Jason BaumanI read the new Search Engine Land piece about The Verge article and so much of it comes off as this:
Pointing out that The Verge does SEO or takes out ads is ... making the argument The Verge is making in all of these pieces.
Like, I get the argument they're trying to make, but it's ... basically the same exact one that The Verge has been making, but pointed as some kinda alternative to it.
The entire point of that SEO article was to show that the people in the industry (yes, including the alligator party) are doing what they're doing because they want to make money and this is the system Google set up that allows it.
Again, when most people think SEO, they don't think me, they don't think Lily Ray, and most don't think of people like Matt Cutts.
When people think of SEO, if they have a picture in their head at all, they think of people like Neil Patel, Brian Dean, or the countless "Gurus" promising surefire strategies.
THAT is the audience the original article was writing to. Why the alligator story was used as a frame
I get the knee jerk to be defensive, but I firmly believe that if you haven't asked yourself "are we the baddies" and you work in this industry, you're either new or are, infact, one of the baddies.
I try and make stuff better, most people I know in this industry do the same. But I also use the internet and see a lot of evidence for people who don't. And like that article, I don't blame the people following the patterns, I blame the incentives