The SEO world is up in arms after a story said they're 'ruining the internet.' Here's the spicy drama.
The SEO world is up in arms after a story said they're 'ruining the internet.' Here's the spicy drama.
An 8,000-word story in The Verge asks: Why does Google search suck so bad? It points the finger at SEO practitioners — and they're not happy.
Neat. So some of them are nice. Doesn’t make the practice of “optimizing” search a noble deed because some of them think themselves on some high tower. In the end you are trying to push your site above others based on your ability to game the system, rather than relevance of your content. When you do this, I don’t think it’s relevant if you’re a nice person with feelings…
I don’t really blame the recipe site that includes how Daniel grew up with their parents searching the river banks of rural New York State for the best wild blueberries, because that’s the only way they show up in a world sorted by shitty algorithms. There’s still a recipe at the bottom of the page, for free.
But I do blame, every single day, the people who make mindless content just to serve ads.
The other day I shit you not I googled how to set a specific Chron schedule, and there was a webpage for it. They had a page for every chron schedule permutation. If you google chron schedule for X hours Y days, Z, you’ll find them. Of course there were ads on the page and it has almost useless, but they exploded their content for views.
But now imagine that Google indexes that, and it becomes costlier for Google to provide a better experience to the user because there’s so much garbage content to index and rank. They also serve ads, so Google actually makes more money showing this trash, thus incentivizing them not to look too closely at the gift horses mouth.
SEO sites can go suck a fuck.
SEO ruined the Internet because it made SEO essential to be seen in relevant search results above other less relevant search results. In other words, less relevant search results can often be seen on the first page along with more relevant search results, or even sometimes instead of relevant search results on the first 2 pages of any reputable search engine.
Also, Internet Reputation companies have proven that SEO and fake content can be used as a weapon to push relevant search results so far down nobody sees them anymore.
Finally, how many times have you searched for something just to come across some random webpage with just a bunch of word salad that happens to somehow be relevant. An easy example of this are phone numbers. You search for a phone number that called you and chances are you won't see much relevant data. Just a mix of "robocaller" reporting websites -- usually with no information and random websites with just a bunch of phone numbers in sequential order with no relevant data whatsoever. Even if it's a business' actual phone number.
They claim they didn't ruin the Internet, but yet every single one I've worked with very aggressively keyword stuffed the shit out of the sites, even a blog with fake authors and carefully written junk top 10 blog posts to bring as much traffic as possible. I've even discovered they exploited Wordpress instances to stuff links to our site on it, when they weren't just leaving junk comments with a link to the website.
They're the very reasons so many sites have so many fucking useless tutorials and top 10s and whatnot. They go after search engines, and in that process, you gotta make your site appear to have loads of articles and content about a topic so it gets favored in search engines.
This is a different version of putting text the same color as your background at the end if your page, with your keywords typed over and over.
Anyone who has searched for a recipe in the last few years knows that they ruined the internet with SEO shit.
The story they're discussing: https://www.theverge.com/features/23931789/seo-search-engine-optimization-experts-google-results
Actually a very interesting read, thank you for linking it
Wait till the HR world figures out their sole purpose is to protect corporations from actual human beings. God forbid they stop trying to pay people the least amount possible.
On a related note, my favorite recent SEO story:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26/23931825/google-search-local-seo-thai-food-near-me-maps
I just saw that on Google maps yesterday. Had a laugh. Didn't go, though.
Was it really near you though? :) I think I'd be obligated to at least go in and ask "HOW DID YOU KNOW??!?!?"
We have VERY different spice thresholds.
mayo can be pretty spicy
Spice level: cream of wheat
Take that back right now
Only after it sits out for a few days.
Imagine being in the "SEO industry". Lmao.
Me_irl
How'd they not know?
They just chose the money over the usable of Google search. Google used Reddit as a crutch but now that is stale or going away (pending reddit getting paid by AI companies for their data). So Google is either going to have to change how search works which will endanger their bottom line from search and totally change how search engine optimization and thousands of websites work which seems unlikely. Or find a way to keep search relevant.
They are!
Well. they don't like to hear that, Jan! /s
If it were for me to decide, they would be down in hiding. Cause being up in arms would mean legs broken, and also fingers or their hands to prevent further use of computer keyboards and mice.
Also an abbreviation which is expanded into "search engine optimization" by the very fscking name means that they are ruining the Internet, or the Web as its part, more precisely.
Don't forget those ads on Twitter, Facebook, instagram, Youtube. They show you the product you viewed before, called re-targeting.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Verge article, written by Amanda Chicago Lewis, is 8,000 words and starts with an anecdote about attending a search-engine optimization industry event that featured a live alligator.
A lot of what we see on the internet on a daily basis (this news site included) is shaped by efforts to appeal to Google's search algorithms.
But it turns out, they're nice people — not scammers — and perform a worthwhile service connecting websites to customers within a framework that Google has constructed.
Danny Sullivan, a former journalist and the founder of Search Engine Land — who's also a current Google employee — was also displeased.
Sullivan points out some minor errors (he had left Search Engine Land before he joined Google; The Verge story makes this more ambiguous).
One thing that's usually true is that subcultures of people, whether it's furries, pro-natalists, or Dimes Square reactionaries, don't like being written about as a group.
The original article contains 854 words, the summary contains 151 words. Saved 82%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
But it's not only the story that says that...
The real question is: why do people misunderstand SEO? No matter what technology you are going to use, people are going to want to optimize it. Like a store front will optimize for the street it's in.
A search engine crawls sites, ranks them based on keywords (and much more), and shows results based on a search quiry. No matter how it works, sites will find out how the system prioritizes A over B.
Then there are the users. Stop asking Google/whatever questions. It's a search engine, so it'll show content that asks the same. When did we stop searching for keywords about a certain topic to find out?
Sure, I'm lazy too. And 'information pollution' is a problem. But not SEO in and of itself.