The WP Minute+

Matt: Jono Alderson,
welcome to the WP minute.

Jono: Thank you very much for having me.

What a treat.

Matt: What a treat indeed.

What a week.

What a view.

Jono: yeah, it's a nice, nice distraction.

Matt: have this conversation.

Yeah, I mean, I've seen you in the space.

Of course.

I've seen you in post that I've seen
you on Twitter Largely about like

WordPress and SEO and stuff You had
brought up one of the more critical

milestones that have happened in the
last six or so months Which was the?

Dot com versus dot org.

com doing this whole plugin
mirroring thing, which we

can probably get into today.

That was the, the Genesis, uh,
of us, of me reaching out to you

saying, Hey, you want to, want
to chat about this on the show?

You want to talk about it?

Uh, there's some other
stuff that's happened since.

Jono: It's related, I guess, right?

It's the same, same kind
of root topic behind all of

Matt: Yeah, same root topic behind it.

And we'll talk about that as well.

First and foremost, you're an
independent technical SEO consultant.

That's the Twitter bio.

The website is JonoAlderson.

com if you want all things
SEO consulting from Jono.

But what else do you do in SEO?

How do you frame that
in today's world of SEO?

Um, if somebody's like, I want to
hire this guy, but what does it mean?

Jono: That's a big question, isn't it?

Because yeah, SEO continues
to morph and change.

Um, I think it's, in some ways it's, it's
far harder to characterize what that is

now, but in some ways it's far easier.

It's just website quality.

Um, this is what it's always been.

Google, like, users want good websites
where good is amorphous and big and

complex, and Google wants to reward that.

So, it's everything.

It's user experience, it's technical
integrity, it's performance, it's

security, it's accessibility,
it's a hundred other areas.

Um, and I I'm deeply into many of those
areas and the bits I'm not, I know

enough to connect the right people
and understand what good looks like.

So it's working out, where are you today?

Turns out you're probably
at six out of 10.

How, where, where does
it make sense to aim for?

Because 10 is usually not feasible, but
if you can get up to eight out of 10,

are you going to double your traffic?

Are you going to please your users?

Are you going to increase revenue?

So yeah, I work with businesses to go,
how do we build a roadmap to do that?

Largely focusing on the
kind of more technical side.

Um, Partly because WordPress is
awesome, and that's the bit I enjoy,

but mostly, that's the bit where
people have the most room to improve.

Most people really often haven't kind
of gone down and really looked at their

website and said, is this inherently good?

Um, so yeah making it faster making
it better tying up all the things

that's the stuff I really enjoy

Matt: I noticed you didn't say
backlinks, uh, in, in that.

So, so help me as somebody I've
steered clear of SEO largely

Jono: yeah good well done well done

Matt: largely because I've
just been frustrated by it.

And that was out on the way here.

I was, I was listening to another
podcast about creativity and

storytelling and all this stuff.

And, uh, you know, he brought
up, you know, And actually,

this is a friend of mine.

I've known him fairly well.

Um, and he, and he talked about the
approach of content creators, not

marketers, but just folks who are like
creating content, kind of look out of it.

Like look at it like this conveyor belt.

Like I got to do this thing.

I got to drop it in.

Here comes the next one.

I get to do the next post, the next video.

I've always stayed away from that.

Even though I have a fairly high
cadence of content creation, I've

always been like this content.

Like I like the content.

I care about this post or this video.

So maybe it doesn't come out every week.

Maybe it takes me a couple of
weeks to make a podcast episode

or a video or blog posts.

But all the technical SEO
strategies I read about is volume,

you know, consistency, keep it
going, keep it going out there.

And sometimes I feel like,
man, I'm on this hamster wheel.

Don't you want me to make good content?

So, so break it down for us.

Like, are we, am I doing it wrong?

Just for

Jono: No, no,

Matt: am I doing it

Jono: absolutely right Everyone
else is doing it wrong.

Um, no, you've got exactly
the right attitude.

Um, so there's two things I guess
one is um, Content and links,

they're interrelated, right?

So, links are an important part of how
Google determines whether a site is

good or not, and whether it should rank.

Links are essentially endorsements.

So, of course, we now have an entire
SEO industry with a kind of dirty

underbelly, which goes, you can buy
links for money, or you can spend

money with an agency who will go
and produce content, or hassle some

journalists in order to get you links.

Or you can go like sponsor things.

So there's various degrees of, you can
turn money into links, which Google

attempts to shut down and ignore.

And they are getting better at that.

And it's getting harder.

So as a result, we now have this
content marketing thing, right?

Where everybody says, go and have
a blog and write three things

a day, and pick a keyword and
write 500 words with structure.

Like, what is the thing?

How do I do the thing?

Where do I get the thing?

And the whole internet's
full of this garbage.

