[lelanthran]

> Let say government nationalise google search or force to make it a non profit 15 years ago. How would that prevent SEO from happening? Isn’t SEO an inevitable outcome of website trying compete for attention? How would anyone prevent it from happening?

I've said this before (on HN) and I'll say it again: a search engine that refuses to index sites containing advertisements absolutely kills off SEO.

What's the point of getting to the top of the search results if you are unable to monetise it?

The only way forward is to refuse to index sites with advertisements. Google will obviously not do this (and, in fact, to me it looks like they do the reverse - downrank non-monetised content - because it's in their best interest to serve sites with ads).

[noiwillnot]

> What's the point of getting to the top of the search results if you are unable to monetise it?

Promoting your product/service, see brand astroturfing in Reddit.

[lelanthran]

> Promoting your product/service, see brand astroturfing in Reddit.

But ... that's the point, is it not? Someone searching for "FOO" will find all those sites who optimised for selling FOO.

That's an improvement over finding the top 10 results all optimised on FOO but delivering ads to make money, not FOO.