[mmmpetrichor]

so OP does SEO and also complains about google being evil. I have no sympathy for someone doing SEO to basically ruin the "organic" results and then complain about how google controls the results. So what, you want to control the result for profit instead of them?

[PaulHoule]

SEO has multiple faces. The average real estate agent would come to an SEO and wish they could sprinkle some pixie dust on a site for sore eyes and get people to come. A good SEO will say, "Look, write a good blog about things going on in your town and you'll become the #1 real estate agent in your town" and they'll say "I can't do that", and the SEO will say "You make enough in one commission to hire somebody part time to write it for a year."

The big story of the last five years is that Google has decided to let certain entities win permanently in certain areas. There used to be a lot of competition in review sites, some were good, some where bad, now Forbes dominates reviews in almost everything and they're atrocious

https://larslofgren.com/forbes-marketplace/

On one level SEO can just be a matter of search engine compatibility. So many sites are built without any thought about how they'll interact with web crawlers.