And for a while it worked to
a degree because Google needed

that content to disambiguate.

What are people searching for?

What are the kinds of things
these websites have expertise on?

What problems do they solve?

Um, and that for a long
time was the industry.

And now I think we're almost coming
out of that with the rise of AI

powered results and generative search.

Google doesn't need that anymore.

Um, like there are so many of these
spaces where we're just producing

content about keywords that don't exist.

Those problems were already solved.

So if you're, I don't know, you've
got a company selling insurance or

cupcakes, what are you possibly going
to write that's going to add new value

that Google doesn't already understand
that's contributing to the corpus

of human knowledge, like you're just
rehashing information about, uh, eight

ways to avoid your plants freezing at
Christmas, or my vegan cupcakes are better

than your vegan, none of it's useful.

Um, and the thing that's really changed,
which I think is great in the last year

or so is Google has just got really,
really good at ignoring all that stuff.

But there are so, but all the information
out there still says go and write things.

So, so many brands think the good SEO
looks like write three blog posts.

So, we pick a keyword, tick
the boxes in Yoast, et cetera.

And some of that is foundational.

Like you have to have content that
talks about what you do and you have

to have content that tells stories
to your users, engages them, but you

definitely don't need articles at scale.

So, yeah, I think the velocity
and the cadence isn't important.

I think doing what you're
doing, which is what I'm doing.

Write stuff that you're passionate
about, that you believe in, that is

interesting, that is good, that is
useful, that is relevant at the cadence

that makes sense to do that, like do
one a year, if that's what it takes

to write something excellent, but
yeah, the idea that we all need to be

churning out words on pages is awful.

Matt: Is that, is the essence of it brand
building or, okay, so it's like a brand

building because the way that I've seen
everything is like, I've never, I grew up

in a family that owned car dealerships,
largely controlled by General Motors.

And it was like, if you ever want to like
frame the corporate man talking down to

the little people, it's General Motors
and a small family car dealership, right?

Like, you will do this and you
will accept it and you will take

these cars that nobody wants to
buy and you will try to sell them.

So, ingrained in me is to
never trust the man, right?

Because I grew up in that setting.

So I've always looked, and this is
probably foolish to some degree, but

I, I, again, I, I mean, I, I've thought
about SEO, but I've never invested in it.

I never got into PPC or, or buying ads
and all this stuff, largely because

maybe I didn't have a product that,
that really needed that leverage.

Uh, and I've always just looked at
the, the algorithms to be something

that isn't ever going to help me.

Like it might help me in the short term,
like a little boost kind of thing, but

I've always said, I'm going to make my
content and just push it out to people

and tell people I've got this content.

Um, are the days of.

Of organic search data, or excuse
me, organic search results going down

because of, of AI and what's happening.

In other words, should people be thinking
about pushing their brand out more

and getting their content out more?

Like, nobody gonna help
you except for yourself.

How do you frame that, if, if at all?

Jono: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

I think the days of build it and
they will come if you put the

right keyword in it enough times
are definitely on the way out.

And we definitely see trends where the
rise of AI powered results and also

things like chat GPT usage and perplexity
and stuff is changing how people search

is changing what the results look like.

And it's definitely reducing
the propensity of people to see

your website in a list of other
websites and click that one.

Um, like that's not really what
that ecosystem looks like anymore.

And the answer to that, who knows, but
part of the answer to that is probably

yeah, build a reputable brand that people
will recognize and trust and already

have influenced them with content of the
stream and that higher in their journeys.

So that when they ask perplexity,
what's the best shampoo or, um,

finally the best black Friday deals
for a new PC monitor, whatever it is.

When it says, okay, here are three
really good ones, they recognize your

brand and your messaging because six
months ago they read a really interesting

article that you wrote or, um, those
kinds of influences and touch points

and there's brand building activities.

Um, so that you've got that reputation
and recall and preference over time.

Cause yeah, it's not going to be the
case of, I wrote the best article.

I ranked first in this list of links.

People are going to click my thing
because the whole landscape is changing.

It's definitely going to
be more about reputation.

Matt: Let's talk a little
bit more about WordPress.

We're going to transition
into talking about the whole.

org versus.

com thing, and maybe some of this other
explosive news from the last couple of

weeks, uh, post WordCamp US, keeping it
in the frame of reference of WordPress.

I consider my brand a flea on an
elephant's ass is how I like to look at

my brand in the overall WordPress space.

Um, one of the things I've always
found interesting with, uh, uh, chat

GPT or, Or, uh, Claude, which are two
that I, I use fairly often is this, um,

uh, being trained on SEO results, the
typical blog posts, the top, whatever.

Uh, in other words, if I go to either
of these two, uh, chatbots, uh, and

I type in, give me the best list of
WordPress podcasts, it still recommends,

uh, Matt report, which is a podcast
I haven't done in about four years

as one of the top podcast episodes.

