How SEO Ruined the Internet • Hacker News Board

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#121

Post by awithrow » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

owlninja wrote: post #113

meesterdude wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this x1000! By pandering to the algorithm of google, a lot of great content has become watered down, softened, or impacted in other ways. Titles have to be worded a certain way, article length has to be a certain length... hoping someone else chimes in with other thoughts because I used to know more about this, and SEO cheapening quality content was one of the key takeaways I had.

Recipe blogs are the worst! Just get to the goods already!

Many now have an anchor directly to the recipe. I try to book mark those so I don't have to read about the author pontificating on the changing of the seasons or how an ingredient in the dish reminds them of childhood for the 800th time.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#122

Post by mattmanser » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

fingerlocks wrote: post #36

netsharc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was "lord of war director's commentary". I thought it was because many more people were googling for the game, but I just tried and Google is still doing this!

If you click the “search instead for...” then the non-video result was exactly what I believe you wanted.

The point is, why is it doing this?

It's not even suggesting both God of War and Lord of War, for me all the results on the first page are about God of War.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#123

Post by laurent123456 » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

calibas wrote: post #112

SEO effectively means catering to whatever metrics Google happens to be focusing on at the moment. It's supposed to reward "good" content, but there's really no way of automatically judging what's "good" content so Google relies on all these other methods that are open to abuse. Whatever way Google rates websites has a direct effect on the web itself. In a way they're a victim of their own success.

Or rather we are the victims of their success.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#124

Post by notJim » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

This article is good, but to go a bit deeper, it seems like part of the problem is ultimately capitalism or the commercial nature of the modern internet. As long as there are these incredible incentives to game the system, people are going to do so. And those same incentives apply to Google, since they are advertising driven too. They used to fight more against this stuff, but I think as they've realized they get their cut either way, they're less inclined to do so. And even if they were so inclined, it's sort of asking them hold back the ocean in my view, because the incentives are so stacked against them.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#125

Post by MisterBastahrd » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

RobertoG wrote: post #20

It kind of ruined content too. Why it ruined content? You are not the only one that is searching for the answer to that question. Keep reading to know why SEO ruined content. Many people think that SEO ruined content, in this post, we are goin to explain why SEO ruined content. When you finish reading this post, you will know why SEO ruined content. In the last years we have observed a grown in the quantity of conten…

Yep.

Say I want a recipe. A tried and true delicious recipe. Can I search and just find a recipe? Nope. Through the magic of SEO, I now have to scroll through 15 paragraphs of somebody's life story before being able to examine the time and ingredients.

How much time and energy was wasted on building "tag" systems? All those fun little term link clouds that sites used to have. I know I wasted time on it. I had something that would scan for words and their synonyms and tag articles, a rescan feature for tags that got added after the fact, and various other utilities.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#126

Post by KMag » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:14 PM UTC

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #78

eitland wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it seems the problem with Google goes far deeper than struggling with bad SEO. - For years it has been next to impossible to get a result that is faithful to the search you actually typed in. This is not dependent on SEO spammers at all, only on Googles unwillingness to accept that not every user is equal and some of us mean exactly what we write, especially when we take the time to enclose our queries in doubl…

That's why I miss pre-Google search engines such as AltaVista and alltheweb. "If you searched for "some obscure string of words" you would only get results that matches that exact string. I really don't like how Google just chooses to vary the spelling of your query when a match isn't found. I often search for electronics components using their part number. I'll type in something like "P204PPX" (a random code I just…

Google used to respect search operators, and dramatically tone down query optimization for queries that contained operators. As I've written elsewhere, I suspect learn-to-rank is to blame[0], by optimizing ranking for generic sloppy queries despite your query being very focused.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22747889

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#127

Post by jedberg » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:16 PM UTC

Early SEO efforts were actually good for the web. They forced you to make your content easier to find and more accessible.

But then that became the table stakes, and people had to start resorting to dirtier tactics. Or just more annoying ones.

During this shelter in place period, I've been reading a lot more recipes online. Every one of them starts with the person's life story. And I get it, maybe how that recipe came to exist is interesting. But at least put a link right at the top that says "skip to recipe" or something. Sometimes I want to read the story, sometimes not. Make it easy for me skip!

I put a recipe on my own website, it's literally a .txt file with just the recipe, ingredients right at the top. I posted a picture of the final product on the internet recently, and a friend asked for the recipe, so I sent him the link.

He replied "the format and delivery method of this is almost more satisfying than the recipe itself".

That's how I know we've gone too far in SEO.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#128

Post by lerchmo » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:16 PM UTC

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #125

RobertoG wrote: post #20

It kind of ruined content too. Why it ruined content? You are not the only one that is searching for the answer to that question. Keep reading to know why SEO ruined content. Many people think that SEO ruined content, in this post, we are goin to explain why SEO ruined content. When you finish reading this post, you will know why SEO ruined content. In the last years we have observed a grown in the quantity of conten…

Yep. Say I want a recipe. A tried and true delicious recipe. Can I search and just find a recipe? Nope. Through the magic of SEO, I now have to scroll through 15 paragraphs of somebody's life story before being able to examine the time and ingredients. How much time and energy was wasted on building "tag" systems? All those fun little term link clouds that sites used to have. I know I wasted time on it. I had somethi…

I find this particular example particularly gross. Recipe's are no doubt a heavily searched category. Why does google allow pure CPM hacking garbage websites to win the top spots? does it have to do with the google ads from top to bottom?

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#129

Post by octocop » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:16 PM UTC

RobertoG wrote: post #20

It kind of ruined content too. Why it ruined content? You are not the only one that is searching for the answer to that question. Keep reading to know why SEO ruined content. Many people think that SEO ruined content, in this post, we are goin to explain why SEO ruined content. When you finish reading this post, you will know why SEO ruined content. In the last years we have observed a grown in the quantity of conten…

This is sooo true, every time i look for a recipe online it's all i ever see.

Re: How SEO Ruined the Internet

#130

Post by trey-jones » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 10:16 PM UTC

SEO combined with Amazon (and other) referral revenue opportunities. Combined with human psychology and ignorance outside of the tech community of the wiles of online marketing. Honestly Hacker News is one of the few sources I trust nowadays, and that is of course not implicit. There is a lot of misinformation and a lot of reporting about reporting. A lot of hyperbolic and misleading headlines. Stay safe out there.