[chiefalchemist]

Yes and no. I mean, just because something gets indexed doesn't mean Google values it and is willing to expose its customers to it.

The consistent problem with SEO is that most SEOs don't understand Google's business model. They don't understand Google is going to best serve its customers (i.e., those doing the search). SEOs (and their clients) need to understand that getting Google to index a turd isn't going to change the fact that the content and the experience i'ts wrapped in is still a turd. Google is not interested in pointing its customers to turds.

[hammyhavoc]

For a company not interested in pointing their customers to turds, they sure do point them to a lot of turds.

[chiefalchemist]

That's not what it wants to do. Yes, that is what's happening, for a number of reasons. Without people searching, there are no eye-balls. Put another way, the sites being indexed and ranked are *not* the customer(s).

[solumunus]

> Google is not interested in pointing its customers to turds.

We must have been using a different Google over the past 3 years. It does this almost exclusively now.

[water-your-self]

Google is not interested in pointing its customers to a turd that hasn't paid for that right.

[dindobre]

I'm not sure I agree that the people doing the search are the customers here

[Sai_]

I’m really curious to know who exactly you think are Google Search’s customers in the context of this thread about SEO.

[BrandonMarc]

Google Search's customers are companies who advertise on the SERPs.

Google Search's users are people who do the searching.

If a service is free to use, you are the product.

[tough]

People paying ads to show up on google's users search results are google's customers

people using google's free services to see those google results that have gone to shit since the past 10 years or so, and also are full page of ads without ad blockers, are google's product, which is acquired through offering free product and services that hook those customers to stay hooked even through the enshittification that has proceeded on those since the web 2.0 golden era

[edf13]

The advertisers

[nurtbo]

Advertisers?

[mcny]

but think logically for just a second, why would advertisers advertise their turd if they could just have their turd show up on the search results for free?

For a turd sandwich to work, you have to wrap your turd (ads) with high quality results so people actually search on Google and then you can show them the turd along with the good stuff.

[tough]

plenty of turds do show up on google search engines, ai generated copy pasted mumbo jumbo full of more google ads inpage

somewhat google is happy to serve you turd they can double dip on

[cynicalsecurity]

SEO died many years ago, but some companies are still trying to sell their naive clients some magical "SEO optimisation". Which is plainly scam at this point.

[adaboese]

There are a ton of SEO optimizations that are extremely significant:

* performance/SSR * interlinking/dead links * keyword cannibalization

to name a few

[lobsterthief]

Definitely. In general, most parts of technical SEO remain important (one h1 tag, etc)

[daswerth]

Is there a trustworthy guide on this?

[jknoepfler]

Eyeballs are not Google's customers, paying advertisers are Google's customers.

If a paying customer gives Google money to point eyeballs to turds, it points eyeballs to turds (this is how Google makes money today, it is the business model for search). The problem with SEO isn't that it degrades search, it's that SEO users aren't paying customers and don't make Google any money (and compromises Google's ability to direct eyeballs to paying customers).

This is classical "enshitification" - offer a service for free to capture eyeball share, then offer a paid service to companies that capitalizes on that eyeball share but compromises the "eyeball experience" (and then in the endgame, squeeze companies that become dependent upon the eyeball-platform to serve shareholders).