And it has, it doesn't reference the WP
minute at all, largely because nobody has

written a top WordPress podcast, a blog
post in literally five, six years when

WordPress podcasts had their heydays.

So how is this stuff getting updated
for like these little niche markets,

or is it just so little volume that.

It suffers from the same things
that regular SEO suffered from.

Jono: Yeah.

And even worse, right?

Like WordPress is in a weird place.

We don't have a marketing
function anymore.

There's a lot of contributors
have been in left.

There's a lot of stuff has
dried up and consolidated it.

So you're right.

There's not a lot of new
content being produced.

WordPress.

org, which we'll come on to in
a minute, I'm sure, is not great

when it comes to SEO politely.

So we're not fighting our own battles.

We're not creating content.

We're not telling our own stories.

And meanwhile, The Wix's and the
Shopify is obviously very, very noisy.

So yeah, when you, when you were
creating these systems for advice

and information in this context,
what are they drawing from?

It is going to be stuff from 2012
because there's not a lot else out there.

And even if there were, the volume
and reach of that is going to

be lower than everyone else's.

So yeah, I think this is
going to be a real problem.

We are going to be very underrepresented
in those kinds of results

collectively and as a platform.

Um, if only we had some kind of marketing
team who could be thinking about that.

Matt: One last question on the
AI, just because I'm curious.

Is this all built off of
the back of stolen content?

Like, do you believe
it to be like that bad?

Jono: hard a question, right?

Isn't it?

Um, I'm privileged enough to come from
a position where my livelihood isn't

threatened by this, and I find it a
very useful tool that accelerates me.

So I'm very lucky to be able to say,
uh, academically, no, I don't think so.

I think, um, there are only so many
ways that you can recombine factual

statements and words and a significant
proportion of the use cases are,

oh, or pixels for images, right?

It's just soup, and then you unsoup it.

But yeah, it's trained on a corpus
of information that it wasn't granted

permission to to utilize and Even
if it's not theft, there ought to

have been a consent at some point.

Um, even now we still don't really have a
good model for that, that we're starting

to see some options, but it's too late.

I think, uh, even if, even if
it was theft, it's too late.

The genie genius out the bottle.

Even if open AI never becomes
profitable and they fail,

something else will fill the space.

All the information is out there.

It's on common call.

It's been produced in a million places.

This is now the model.

And even if we don't like it,
I think we're stuck with it.

So yeah, it's pretty unpleasant.

Matt: And Google can't sue them
because they stole it from us.

So, so really it's us, you know,
individuals who have been pumping

content, uh, into the web and, and
Google just enhancing that searchability.

And then these chatbots coming in and
go, well, let's just leverage search

and find, you know, take from this index
they've already stolen from the people.

Uh, so it's just a crazy,
uh, crazy world at this

Jono: There was a, there was a nice new
feature from Cloudflare, I think announced

last week or so, where they, they're
describing this as a third category thing.

So it said, we've always had
bad bots and good bots, like

scrapers and search engines.

And now this is a third category, where
they're learning and consuming, and

they're rolling out tools to monitor
it, and eventually hope to kind of do

a cost per access monetization model.

Whether or not that's meaningful, I don't
know, but I thought it was interesting.

Matt: You mentioned WordPress marketing.

It's obviously a hot topic, has
been a hot topic for many years.

We saw that team, the make team,
uh, marketing team sort of shuttered

and, and, and closed out, uh, I
forget roughly six, eight months ago.

Um, and it was sort of put in place was
the, uh, media core team, which Josefa,

um, and then led by Reyes Martinez from
automatic, both of which have now left.

Automatic.

Or at least, uh, Josefa stepped
down from the director role.

I haven't seen the automatic
end on her LinkedIn profile

Jono: Indeed,

Matt: Uh, but I saw she stepped
down from the director role.

Reyes has left automatic.

She reached out to me to let me know.

So I don't know what the what the, uh,
life holds for the media core team.

All of this is to get to this, this,
this issue with marketing WordPress.

I've always said, man, it's tough
to do marketing from a volunteer

led team with no access, no data,
no social media accounts, no budget,

no direct, uh, channel to a product.

Who is the product team?

How can we even do this
in a volunteer led system?

Your thoughts on, on marketing WordPress.

Jono: that laundry list of things
you just said were not allowed is

pretty much the problem, right?

And I think Giuseppe summed that
quite well, summed that up quite well

in her, she published a thing saying
essentially why we're not going to

have a marketing team and why the
media call was the way forward.

And it essentially boils down to, you
are all asking for the right things and

asking the right questions, but I either
cannot or will not provide you with these

for logistical or political reasons.

You're like, then yeah, how do,
how do you How do you market?

