[en3r0]

Ya, I am a part of the "problem" so to speak, though I do my best to create content that not only ranks well in a search engine, but is genuinely helpful for the reader.

I suppose it was inevitable in the drive of the commercialization of everything in life?

[freedomben]

Just my two cents, but IMHO SEO for useful information is itself a great good. The evil are the people who have low-value content and eclipse the higher value content through gaming.

[scarface74]

There isn’t a such thing as “SEO for great content”. The search algorithms don’t reward “great content”. The only way you win is by not playing the game. You have to find other ways to market and have an “unfair advantage”.

How many times have you seen “useful content” buried by paragraphs of word salad to juice SEO?

[freedomben]

I'm not sure I understand your argument. "SEO for great content" to me just means you have great content, and you Optimize it for Search Engines so people can fine it easier/higher.

[scarface74]

I’m saying simply that what the algorithm cares about and what causes it to rank high is completely orthogonal to “good content”.

Search for any subject where you consider yourself a subject matter expert. Are the top results what you would consider good? This is excluding first party vendor content.

[progmetaldev]

Don't beat yourself up if you were doing SEO the proper way, making content that genuinely appealed to the proper audience, and/or made the content more accessible. I think there are enough people here on HN that understand proper SEO versus trying to game the system.