“Search Engine Optimization”
Blech.
I hate it.
This is what SEO should be:
- Write content on the internet.
- Make sure it is output in semantic, accessible HTML.
- Make sure the performance on the site isn’t a disaster.
- Play no games. Do no tricks.
- Do that over a long period of time on the same domain to build trust.
And to be fair, that does work. That’s all I did at CSS-Tricks and was rewarded with decent traffic from Google for quite a long time.
It was something like 75% of all traffic, so it was something I thought a lot about. I would occasionally be lured in by SEO snake oil bullshit. We should think more about keywords! We should put those keywords into the headers throughout the article more. I don’t have any evidence that stuff like that actually works, but even if it does in the short term, it junks up your writing. Now you’re writing for computers and not for humans. That’s not a good long term plan, because humans won’t connect with it as well and human connection (sorry computers) is everything.
Why do I hate SEO?
For one, software I’ve been compelled to install (Business FOMO?) is pushy, obnoxious, and I don’t think even does much.
For another, my inbox is 50% “people” trying every trick in the book to get me to put links to their garbage on my sites. I’m way past annoyed by that.
For another, Google, who ostensibly wants you to not play SEO games and just publish content, gamifies SEO in Lighthouse with a 0-100 score. Although to be fair it’s largely just HTML analysis (so maybe just call it that?).
But the main reason for my ire is that it just plain wrecks the internet. Being at the top of Google search results is worth so much money that people are highly incentivized to get there. And it turns out, if you play the SEO game well enough, it is a game that can be won. And the winner absolutely doesn’t have to be the best experience for the user.
Amanda Chicago Lewis has a Verge article on this, which is what got me all fired up.
a lot of folks are unhappy, in 2023, with their ability to find information on the internet, which, for almost everyone, means the quality of Google Search results. The links that pop up when they go looking for answers online, they say, are “absolutely unusable”; “garbage”; and “a nightmare” because “a lot of the content doesn’t feel authentic.” Some blame Google itself, asserting that an all-powerful, all-seeing, trillion-dollar corporation with a 90 percent market share for online search is corrupting our access to the truth. But others blame the people I wanted to see in Florida, the ones who engage in the mysterious art of search engine optimization, or SEO.
The people who ruined the internet
It’s gotten bad enough that the trust has eroded. We collectively have a feeling anything you Google for doesn’t deliver you the best results, it delivers you a pile of whoever is winning the SEO deathmatch at the moment. Plus ads. Plus if there is really nice clear answer, Google tends to pluck that answer off the website and display it directly, generating zero value for the website it was plucked from.
It’s no wonder people are turning to AI. A “prompt” isn’t all that different from a “search”. Except, at this exact very-temporary moment, AI tools tend to deliver you some pretty clear text back, not a visual quagmire you need to root through yourself.
For another, the profession feels slimy. Your job is to battle an algorithm. The algorithm is trying to surface the best content, but to win, you make it surface your content. I guess you can sleep at night as long as you’re entirely convinced your content is the best and you’re just fighting for what is owed to you. I guess that’s like a thief justifying their actions because, actually, it is society that is wrong.
Is that a mischaracterization? Maybe. I’m sure there are some nice people in SEO. But Lewis’ article corroborates my feeling.
So who ends up with a career in SEO? The stereotype is that of a hustler: a content goblin willing to eschew rules, morals, and good taste in exchange for eyeballs and mountains of cash. A nihilist in it for the thrills, a prankster gleeful about getting away with something.
“This is modern-day pirate shit, as close as you can get,” explained Cade Lee, who prepared me over the phone for what to expect in Florida based on over a decade working in SEO. What Lee said he’s noticed most at SEO conferences and SEO networking events is a certain arrogance. “There’s definitely an ego among all of them,” he told me. “You succeed, and now you’re a genius. Now you’ve outdone Google.”
If you disagree, you’ll find friends in the comments on Lewis’ article. SEO is what made the internet good, actually (they say).
Hear, hear! Just imagine if SEO was applied to the books in your local library. It’s a dirty game.
Couldn’t agree more. Building out useful content should be the only reason to publish. SEO has always felt like a dark art rather than a by product of building content and trust on a site and I’ve struggled to rank for topics I want to rank for and yet I have articles on fairly niche things that seem to gain traction and I have no idea why!
https://bsky.app/profile/stringyland.bsky.social/post/3kdqeb763rc2d
Very much agreed. It also just sounds unnatural to read. It’s all “Noun is the best Noun at Nouning. When you think about Noun, Noun is the thing you are thinking about. Noun.”
I had a job on the side in college back in ’07 as an SEO writer. I probably would’ve been better off working an actual job over being paid basically for scraps to write schlock, but it’s fine. I also didn’t think it was as bad then. It’s really hard to find content these days that seems “real” if you’re out looking for something new.
Amen brother. I am awash with dread whenever my wife has me lookup a recipe for dinner because of how SEO has corrupted the contents of these sites. I am cutting over to ChatGPT for more and more of this stuff
Spot on. Unconsciously I have trained myself to add the word “reddit” at the end of every Google search query, as in for example “best earbuds for running reddit”.
@Luis I love how that phrase sounds like you’re looking for earbuds that can run a reddit client!
I 100% agree. I hate writing for SEO; articles that flow well, are full of useful info and carry humour are reduced to stuttering, simpleton-pleasing rubbish.
It tarnishes my soul.
Great post! SEO can definitely feel overwhelming and a bit overhyped at times. Your insights on cutting through the noise and focusing on what truly matters are refreshing. Thanks for the practical tips!
Slightly off topic but this actually reminds me of a developer I met a few years back. I didn’t really keep in touch but did talk to him again in a voice call at one point in time. He talked about the projects he did in a way that made me feel like he was marketing a product to me. When I went to his GitHub to see his work, all I found were low effort python scripts with the click bait-iest readmes you’ll ever see. Guy was trend hopping to an extreme because he liked the attention it would get him. Now, I’m someone who looks at the code and not the cover of the project, so I hated every one I opened because under that sugarcoat armor of readmes were ugly scripts hobbled together with GPT and stackoverflow copy-paste. The saddest part was that he was given praise and even won a few local events for his projects, while not learning a thing in the years he spent making them. I see it the same as this SEO nonsense. Yeah, you’re getting a lot of attention, but anyone looking for something of substance isn’t going to be a fan, and ultimately that means you’ll have very few if any regular visitors. Additionally, there will always be someone in it just for the attention. They don’t have a drive to build something great because their eyes are locked in on google analytics rather than the quality of their craft, and that’s why they will ultimately fail if they try to make it last. A gold-plated turd is still a turd, and a poorly written blog post with a coat of paint is still a poorly written blog post.
SEO and the accompanying frustrations remind me the 1990 movie Crazy People. Dudley Moore plays an advertising executive. He becomes so sick of lying to people that he loses it and checks in to a Mental Hospital. You can watch the movie for more disturbing, yet oddly re-assuring content. The best lesson I’ve learned is not to let AI steal you joy. I’ve had GPT rip off my organic copy and that was bad enough. Don’t let that robot crap take the joy of creating.
Well said indeed.