And all the stuff we were saying about
the evolution of SEO just now into

branding and awareness and preference.

That's the whole of marketing, right?

Consumers are educated and informed.

They make their own decisions.

They want to evaluate, compare.

They want to be led.

They want to be told stories, et cetera.

And we don't have that.

Any of the infrastructure or processes
or people or resources or systems to even

start to ask what that would look like.

And I think the hardest bit
of that, of all that laundry

list is the product, right?

Like for better or worse, we
have a roadmap to a degree.

Gutenberg's doing things.

People have varying opinions on
whether that's the right direction

or not, but we are, we are at war.

With Wix and Squarespace and
other platforms and Vercel

and all these other things.

And I'm not even sure we realize that
we're at war and because we just say

we've got 43 percent of the web and
we keep saying that until we're not.

And even if we are, those numbers are
questionable anyway, right, depending

on how you want to calculate that.

And I, I see, certainly from an SEO
perspective, There's still a huge influx

of people who want to build websites
for the first time, or don't understand

what hosting is, or don't know how to do
a thing, and they search for problems,

whether they do that in Google or
TrapGPT or wherever, and we're nowhere.

And a WPBeginner and a whole bunch of
Syed's networks are generally somewhere.

Um, but WordPress collectively, other
than com, which yeah, is contentious.

WordPress.

org is very rarely represented and there's
very rarely educational hearts and minds

onboarding kind of step on content because
Wix is just paying their way in there.

Or competing organically.

So yeah, we, we're going to

Matt: From a technical perspective,
though, is the simple answer, because

we've, the community, air quotes,
has never invested in it for the

org side, technically speaking.

Like, we just never
gave it a shot, is, is,

Jono: I've been fighting with org
for what feels like a decade now.

Um, It's not the worst website.

Um, I think we've put out a
lot of the technical fires.

There are still kind of existential
crises there around how some of it

works and its legacy as a tech stack.

But the biggest problem is just there's
no real kind of content strategy.

And if you ask simple questions
like, um, if somebody's Googling,

uh, how to write, how to set up
a blog, where should they land?

Because at the moment, best case scenario,
it's probably some itty bitty forum

post that somebody wrote three years
ago that gets a whole bunch of disput

and helpful answers that somebody shut
down because they posted something

that didn't align with the WordPress.

org rules and so on, yadda, yadda.

Like, none of those, there's no
strategy behind how should this work

and how should we guide people through.

And then, We've got so many
moving parts that are disjointed.

So we've got the learn subdomain, which
is doing some great work in educational

content, but nobody's really reconciled.

How does that relate to the, um, the
developer site, which has similar topics?

We haven't really retired the codecs.

The forums are largely moderated in
a way that just sprawls rather than

answering questions in a consolidated way.

All the tutorial stuff is over on dot com.

Yeah, it's working out how do we,
How do we market to people and how

do we take them on journeys needs
to happen before any of the kind

of big technical stuff happens.

Um, and there's no appetite and no
resource to address any of those

kind of huge philosophical questions.

Matt: and it makes it difficult to you
know, position, let's say the learn site.

Like if we go back to earlier in this
conversation and talk about my strategy

of, I create content and I just try
to go to the world and say, here's my

content and I try to get it in front
of people by, you know, pushing it

out there and, and being that sort of
outbound content marketer part of me.

Um, nobody really wants to do that
for like the learn site or for.

org.

Especially in these moments
of community strife, right?

When you just feel
drained from doing this.

So, like, even getting the, like, even
if you said, Hey, we're not going to have

an internal make team that works on this.

It's very hard to get even agencies
and freelancers to want to prop up this

content too, because they're like, Oh God,
we're just crossing this finish line of

delivering this website to this customer.

Now we got to, now you want me to like
promote this content from within, like,

this is, this is very, very difficult.

Jono: Yeah.

And I think this is the biggest
existential crisis we face collectively.

Uh, aside from the, the challenges of
Matt's leadership and the challenges

of all of these things, I think
the biggest problem we have Is that

everyone is burnt out and everyone
is gone and we behave as if there's

an infinite pool of contributors just
coming in the door to replace them.

But you see, as you've already
mentioned, like two profoundly important

people who were very active and have
gone, they've not been replaced.

They won't be replaced.

There's nobody else coming up through
the ranks or entering the doors to

take their burden and their workload.

And to ask the difficult questions
and to do the big thinking, there's

a lot of people who can be pointed
at small tactical things ad hoc and

they'll come and go, but I think
there's only about six people left.

Like in that, like you look at
how inactive make WordPress is.

It's like, where is everyone?

It's a ghost town.

Um, and that's not getting it.

And that's part of the same
marketing challenge in question.

It's a different flavor of
it, but it's the same problem.

