowledge, how might this shift actually
open up new possibilities for your own expertise?
Yeah, your specific insights, your niche knowledge,
that could definitely be the core of a valuable
new. service or even a business. So let's try
to wrap our heads around this. What's the big
takeaway here? SEO isn't dead. Not even close.
It feels more like it's evolving, maybe finally
growing up. For years, so much of it felt like
trying to find loopholes, trick the algorithm.
Now it seems like success isn't about being the
cleverest trickster. It's about being the most
genuinely helpful, the most experienced, the
most trustworthy expert in whatever it is you
do. Exactly. That's the core shift. Those who
really lean into this, who create content from
real experience, who structure it smartly for
both humans and machines, they're not just going
to survive. They're going to thrive. Quality
driven by that authentic experience consistently
beats just churning out more and more mediocre
stuff. That's the winning formula now. And looking
ahead. With things like Cloudflare's paper crawl
idea floating around, we might be heading towards
a future where creators actually get compensated
for their expertise, their data's value, even
if no one clicks a link. That's a pretty profound
potential change to the whole online economy.
It really is, which leads to maybe the final
question for everyone listening. What unique
experience, what specific knowledge do you have
that an AI could simply never replicate or convey
authentically? That's a great question to reflect
on. We really encourage you to look at your own
content, your own expertise, through this lens
of EEAT, essentially that experience part, and
the whole show your work idea. Yeah, and challenge
yourself. How can you structure what you know
so it speaks clearly and powerfully to both the
robots and the humans? Thank you so much for
joining us on this deep dive into the shifting
sands of content and AI. We hope you'll keep
exploring these ideas. Remember, the future really
does seem to be helpful and deeply human. Out
to your own music.