Exceljet

@CyrusShepard @ZebraBI We've been reporting ZebraBI's AI content as spam for a while now with no results so far. It's not in Google's interest to promote, since the user experience is poor. What is the right channel to report?

Interesting 0 to 1M case study @ZebraBI scales 1000s of AI-generated articles—almost exactly like the infamous SEO "heist"—and even adds a disclaimer to all articles "Take it with a grain of salt!" (basically, don't trust us) But Google seems to be rewarding it as high E-E-A-T

Hey, we're famous for getting ripped off :) businessinsider.com/seo-heist-ai-g…

@bresslertweets @ZebraBI @msexcel @MrExcel @LeilaGharani @googlesearchc Appreciated. Just trying to keep people honest around here :) We are just one of many #Excel sites that have worked hard to publish quality info

@exceljet @ZebraBI @msexcel @MrExcel @LeilaGharani @googlesearchc I emailed you a few weeks ago. I’m really sorry you’re going through this. I hope “good” and the hard work you’ve put in prevails.

Hey @ZebraBI - the @msexcel team will be surprised to learn that Excel has a STRIKETHROUGH() function! 😀 Currently #1 in Google for "Excel strikethrough". cc @MrExcel ,@LeilaGharani, @googlesearchc zebrabi.com/guide/how-to-s…

On Bing, the same article is on page #3, FWIW.

See your instructions here:

@bresslertweets @ZebraBI @msexcel @MrExcel @LeilaGharani @googlesearchc Exactly. (1) Why is it out there at all? (2) Why is it ranking? What is 2000 words about strikethrough worth if it's not accurate?

@exceljet @ZebraBI @msexcel @MrExcel @LeilaGharani @googlesearchc ouch

@MSExcelPro This is lifted directly from @wmfexcel's post here. You should give credit where credit is due. x.com/wmfexcel/statu…

Paginated report in #Excel A picture tells a thousand words. This is what we want to achieve. It is only “kind of” a paginated report because it works only on the application (Excel) but not for printing. 😅 With dynamic array and new functions in Excel 365, this task is not difficult at all. Only two functions involved. They are CHOOSEROWS and SEQUENCE functions. The spin button is not something new. It’s been in Excel for too long. Just that you may not have a chance to use it before. Let’s watch it in action 365-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/g/personal…

@wmfexcel @MSExcelPro Very annoying. The right way to share another's content is to re-tweet. Can you share an example or two? Some basic info here - help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-p…

Just realized that some of my contents had been used by @MSExcelPro without my consent, not even citation of source. They just copied and pasted as if they are the content creators. Is there a way to report it ?

@MikeBlazerX As the 10-year-old site "featured" in Jake's case study (but not credited) - we think it's bad for all of us if good content is out-ranked by a flood of AI-gen spam. The Excel articles on Causal's site are garbage. Example - x.com/exceljet/statu…

Some people don't understand that the "heist guy's" goal was not SEO, but marketing his AI writing tool.

The cool thing in the example is the *negative* instance number in TEXTAFTER. This tells TEXTAFTER to get all text after the *last* space. Excellent feature, useful in many situations.

The new functions in #Excel are useful. The "old" formula to get the last name: =MID(B5,FIND("*",SUBSTITUTE(B5," ","*",LEN(B5)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(B5," ",""))))+1,100) The "new" formula: =TEXTAFTER(B5," ",-1) We like the second option :)

@CyrusShepard ZebraBI is running a very similar project, spraying out thousands of crappy AI-gen Excel articles with overlapping titles, many now ranking #1 as featured snippets. Is it possible to count these articles?

Many SEOs may learn the wrong lesson from this AI content "heist" Wrong: You can't win with AI-generated content Truth: Never, ever publicly make Google look bad

Bottom line: at over 2000 words, this article is mostly just AI-generated fluff. Yet, for some reason, Google is ranking it #1. Please do better Google! There are many great Excel sites out there. More words <> more quality. cc @JohnMu

Not helpful? Here are two more articles on the same topic:

What about advanced techniques?! They have it covered. Check out this word salad:

Plus, you can also use macros to automate the process! Yes. But do be careful if you go this route, because "macros can be risky". Actually, there is no code or instructions, so most people probably won't try macros?

Followed by some nonsense about creating a weighted average with multiple criteria. Seriously, give these 4 steps a try, and let us know how it goes!

Maybe the most interesting thing about this article is that there is not a single working formula or screenshot. The closest we get is this how-to:

Another fluffy AI-generated article from @ZebraBI, currently ranking #1 as the "featured snippet" for "Excel weighted average" on @Google. (The screenshot comes from Exceljet, but that's for another day)