Um, yeah, I think that's the biggest
impact and the biggest risk of all the

stuff that's happening at the moment.

That we all.

We are not bringing people in
and we're not raising them up.

Matt: I have, uh, friends when we, when
we, and I'm not, we're not going to talk

about it on this podcast, but when we
talk politics, people just say, I want

to go back to cheaper gas, cheaper food.

And I say, guess what?

Everybody ain't going back.

We might go down a couple.

Yeah, we might go down a couple of
dimes and nickels, but we're not

going back to what we enjoyed before.

It's not going to happen.

We're in a new paradigm now.

And I think that we're in this, this
new, uh, you know, scenario in WordPress

where now we have to look at, this
is just my opinion and obviously you

chime in with yours, but I look at
the community now after this and the

dust hasn't even settled yet, by the
way, because we're still, We don't

even know what's happening next.

Um, I was going to say we're still in
court, but we're not even there yet.

Uh, so we have to figure out how are we
going to repair the community and what's

it going to look like moving forward?

It's not going to be like it was before.

WordCamps might not even
be what it was before.

We could, we could see a dramatic
drop in people wanting to even do

it, sponsor it, go to the event.

What are we going to do moving
forward looking differently?

Um, and that's where I'm, that's
where my mind is going, but also.

Still waiting to see what happens,
uh, with all the stuff with WP engine.

So it's a very rocky, rocky road.

It's back to being a human problem.

Again, it's not even a technical problem.

It's back to a human problem.

How do we repair moving forward?

Uh, I don't have the answers yet,
but any, any thoughts from, from you?

Jono: Yeah, I completely agree.

And I think WordCamps are a really
interesting example, and the event

space more broadly outside that.

I think, um, one of the things I
gripe about occasionally is, I think

WordCamps could be so much more, um,
but again, it's the same problem as we

need to kind of decide what they are.

And that's a big philosophical
complex question and there's

nobody in the driving seat.

Um, but if, if they are designed to be.

recruitment for new contributors
and onboarding, then they need

to be resourced and budgeted and
run in a way that reflects that.

And at the moment they are, they
are wonderful events, but they are

part meetup, part get together, part
education, part recruitment, part

lunch, don't, don't really know.

Like it's, it's just, it's us talking
to us in the same way that the

media corps was us talking to us.

Um, and when, and I know there's been
some vague conversations about starting

to break out of that bubble and now
everyone gets like 200 to go and put

some flyers at the local train station,
but that's, that's not going to fix it.

It's like this, this is, this is
microscopic and it's well intended,

but it's so far in the wrong direction.

Um, so yeah, I think, um, this
is, this is all human problems.

Um, and some of that is one human
in particular, for better or worse.

Um, but a lot of it cascades back
to, um, we, we don't have the,

um, my vocabulary's just dried up.

We don't have the freedom and the ability
to ask or take action on these big

philosophical questions and these big
people problems because everything stops

back at Matt's door, and he's either
not engaged or has a different opinion.

So it just gets stuck and it drops
and people get burned out and burn

out and leave and word camps remain
lovely, but somewhat ineffectual.

Matt: so I've sort of built a career, uh,
you know, questioning and, and being a

critic, uh, of, of Matt and leadership.

And I feel like I've done
it in a professional light.

Maybe some people would, you know,
disagree, but I've never gone way

overboard with conspiracy theories.

And, and, uh, and, and in fact, you
know, even to this day, still thinking

I don't know anyone else who could
lead the software project other than

him, though, very questionable on the
tactics side of things, uh, for sure.

Um, Let's just start transitioning
to talk about like some of the things

that have felt kind of bad as, as
community members, especially if you're

a theme or plugin owner, and you have
your themes and plugins on wordpress.

org, going back to my
knocking on your door.

org.

com, uh, can you outline for those
that maybe don't remember because of

all this stuff recently that happened?

What did.

com do that felt so bad?

Jono: Yeah, so it does feel
like years ago now, doesn't it?

And it feels inconsequential in
comparison, but it's the same route.

So dot com essentially copied the
whole plugin repository from dot org.

They went, take it across,
dump, this is now our version.

Um, and that was really
interesting for a few reasons.

One is, I don't think that had
been done at that scale beforehand.

Um, and whilst, whilst Matt's
response to a lot of critiques is,

Oh, just go fork it and go copy it.

Um, obviously, that's not as simple
as it sounds, and there are huge

overheads associated with that.

The plugin repository not being a
small one of those, but they did it.

Um, and, um, And it was ostensibly
to provide a kind of an easier

routing for dot com customers
to browse and install plugins.

There's two big caveats with that.

One is on dot com,
that's a paid ecosystem.

Like you have to be on whatever
particular tier it is of usage

in order to access and use those,
which is not the case with dot org.

