[JohnFen]

> SEOs are a cottage industry to help companies deal with the ongoing enshittification of search

SEO is a $122 billion/year industry. That doesn't seem like a cottage industry to me. And it exists in order to get companies to rank higher in search results.

I think the SEO industry is a large force helping to make the web much worse.

[chusmeria]

That's a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of marketing at 5 trillion. SEO is surely making the internet worse, but google is also incentivizing the absolute hell out of it by dedicating resources and promoting personalities a la John Mueller and other Search Advocates within the space. Currently, Google's inability to assign value to pages in a coherent way is making it worse. The Google SEO guidelines, proliferation of tools like lighthouse, AMP pages, and an outdated search algorithm encourage the homogenizing of the web, too. It's a bit like if Google built a factory in the tropics where they organize pools of water. Their goal is to encourage more water, stagnant or not, because their job is to organize pools... but then folks complain about the mosquitos as if they weren't invited. Welcome to the jungle.