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@simoncox I don't disagree that there is a lot to be said for optimizing around stuff that is arguably better than what came before it. But the algo does have perverse incentives too.
For example, an entire article created to answer if a given Chromebook has LTE (an article for each feature) to target the People also ask.
Yes, it's useful information. But do I need to see a 2k word article and 50 ads for it? More importantly, is it the type of content that the author wanted to create?
@simoncox I think it's more the incentives made by Google. "Make sites fast and pleasing" is a unambiguously good thing. But as a result the web kinda coalesced around a specific "look" that yes, provided better experience for users, but also kinda limited the creativity. Everything is a trade off.
For example, something like homestar runner would likely have issues getting purchase
Hey The Verge is back with another article about SEO.
Sorry, but for the explanation of the importance of Alt-Text and Image optimization ALONE this post is worth a read.
I know I am in the minority in the industry, but I actually really like (and largely agree with) most of the SEO-focused content The Verge is publishing and I think it's important
https://www.theverge.com/c/23998379/google-search-seo-algorithm-webpage-optimization
Advice for web developers:
If you think you found a "Clever" way to work around an established web standard so you decide you don't have to follow it...
Statistically... No you didn't.
And what's worse: The time you spent creating your workaround is order of magnitudes more time consuming than just following best practices.. PARTICULARLY if those best practices are built into your CMS.
Signed ,
A very tired Technical SEO consultant
The new previews of Bard are previewing how I think the next step of search will be. It won't be websites you go to (for a lot of search) but instead a custom UI designed for the user where your data is pulled into their experience.
Schema is likely going to play a KEY part in this.
This next version of search won't kill SEO, but it will change it. If you're not thinking about the technical side of things, best start.
Is it possible that they paid for rankings? sure. But if they did they got wildly ripped off.
This all looks like bot crawling and spinning. It's not even subtle!
This is by "Syndication Bot" as author and is clearly just an RSS feed from a ton of different Tech sites.
I don't have an AHREFS account anymore, so looking at backlinks of the best phone article from Verge because backlinks were mentioned:
Most "sus" anchor is "Best Phone To Buy Right Now"
most of the links for this are from sites that have bad tagging (so Google won't follow them) from sites literally using AI to scrape content (/ai/ is in the url slug) and a lot of very obviously auto-generated SEO Spam sites (amply.store, ambitionly.click, etc)
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