And then the SEO angle is quite
interesting because com is a big

authoritative website with a marketing
team and a strategy and lots of great

useful content that now has its own
version of all of these pages, which

until then, individual plugin vendors
and individual users searched for

and managed and found through org.

And suddenly we have this competitor.

Where com is accidentally, question
mark, um, stealing, question mark,

um, traffic and visitors who might
otherwise have found the org pages and

downloaded and installed a thing for free.

And now potentially getting confused
on our potentially signing up for dot

com hosting plans where they might not
otherwise have done so, and it all just

gets a little bit murky and it looks,
looks like a play, right, it looks

like it's a how do we monetize this
traffic, which it may or may not be.

It's, it's part of a bigger question
about the com versus org relationship,

which is another question we're
not allowed to ask or answer or be

involved in because we just accept
that it's a philosophical nightmare.

Um, but the SEO angle was the first time
that had come up, is what happens when

com starts eating market share from org?

Um, and I think what's really interesting
about that is if you look back as far as

circa 2011, 2012, org is five or six times
the size in terms of visibility of com.

You run any off the shelf SEO tool
and it'll give you an estimate

of how big is this site in terms
of how, what does it rank for and

how much traffic does it attract.

org is scoring, I don't know, 20
points and com is scoring four points.

Now, 2024, they are almost level.

Because org is decaying over
time because it's not loved.

It doesn't have a marketing strategy.

It's a little bit on fire.

All the problems we've discussed,
whereas com is growing, not

enormously and not at a hockey
stick pace, but they're doing well.

They've got a content strategy.

They've got SEO people.

They now have a plug in repository.

And it's, it's not yet at the point where
it's massively cannibalizing org, but

there are some really interesting points.

Things like, um, Names of certain
functionality that people are searching

for, things like SSL certificates
or, uh, how to reset their passwords.

Some of those kinds of queries.com is
starting to outrank.org with either the

plugins repository or their own help
documentation, which arguably then is

just a cl of the, the learn stuff as well.

So yeah, we now have a, we
now have more than ever a big

competitor and it's once again, us.

Um, and, and Matt's there was a slight
exploration of is there a way we can

mitigate this if the intended use case
is mostly just for logged in wordpress.

com users, maybe we could know index
it, maybe we could canonicalize it.

There are SEO tactics we could use
to lock that down so that it benefits

everybody, but none of that's been done.

And I know Matt's aware of those
because he read my blog post on it and

he commented saying very interesting.

Thanks.

Um, and I did nothing.

So, yeah, this is, uh,
this is not healthy.

Matt: Uh, which against the
backdrop of this W is alleged,

uh, WP engine trademark issue.

It's very concerning and
there's a headline in the verge.

Uh, we are recording this on
Tuesday, October 8th, 2024.

Uh, there's a headline on the verge,
Matt Mellenweg quote WordPress.

org just belongs to me.

And, you know, end quote, uh, and
this is, this is why I think so

many of us, though we question,
um, this move of like mirroring.

org to dot com, we, those of us in
the know, like you, me, and probably

most of us listening to this, are just
like, we can't do anything about it.

Like we can rant and holler and
do all this stuff, but really

we can't do anything about it.

And I think that's the biggest struggle
because of the passion that we have for

WordPress, but also at the same time,
we're just boxed in to these decision

makings and things like that, that.

Look at the end of the
day, I don't, I don't know.

Uh, I guess I have a, I don't know if
it's an optimist look outlook on this, but

does it help plugin and theme owners that.

com is ranking if, if the end
user is using their theme and

plugin, it just happens to be on.

com or

Jono: Yeah, this was Matt's argument,
right, that more marketplaces is more

good because it's more reach, it's
more exposure, it's more discovery,

and in theory, then more people find
stuff except this whole pay dangle.

So right now, if you search for
Gravity Forms in the US, com

ranks second and org ranks sixth.

So there is definitely a non zero chance
that you as a user who doesn't really

know what you're doing is going to end up
paying money for a hosting plan to unlock

that instead of getting it for free.

Maybe that's, maybe that's 10 people,
maybe it's one, maybe it's 1000,

but that's distributed across a long
tail of a whole bunch of scenarios.

Is that net positive?

Would those people have gone and self
hosted something and got the free version?

Maybe, maybe not.

Maybe they do want the handholding of
a managed hosting plan and to get it

through a package or just just feels.

a little bit murky and disingenuous to
be presenting them as they're the same

thing and this is net positive, right?

And to your point on
there's nothing we can do.

Yeah, Matt owns both websites, but my
livelihood to a degree and yours and

many others is tied somewhat to the
success of WordPress and therefore we're

all invested in how do we make this
successful and grow its reach, etc.

And yeah, good strategy
comes with compromises.

So we need to go, okay, if we
can't do X, we need to do Y.

