Welcome back to another episode of The Niche Pursuits News podcast, where Spencer and Jared break down the latest and most relevant news for SEOs, content creators, and business owners. They kick things off by talking about the Helpful Content Update, which was rolled out in September 2023. There has been lots of chatter of late—in Twitter threads, in Facebook posts, and beyond— where people are looking for signs that recovery from the HCU is possible.  Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan explains a little bit about the helpful content classifier and how it works, although his explanation certainly gives rise to more questions.  How does Spencer interpret his explanation? Does he think it’s possible to see a recovery in the short term? Have Jared and Spencer seen any sites make a full recovery?  What interesting statistics does Jared reference in terms of HCU recoveries? If the classifier is constantly being updated and tweaked, what does that mean for content creators?  Since no one can truly define what is and isn't helpful content, the big question remains: Is there hope? Listen to Spencer and Jared’s predictions. The next order of business is the fact that web stories are no longer visible as Google is deprecating the carousel view of web stories in Discover. What are the two takeaways from this brief news story? And last but not least, Spencer and Jared talk about the recent news of an upcoming Google algorithm update. Lots of people have noticed an uptick in traffic as well as volatility, and suspect there might be an update brewing. Have Spencer and Jared noticed anything going on with their sites or the sites they manage?  Next up on the podcast is the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion. Spencer goes first, but instead of talking about one of his side hustles, he shares an update on the AI content competition underway on Niche Pursuits. This competition was launched after the HCU and the goal is to grow a new site with AI content. He shares the 4-month leaderboard, and there’s no shortage of interesting things to talk about! The person leading the pack is getting 24,000 organic visitors to his site with around 7 million articles, and after just 4 months, the top 10 people in the challenge are getting more than 1000 organic visitors per month, which is impressive considering these are fresh domains. If you want to hear the backstory, check out the full episode and also the Niche Pursuits community. When it's Jared's turn, he provides an update on his public speaking side hustle, reporting that he has reached out to more than 50 different conferences to see if he can speak. How many did you hear back from? And what did they say?  He also gives an update on his Weekend Growth YouTube channel, which recently reached the thresholds for monetization. Jared shares his stats as well as some useful advice for YouTube content creators, and reports on how much he's earned to date from that channel.  When it’s time to reveal their weird niche sites, Spencer goes first with Snow Day Calculator.  This site, which does have a social media following, allows users to calculate the number of snow days according to their zip code and type of school. It also offers predictions of future snow days.  The DR42 site is monetized with display ads and has a relatively strong backlink profile, thanks to links from news outlets. As it's a seasonal site, the traffic spikes in winter but dies during the rest of the year.  How much money might it be making during those peaks? And what other clever strategies are they using to earn money? Listen to the episode to find out what Spencer and Jared discover as they poke around. Things take a morbid turn when Jared reveals his weird niche site, Aerial Ashes, a company that uses drones to scatter people’s ashes over land and sea in the UK. The site, which is clearly for a local company, is a DR8