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Google search is losing the fight with SEO spam, study says (arstechnica.com)

submitted 10 months ago by rikudou@lemmings.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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I guess we all kinda knew that, but it's always nice to have a study backing your opinions.

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[–] 4am@lemm.ee 33 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Just to be clear; “SEO” or “Search Engine Optimization” is a technique marketers use to craft web pages in a way that tricks search engine crawlers into considering them more relevant. It is not something search engines themselves do, and in many cases they actively fight against it.

So, it’s not whether or not DuckDuckGo uses SEO, it’s whether or not they’re susceptible to it.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

To add to that, Google is the big one.

So everyone tries to get around googles SEO prevention measures.the little guys just have to do literally anything different

[–] bellsDoSing@lemm.ee 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Coincidentally, I happen to have been reading into SEO more in depth this week. Specifically official SEO docs by google:

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide

To be clear, SEO isn't about tricking search engines per se. First and foremost it's about optimizing a given website so that the crawling and indexing of the website's content is working well.

It's just that various websites have tried various "tricks" over time to mislead the crawling, indexing and ultimately the search engine ranking, just so their website comes up higher and more often than it should based on its content's quality and relevancy.

Tricks like:

keyword stuffing
hidden content just visible to crawlers
...

Those docs linked above (that link is just part of much more docs) even mention many of those "tricks" and explicitely advise against them, as it will cause websites to be penalized in their ranking.

Well, at least that's what the docs say. In the end it's an "arms race" between search engines and trickery using websites.