But why is also political and everywhere
we turn you end up with an insurmountable,

okay, we don't have the resources, we
don't have the budget, we don't have the

permission, Matt says no, yada, yada.

And I think the thing that we're all
frustrated with and why so many people are

leaving is we cannot see a route forwards.

All we can see is kind of maintain
the status quo, hang on tight

to whatever drama comes next.

Well, we'll shake off a few more
contributors and we'll have to

take on more of the workload.

And there's no, There isn't a route,
certainly, that I can see where we

go, Okay, now we're beating Wix.

Now we are moving forwards.

Now we're growing.

Now we're doing great stuff.

Scaring.

Ha.

Matt: account.

I have a paid 300 a year wordpress.

com account for a website that I, another
newsletter that I have called the podcast

setup where I write about podcasting.

And, um, I noticed it's been a couple of
weeks since I've published anything there.

So it's been a couple of
weeks since I've logged into.

com, but I've noticed now when I log into.

com marketplace is right under plugins and
it, and that, Sort of distinction wasn't

there before or at least I certainly
hadn't seen it in the last month or

so So the marketplace is now getting
pushed on dot com at least in my plan

much more visibly One of the things I
was thinking about through this whole WP

engine thing was well, maybe they were
I mean, they're enterprise software.

I used to sell against them
as a Pagely account executive.

I was there for three years.

So they are for every account
a software enterprise company.

They're vicious.

They are cruel.

They are tactful in their sales as any
enterprise software company is right.

Um, so I wouldn't had it.

have put it past them.

If WP engine was going to launch what I
call the HubSpot esque sort of marketplace

where HubSpot has a marketplace,
you can buy stuff, but guess what?

If you go from HubSpot to say Salesforce
or, uh, Asana or whatever, um, you're not

taking that marketplace stuff with you.

It's there, right?

And WP engine launching something
like that to really challenge,

um, the, the ecosystem.

But now as I see it.

Well, dot com has a marketplace, uh,
and Matt kind of like thrust them to

create their own mirror of dot org.

Maybe that's just going to thrust
them to make a marketplace, uh, faster

than what they had maybe previously
planned or maybe had never thought of.

And now they're like, aha, we'll
call this a marketplace and we'll

start selling stuff through it.

Jono: You know, the best thing that
will happen there is we'll then have

an even more reinforced confusion
between WordPress and WordPress.

And then the solution will be
we'll add a marketplace on org.

So we'll just have like all these
confusing mirrors of each other.

Why not?

Ha

Matt: Right.

And that made me start to think about,
well, if you go back like a decade

or 12 years when the Avada theme and
visual composer was out there, you

were buying stuff from theme forest.

And Matt was really
like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa.

That's not the WordPress
experience I want people to have.

Right.

So it was that same thing.

But now it's like a mega hosting
company is, is kind of doing that.

Um, it is like, again, I don't
have a particular angle on

this, but I'm just observing it.

And I'm like, wow.

The marketplace thing could
happen sooner across multiple

entities because of all of this.

And is that the outcome we really wanted?

Jono: Yeah, I, I think
it's exactly what happens.

I don't think it's the outcome of one.

I, I would be very surprised if,
um, New Fold, Strip, Bluehost

don't do the same thing as well.

And everybody's hosting onboarding
flow now has some kind of, and

you can premium upsell to these
plugins, et cetera, that they do from

their own mini curated repository.

Yeah.

And WordPress becomes a fragmented
distributed thing where wherever you

happen to run your website, you're
tied into, you've got your plugins

here, you've got your add ins here.

This is proprietary.

This works differently.

Yeah, all that portability stuff
goes away, which I think certainly,

and I'm being very lenient about
it, there are huge advantages

to WordPress and I love it.

And one of the huge advantages,
certainly one that Matt praises a

lot, is the portability angle, right?

There's all the data transfer portability
stuff happening at the moment.

Yeah, that's, that's at risk, I think, if
we end up in a landscape of marketplaces

and verticals, individual little silos.

Matt: last shoe to drop for me
on these dot com plugin and theme

pages will be if they have like a.

You know, running your own WordPress,
install this plugin with Jetpack

and then people will be like,
Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

Because they have that site
management angle, right?

So does dot com.

But so does, I mean, so does Jetpack
where you could kind of use Jetpack

services like a managed WP or, you know,
name your favorite kind of management.

Plug in service.

They could do the same thing.

We're like, Hey, if you're running this
on your own site, you can just install

jetpack and we'll install this plug
in for you and and keep it updated.

Um, that would be a very, very interesting
thing to watch because then I would

say, Yeah, we've got an issue here.

Um, how did the plug in and theme
authors get a cut of this traffic?

Jono: Yeah.

Yeah.

Sheesh.

Matt: Um, yeah.

