Google is reportedly going to be hosting an invite-only creator summit at the end of this month at the Google offices in Mountain View, California, aka, the GooglePlex. Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, seems to leading this summit, along with several Google Search team members.
This is supposed to focus around Google Search and publishing, maybe specifically designed to reach out to small and independent publishers that may have been hit by the helpful content update.
The dates should be October 28th and 29th and will give these publishers a chance to tell their stories directly to some of the Google engineers and representatives that can make a difference.
I was personally not invited, nor did Google tell me about this event. I spotted chatter about this on social media.
Here is one from Rutledge Daugette, the CEO of TechRaptor, a gaming news and reviews site. I believe, but I am not 100% sure, that the site got hit hard by the September helpful content update.
Rutledge wrote on X:
I'm finalizing the details, but on October 28/29 I'll be heading out to Google's Campus for a (invite-only) Creator Summit.Gathering my thoughts, but I'm excited to have an opportunity to interface in-person with Google Search Liaison and the Google team around search and publishing.
Thanks again to Search Liaison for the invite.
Sometimes I feel like I'm venting a little too much, and I'm glad that Google is making an attempt to hear from us, and how algo has not only impacted us, but our people and jobs in the publishing space.
Hoping this leads to good.
Here are those posts:
Thanks again to @searchliaison for the invite.
— Rutledge Daugette (@TheRealRutledge) October 7, 2024
Sometimes I feel like I'm venting a little too much, and I'm glad that Google is making an attempt to hear from us, and how algo has not only impacted us, but our people and jobs in the publishing space.
Hoping this leads to good.
This is not the first, or likely the last, time Google has done one of these. Google even said they would have more of these creator types of meetings in the future.
Do you think this will make any long term difference for those writing heartfelt and helpful content? I mean, some have already closed up shop and others are about to. I mean, how much pain can one publisher handle for this long?
Gutwrenching to say that GGRecon will be closing its doors in two weeks. After 13 months battling against Google, we've run out of runway.
— Lloyd Coombes (@lloydcoombes) October 4, 2024
The whole team is incredible, and working with them has been one of the greatest joys of my life.
Update: Mike Hardaker was invited and wrote a small blog post on it, saying it is not called the Creator Summit but rather "Google Search Web Creator Conversion Event." He also posted the agenda:
- How Google search is built to benefit searchers: In this session, we'll learn how Google creates, tests and refines ranking systems with the goal of providing useful, satisfying search results
- Google Want's To Hear from Creators. This session is devoted to allowing creators an opportunity to share thoughts, feedback, concerns – whatever is on our minds – to those who work at Google Search. This session will be livestreamed to Google employees not in attendance.
Forum discussion at X
Update 2: Here are some of those that said they will be attending this event:
I’m going as well - also from the Carolinas
— William Barton (@bigwillbarton) October 8, 2024
Update 3: He was hit by the product reviews update, mostly, he said - not that it matters:
Technically, no. We've primarily been hit by Product Review update(s), but slight negative impact from HCU too. We saw 0 impact from the Sept HCU. pic.twitter.com/RNcuTYk9tC
— Rutledge Daugette (@TheRealRutledge) October 9, 2024
Update 4: They are on their way:
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.
— HouseFresh (@ThisHouseFresh) October 28, 2024
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. pic.twitter.com/CtNsMwbOP7
