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For more than two decades, users have turned to search engines like Google, typed in a query, and received a familiar list of 10 blue linksthe gateway to the wider web. Ranking high on that list, through search engine optimization (SEO), has become a $200 billion business. But in the past two years, search has changed. Companies are now synthesizing and summarizing results into AI-generated answers that eliminate the need to click through to websites. While this may be convenient for users (setting aside concerns over hallucinations and accuracy) its bad for businesses that rely on search traffic. One such business, educational tech firm Chegg, has sued Google in federal district court, alleging that AI-generated summaries of its content have siphoned traffic from its site and harmed its revenue. Chegg reported a 24% year-on-year revenue decline in Q4 2024, which it partly attributes to Googles AI-driven search changes. In the lawsuit, the company alleges that Google is reaping the financial benefits of Cheggs content without having to spend a dime. A Google spokesperson responded that the company will defend itself in court, emphasizing that Google sends billions of clicks to websites daily and arguing that AI overviews have diversifiednot reducedtraffic distribution. Its going to be interesting to see what comes out of it, because we’ve seen content creators anecdotally complaining on Reddit or elsewhere for months now that they are afraid of losing traffic, says Aleksandra Urman, a researcher at the University of Zurich specializing in search engines. Within the SEO industry, anxiety over artificial intelligence overviews has been mounting. Cheggs legal arguments closely align with the ethical concerns the SEO and publishing communities have been raising for years, says Lily Ray, a New York-based SEO expert. While Google has long displayed answers and information directly in search results, AI overviews take this a step further by extracting content from external sites and rewording it in a way that positions Google more as a publisher than a search engine. Ray points to Googles lack of transparency, particularly around whether users actually click on citations in AI-generated responses. The lack of visibility into whether users actually click on citations within AI overviews leaves publishers guessing about the true impact on their organic traffic, she says. Urman adds that past research on Googles featured snippetswhich surfaced excerpts from websitesshowed a drop in traffic for affected sites. The claim seems plausible, she says, but we don’t really have the evidence to say how the appearance of AI overviews really affects user behavior. Not all companies are feeling the squeeze, however. Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah said on an earnings call that AI overviews had little effect on its web traffic. AIs presence remains limited, he said. AI overviews are present in just 12% of our top queries. It remains to be seen whether Chegg is an outlier or a bellwether. Ray, for her part, believes its lawsuit could be a pivotal moment in the fight over AI and SEO. This case will be fascinating to watch, she says. Its outcome could have massive implications for millions of sites beyond just Chegg.
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E-Commerce
Theres a new website that tracks how much of Project 2025, the 922-page conservative playbook, has already come to fruition under President Donald Trump’s administration. It shows that, in less than two months, more than a third of the right-wing agendas objectives have been fulfilled. The site, called Project 2025 Tracker, is broken down into bite-sized sections based on the goals laid out in document. Project 2025 was written by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation and several members of Trumps first administration, and although the President distanced himself from the document on the campaign trail, hes since said he agrees with many parts of it. His administration has already proved itself to be at least partially aligned with the projects policy goals. While other major media outlets have compiled list-style round-ups of President Trumps executive orders thus far, the tracker takes a more visual, big-picture approach to understanding how closely Trumps second term is mapping onto a far-right blueprintincluding a Project 2025 progress bar. [Image: Project 2025 Tracker] Breaking down Project 2025 The Project 2025 Tracker is the result of an unplanned collaboration between two Reddit users. It started with Adrienne Cobb, an archaeologist by trade who, outside of work, runs a political and legal news subreddit with 183,000 members called r/Keep_Track. Last month, Cobb decided to make a spreadsheet tracking the Trump administrations progress on Project 2025 initiatives, which quickly gained traction on her subreddit. Project 2025 is one of the biggest threats to democracy, to the common good, that weve faced, Cobb says. It is important that Americans understand what it is and how it may impact their lives. But most people dont have time to read a 900-page document. So, I set out to read it myself and extract the objectives to make it easier for everyone to digest. To build the spreadsheet, Cobb sifted through every chapter of Project 2025, each of which addresses a specific federal agency and recommends how a president can reform it in accordance with the Heritage Foundations vision, she says. For every agency section, Cobb identified a series of objectives, which shes defined as any moment when the author of a chapter explicitly calls for an action to be taken. This is to avoid any subjective reading between the lines, Cobb says. That includes everything from a suggestion that the Center of Disease Control should immediately end its collection of data on gender identity to a directive to reverse the Department of Defenses policies that allow transgender individuals to serve in the military (both of which have since been carried out). The spreadsheet only transformed into a website when fellow Reddit user u/mollynaquafina stumbled across it during their daily spin through the site. I was scrolling through Reddit, like I do most mornings, and I came across a post from /u/rusticgorilla in the /r/keep_track subreddit, u/mollynaquafina says. They posted about the Project 2025 spreadsheet tracker they started. I checked it out and was impressed with the level of detailwith references to specific page numbers and news articles for each objective. As someone with a background in cybersecurity, u/mollynaquafina says, seeing the information compiled in a spreadsheet helped to connect the dots in my brain. Still, they add, others might process information in a visual way. To make the information more transparent, they offered to turn the spreadsheet into a more digestible website. ‘The sheer