Let's start wrapping it up.

I've

Jono: Deep breath.

Deep breath.

Matt: we're not quitting WordPress.

People are like, I'm
not quitting WordPress.

I can't.

Uh, um, but from your angle on
the SEO side, like I said before,

uh, I saw some folks saying, Hey,
we'll just switch to Laravel.

Like, yeah, just make your, yeah,
just switch to Laravel, Matt.

What do you think?

Oh yeah, sure.

It's the same thing.

Um, from the SEO side.

Jono: from ACF.

Yeah, sure.

Matt: So it's easy.

It's very easy.

Um, what do you see in the SEO world,
uh, that that is something that

is a, a kind of an off, off ramp?

WordPress?

Is it a Wix?

Is it a Squarespace?

Is it static?

Like what other CMSs do you look at?

Go.

Okay.

They're, they're doing a fairly good job,
but nowhere near as, as good as WordPress.

Jono: There's nothing even remotely close.

Uh, this is my biggest gripe
as a, as a lousy technical SEO.

I spend a lot of time poking at
WordPress and other platforms.

And my word, just the, pick
anything else, name it.

And you've got a year of work to
do employing a team of half a dozen

developers to even get parity to
where WordPress was last year.

Nevermind to maintain the
velocity to stay ahead.

So many of the, the sites and businesses
I work with are running, I don't know, a

Sanity or a Wix or a Headless something
or other, or they've done a thing

in React with a backend on something
you've never heard of on a Gatsby or

brr, they're all awful universally.

Like they're, some, some of them are
very good at one thing, Like a lot of

them preference developer experience,
which I'm never sure is a good thing

to preference if you're trying to
run a business like preference,

marketing, marketing tools, etc.

But whatever.

Some of them are very fast.

Some of them are accessible.

Some of them, it's very easy to
do custom post type like stuff.

None of them are good at technical
SEO and none of them are good at

all the things across the board.

And not always WordPress out of
the box, but it's extensible and

customizable enough that if you know
the right tools and tips and tricks,

it's easy enough to get there.

Um, I don't see.

And this is the most frustrating thing.

I don't see anything else
even being able to catch up.

We have such a moat when it comes to
extensibility and inherent capabilities

and resourcing, even as diminished as we
are, and yet still we're losing the war

because we can't tell that story because
all the big scary philosophical questions.

Very, very frustrating.

Matt: haven't asked this, uh, uh, low
hanging fruit question since probably like

my first dozen or so podcast episodes, but
your favorite SEO plugin, your favorite

collection of plugins that you use on your

Jono: Oh, wow.

Let me go see what I'm running.

So yeah, disclosure.

I worked at Yoast for five
years, so I will say Yoast.

Um, but that's, I worked at Yoast because
I believed in the plugin and because

I thought it was the best one, not the
other way around, so I'll still say Yoast.

I think, um, I'm a little bit frustrated.

With them organizationally in the
teams partly why I left it would

be nice to see them ship some new
features that aren't just the AI thing.

I think that's very exciting, very shiny,
but there's definitely more work to

be done in workflows and other areas.

But yeah, Yoast SEO definitely is my SEO
plugin for choice, just because it does.

It does a thousand things behind the
scenes that most people shouldn't

ever need to care about that none of
the others do like silly stuff like,

um, There's a no index HTTP header on
your RSS feeds so that Google doesn't

spend ages calling and indexing them
that nobody else does because nobody

else has even asked that question.

Um, and there's a thousand of those.

That's really nice.

Um, other stuff I really
like, um, Do do do do do.

What am I using at the moment?

String back recently.

Um, all the usual stuff, right?

User role editors, really nice stuff
that should be canonical plugins.

Not that we know what
canonical plugin means.

Um, all the stuff that the Google
performance team are doing.

So, the, um, performance lab stuff.

The speculative loading plugin
that came out the other day.

Um, speculation headers are
really cool for performance.

Sitekit's cool.

Um, yeah, yeah, nothing,
nothing too surprising.

Um, ACF obviously is architecture
really nice for SEO because inevitably

you wind up wanting to do things like,
um, this is a cupcake page and I need

to know what color frosting it has.

And I want to grab that value
and I want to incorporate it

into the meta description, um,
that sort of stuff's really nice.

Yeah.

Otherwise nothing, nothing too unusual.

I don't

Matt: Fantastic.

Uh, he is Jono Alderson.

You can find him at Jono Alderson.

com.

One of the last blog posts,
uh, at times of the year.

At the time of this recording is
the death of the category page.

I'm going to be diving into this
blog post right, right after this,

because is the category page dead?

Well, you have to find
out on Jono Alderson.

com Jono.

Thanks for hanging out today.

It's been fun.

Jono: No, thanks for having me.

It's been really lovely.

Excellent.