[pixelmonkey]

The Verge, The Next Web, ArsTechnica, and other sites produce lots of high-quality tech journalism regularly.

It's true there's a lot of crap out there, but this has always been true in the journalism world. And it's true that many sites have dubious practices that are 100% for reasons that don't matter to readers, like advertising and SEO. But is that the journalist's fault -- or the system's?

I speak to editors and writers regularly as part of my work at Parse.ly, and many of them are extremely worried about being "dinged by Google". They also hire experts who read the tea leaves on declarations from Matt Cutts and the Google search team, hoping to come up with a strategy that will make Google treat their site as one of several "blessed" domains.

Why? Showing up well in SERP pages or Google News can often be the difference between an article that fizzles and one that garners thousands of eyeballs.

The problem with SEO isn't that some editors/writers do it. The problem is that it works. And, it often has nothing to do with the quality of your content.

It's like complaining that public stock markets are "broken" because some companies goose accounting numbers to look better to investors (e.g. Groupon). Yes, some do, but not all companies. No system is perfect.