amount of news each day is staggering’ The first priority of the Project 2025 Tracker, u/mollynaquafina explains, is to highlight just how much progress has already been made in the agendas objectives. To that end, the websites top section is a bright blue overall progress bar coupled with a live countdown of time remaining in Trumps second term. Currently, with 1,423 days left to go, overall Project 2025 progress has already reached 36%. Trumps second term has been much more chaotic than his first, which I didnt think was possible, Cobb says. The sheer amount of news each day is staggering. I believe that is the goal, though: to move fast, to overwhelm, to stun. By the time the people have a chance to organize against a particular action, the administration has alredy moved on to the next objective. As users dig deeper into the site, they can also filter Project 2025 progress by agency, subject (like DEIA or energy), and status. Any objective that has already been carried out is highlighted with a green completed bubble and accompanied with links to both a citation in the Project 2025 document and an accompanying news item. U/mollynaquafina has also added a chart and timeline feature to help users take in the holistic picture. I was very intentional about using factual and neutral language where possible, U/mollynaquafina says. My goal is for people who support the Project 2025 objectives to clearly read about them and ask themselves, Is this what I signed up for? To keep up with the constant influx of news, Cobb uses what she calls a low-tech process of combing through social media, news articles, and federal websites before manually organizing stories by topic in a word-processing document. From there, she compares her notes against the spreadsheet to determine if any news events match up with Project 2025 objectives. The tracker is pulling in around 50,000 to 100,000 visitors each day, with about 10% of traffic originating outside the U.S. Going forward, u/mollynaquafina plans to translate the site into several other languages based on demand. The community has been very supportive of our effort to track Project 2025 but has also expressed a lot of fear about where the country is headed, Cobb says. I think that is totally justified and normal. My hope is that helping people understand Project 2025 will remove some of that powerlessness, remove the fear of the unknown, and spur more collective action to stop its progress.
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E-Commerce
Unless youre at the very top of the food chain in your organization, you report to someone. And that manager is important for your career success. They will evaluate your performance, give you feedback and mentoring, greenlight ideas, and provide support elsewhere in the organization for things youre doing. Because of all the roles that a supervisor plays for you, it can be stressful when a new person steps in, or you get promoted and start reporting to someone new. There are several ways you can make this transition easier and lay the groundwork for a fruitful relationship with your new boss: Be mindful of the firehose When your supervisor is replaced with someone else, that person is stepping into a new role. Whenever you take on something new, there is a lot that comes at you those first few weeks. You need to get to know your team, your new responsibilities, your new peer groups. All of that happens while work needs to continue. Thats the reason the information dump you face when you first start a role is often referred to as drinking from the firehose. If your new boss is drinking from that hose, then you want to provide them with information slowly. Invite them to let you know when you can have a chance to meet and talk, recognizing that it may take them a week or more to get settled in before theyre ready to have an in-depth conversation. As your supervisor gets settled, you can expand the amount of information you provide. Giving them that information when theyre ready to receive it will greatly increase the likelihood it gets read at all. Provide an introduction You do want to introduce yourself in stages. Start with a quick, one-paragraph introduction to share who you are, how long you’ve been with the organization, and your role on the team. If there are one or two critical things that your supervisor needs to call on you for, then highlight those as well. After that, you can add more information about your broader responsibilities. Highlight projects that youre working on that may need your supervisors input or attention. You might consider creating a cheat sheet for your new boss that lists the things youre working on, your best contact information, and your key strengths and weaknesses. That way, your supervisor knows when to call on you and the kinds of projects where it might be helpful to include you. After the initial rush, you can add details about projects that dont need immediate attention and other projects you have been involved in so that your supervisor can recognize the contributions you’ve made. Talk about expectations Your previous supervisor not only knew what you had done but also had a sense of your career trajectory, interests, and goals. Hopefully this person was also actively engaged in helping you grow and providing opportunities for you to move forward with your career goals. Your new boss doesnt know any of these things about you. If you have expectations for how you want to be treated and what you would like your supervisor to do to help you succeed in your role and advance, you need to talk about those expectations. It’s also helpful for you to discuss any weaknesses that you would like help to address. It is common to want to start your interactions with your supervisor by focusing on your strengths. And you should do that. But you might also be tempted to hide your weaknesses. Instead, it can be useful to be up front with those aspects of your work that you are still developing. It can ensure that you get help when you need it and that you’re considered for professional development opportunities. Ask for what you need Consistent with highlighting your weaknesses, you should generally ask your new boss for what you need from them. If you like to get feedback in the middle of projects, ask for it. If you need more information about the strategy behind a project or plan, ask. Nobody is a mind reader. And the less well someone knows you, the less able they are to anticipate what you need from them. Rather than hoping your new boss will give you everything you need, youll have to ask for it. Usually, a supervisor will be glad to have some guidance about how youd like to engage with them. Asking for what you need is the best way to get the relationship with your new supervisor off to a good start.
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E-Commerce
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