Yesterday I wrote an article about artificial intelligence and how it’s being used by some writers to generate content. That article got indexed by Google rather quickly. The version on Side Hustle Road, however, was excluded – by Google – from the Google search index.

The reason? I imported the post into Medium before Google indexed the article on my blog.

To be clear, it was posted on my blog before it was imported into Medium, not the other way around. But Google excluded the copy on my blog from its index.

Cool.

But now at least I know what went wrong.

Why Google chose Medium’s copy over my blog’s.

Side Hustle Road is relatively new. Google still isn’t quite sure about it, it seems. Content posted here isn’t guaranteed to show up on Google quickly.

Medium is a different story. Medium has been around since 2012 – nearly 10 years. It’s certainly not the new guy on the block. When something is posted on Medium, it’s a good bet Google will pick up on it pretty quickly.

So what happened with my post yesterday?

I published it here on Side Hustle Road. Ok. Cool.

Then I imported it into Medium with the canonical link pointing back to the copy here on Side Hustle Road.

But the problem is Google found the copy on Medium before it found the copy here and as a result excluded the post from its search index.

What I’ll do going forward.

The solution to this going forward is simple. Up to now, I’ve been posting content here on Side Hustle Road and then importing it into Medium within a few minutes. Going forward, I’m going to amend my strategy.

I’ll post my content here on Side Hustle Road first and wait for Google to find it. Then, once Google’s found my blog’s copy, I’ll import it into Medium. But further, I’ll also be sure to write some content that’s exclusive to Medium and some that’s exclusive to Side Hustle Road.

How will that strategy play out? I’m not sure. Will my strategy make Google happy and drive traffic? We’ll see. I’m hopeful, and I’m learning as I go.

But whatever happens, I’ll be sure to post an update to maybe help others out there too.