Is SEO actually detrimental to the web?

#1

Post by rebooter » Fri, Oct 22, 2010, 6:28 AM UTC

SEO is driving site and web structure and limiting how some aspects of what is on the web actually evolves. URL's are now sentences. In an effort to satisfy the SEO (mostly Google) gods everything is looking the same.

Is this good in the long run?

Your thoughts?

Re: Is SEO actually detrimental to the web?

#2

Post by patio11 » Fri, Oct 22, 2010, 7:27 AM UTC

I do not mind living on an Internet where blog post links last beyond the next update, URLs hint at content, StackOverflow crushes archived mailing lists on programming questions, the top result for "biology bingo" is not a blank page (it was in 2006), and content is created for demographics which are not content creators themselves. Hug a SEO, they're half the reason Google works these days (particularly at the fringes where the link graph is sparse and hence classic PageRank isn't oracular).

Re: Is SEO actually detrimental to the web?

#3

Post by duskwuff » Fri, Oct 22, 2010, 7:36 AM UTC

Depends on what kind of SEO you mean. I've seen both ends of the spectrum -- some "SEO" is just good web practices codified, some "SEO" is just a code word for content spamming.

Re: Is SEO actually detrimental to the web?

#4

Post by Encosia » Fri, Oct 22, 2010, 7:43 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #2

I do not mind living on an Internet where blog post links last beyond the next update, URLs hint at content, StackOverflow crushes archived mailing lists on programming questions, the top result for "biology bingo" is not a blank page (it was in 2006), and content is created for demographics which are not content creators themselves. Hug a SEO, they're half the reason Google works these days (particularly at the frin…

I agree with you overall, but we've also got eFreedom.com beating StackOverflow with duplicate content in some cases, purely through SEO. In a perfect world, it would be impossible for someone to take StackOverflow's CC data dump and then outrank them.

Re: Is SEO actually detrimental to the web?

#5

Post by davidw » Fri, Oct 22, 2010, 7:45 AM UTC

It seems like something of a zero sum game to me, since they're competing for rankings, rather than, IMO, creating much actual value. Once you've taken care of the basics that Google mentions on their site, more effort is just an "arms race" in some ways.

Re: Is SEO actually detrimental to the web?

#6

Post by nitrogen » Fri, Oct 22, 2010, 7:51 AM UTC

White-hat SEO, or providing genuinely good content that's easy for both humans and algorithms to parse, complete site maps, etc. is unquestionably good. Gray- or black-hat SEO, which results in ad-spammed content farms reaching the top results when there are much better sources (in many cases sources which were scraped by the SEO sites without proper credit) is destroying the web. SEO agencies posting dozens of generated blogs to bury negative reviews of themselves are definitely evil.

Re: Is SEO actually detrimental to the web?

#7

Post by _b8r0 » Fri, Oct 22, 2010, 7:58 AM UTC

The long tail theory for URLs (i.e. where URLs make sense), combined with doing half of Google's job for them (i.e. making your pages index easier and in a more relevant manner) is nothing but pure gravy for the Internet. The gaming, the spam blogs, the autoposted crap of the world are scum, but it's an ongoing game of cat and mouse between google and the blackhat SEOs.

Personally I like the fact that someone can search for something rather specific and find something that's relevant, as opposed to the traditional mid-90s method of using 4 or 5 different search engines and 3 or 4 directories to hopefully find what you want.

Re: Is SEO actually detrimental to the web?

#8

Post by tomstuart » Fri, Oct 22, 2010, 8:08 AM UTC

Argument against: "search engine optimisation" is about optimising web sites for machines, not for people.

Argument for: the function of those machines is to help people, so a) optimising for the machines is indirectly beneficial to people because they're happier when the machines work better, and b) as the machines get better at understanding what's good for people, optimising for the machines becomes more directly beneficial to people because they both "want" the same thing.

The web would be better if everyone simultaneously stopped doing SEO and started thinking about people directly instead of indirectly via Google's ranking algorithms, but now that the arms race is in full effect and there are a million parasites making a living from it, the best case scenario is for Google to continue to close the gap between "good for machines" and "good for people" so that the satisfaction of the SEO gods translates as completely as possible into the satisfaction of human users.

Re: Is SEO actually detrimental to the web?

#9

Post by pierrefar » Fri, Oct 22, 2010, 8:37 AM UTC

Real, SEO valuable in the long-term, is nothing more than another marketing channel. Saying SEO is bad for the web is much like saying leaflets you get in the mail are bad. As with everything marketing, there are good people/companies who get their message across without being sleazy or spammy, and then there are sleazeballs.

IMHO, Google had a few settings wrong (call them "bugs" if you want) in early 2000s which many techies capitalised on. It's no different than finding a loophole in the finance industry regulation and trying to get away with it. In the case of Google's bugs, Google eventually reacted and became much more stringent. Sadly, by then the reputation damage to SEO has been done.

As for sentences for URLs, I agree with you. There is a fine balance between saying domain.com/widgets/green and domain.com/buy-new-and-used-widgets-green . I always ask which one would you rather speak over the phone, and that gets the point across.

Re: Is SEO actually detrimental to the web?

#10

Post by albahk » Fri, Oct 22, 2010, 8:41 AM UTC

If blackhats were not using SEO to game Search engine results and rankings, they would be using some other method to game other systems like webrings (remember those?), website directories or just good old email spam.

Silver lining: SEO rules are mandated by a Tech company like Google who can push an agenda for better web-standards.

The problem is the people that do black-hat SEO, they will always be around screwing things up for others through scamming and spamming.