The internet is an SEO landfill • Hacker News Board

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#21

Post by theturtletalks » Sun, Jun 23, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

caiocaiocaio wrote: post #14

Google any recipe, and there are at least 5 paragraphs (usually a lot more) of copy that no one will ever read, and isn't even meant for human consumption. Google "How to learn x", and you'll usually get copy written by people who know nothing about the subject, and maybe browsed Amazon for 30 minutes as research. Real, useful results that used to be the norm for Google are becoming more and more rare as time goes by…

So true. Whenever I look up something now I just add Reddit afterwards. It's been working well so far, but I guess that can be manipulated as well.

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#22

Post by ajonit » Sun, Jun 23, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

alt_f4 wrote: post #9

I agree that paying for SEO is probably pointless; unless you're just paying for some Google ads yourself. But the problem with your product isn't SEO, it's that anyone who knows what SES is, also knows how to use it for the thing you're selling, without paying an additional fee.

That is an incorrect observation. There are people making a living out of selling exact similar scripts as the OP. (Sendy comes at the top of my mind)

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#23

Post by orkon » Sun, Jun 23, 2019, 5:37 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #19

ehnto wrote: post #18

Search results are so heavily weighted toward commerce, products and services because those are the people that can spend money on SEO. It's made the internet, seen through the eyes of search results, seem like an aggressive, shady market bazaar. I try searching for anything remotely bike related, bike community, mechanical information, or just general cool bike stuff and I can't find the human community underneath a…

One nice solution would be a search engine that throws out anything related to commerce or linking to commerce.

Then the search engine itself would be probably thrown away :-D

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#24

Post by outime » Sun, Jun 23, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

theturtletalks wrote: post #21

caiocaiocaio wrote: post #14

Google any recipe, and there are at least 5 paragraphs (usually a lot more) of copy that no one will ever read, and isn't even meant for human consumption. Google "How to learn x", and you'll usually get copy written by people who know nothing about the subject, and maybe browsed Amazon for 30 minutes as research. Real, useful results that used to be the norm for Google are becoming more and more rare as time goes by…

So true. Whenever I look up something now I just add Reddit afterwards. It's been working well so far, but I guess that can be manipulated as well.

Not OP but yes, I’ve also been doing this for a long time and it does help.

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#25

Post by agumonkey » Sun, Jun 23, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

orkon wrote: post #4

I kind of agree, and I think nowadays it's hard to promote a product on the Internet or even get noticed without putting a lot of effort. When the Internet was smaller, I guess it's been easier. Off-topic: the author's product seems similar to my open source tool https://github.com/justcomments/newsletter-cli which allows sending emails via AWS SES

I wonder if the web will saturate and clog, start to cost more to keep up and maintain and lose users that feels walking around and talking is simpler.

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#26

Post by hartator » Sun, Jun 23, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

It’s hard to take this seriously when the author is trying to sell a tool to help send email spam.

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#27

Post by hiccuphippo » Sun, Jun 23, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

jormungand wrote: post #8

Unfortunately SEO ruins great, witty and brief marketing texts.

But why is that? Do search engines rank better when a text is longer? Or is it that with more words there's a higher possibility that one will match with what the user is searching? And doesn't it all just make users waste more time searching for something concrete?

Maybe there's space for search engines that can summarize a page if it's long and give the user what they want.

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#28

Post by mars4rp » Sun, Jun 23, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

caiocaiocaio wrote: post #14

Google any recipe, and there are at least 5 paragraphs (usually a lot more) of copy that no one will ever read, and isn't even meant for human consumption. Google "How to learn x", and you'll usually get copy written by people who know nothing about the subject, and maybe browsed Amazon for 30 minutes as research. Real, useful results that used to be the norm for Google are becoming more and more rare as time goes by…

yes, at the beginning Google got a huge market share because they were able to return the better result and don't return spammy and unrelated results.

but they are not doing that anymore, it is really hard to find a not spammy (what you described) result on Google these days.

and other search engines are only copying the Google algorithm we need to get back to judging a web page by its content, AI should be able to help now or soon.

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#29

Post by 4ntonius8lock » Sun, Jun 23, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

I'm always at aw at how people can psychologically say SEO is easy.

Getting to the top of many SERPs can mean millions of dollars in monthly revenue.

If it's so easy, and the author is so smart about it, why doesn't he just take it?

It's like people who say 'well of course CRO is easy, you just make it easy for people to check out and check the stats and iterate'.

Overly arrogant engineers many times think everyone else is stupid for not being an engineer, but forget that more than just engineers are needed. I'm guessing that is how you end up with Google +.

Re: The internet is an SEO landfill

#30

Post by bdcravens » Sun, Jun 23, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

joshwcomeau wrote: post #5

Great intro, but where’s the actual article? (Also it’s pretty harsh to say that it takes “little talent” to become an SEO expert. Like all industries, there are charlatans selling snake oil, but there are experts who have invested a lot of time in developing their skill sets, and it’s not nice to be so dismissive.)

I don't even think the author is talking about charlatans. I think the point is the barrier to entry is pretty low, and how do you define what is an "expert"? "SEO expert" is just a few letters you stick on your LinkedIn profile or business card; some will be experienced, ethical experts that get results for sure. I see it the same way I see network marketing: yes, some turn Mary Kay or essential oils into viable careers, but that doesn't invalidate the common criticisms.