the depression shouldn't arise from the generation, but from the consumption, fo...

skipants · 2024-09-09T15:53:34.000000Z

I don't think people do actually consume it. In my experience this content was purely for SEO or maybe just a headline that people read quickly to keep up-to-date. The actual article content is rarely seen by a human.

detourdog · 2024-09-09T16:14:01.000000Z

I see SEO as a make work project to support Wall Street valuations. We have SEO content being consumed by content indexing bots for traffic.

echelon · 2024-09-09T16:29:03.000000Z

> I see SEO as a make work project to support Wall Street valuations.

You're missing the whole middle part about users and revenue. SEO alone does not a Wall Street valuation make.

Maybe the indictment here should instead be about discovery and how we share ideas and utility with one another.

fmbb · 2024-09-09T17:08:14.000000Z

> You're missing the whole middle part about users and revenue. SEO alone does not a Wall Street valuation make.

Are they? Or are you over-estimating that part?

JumpCrisscross · 2024-09-09T20:29:14.000000Z

> Are they?

Do you have an example of a company whose valuation is driven principally by eyeballs? Not metrics tied to eyeballs, e.g. ad revenue. Just eyeballs.

detourdog · 2024-09-09T20:57:51.000000Z

Ad revenue is part of hot potato game. The participants pick a metric and take sides arguing valuation while passing revenue.

JumpCrisscross · 2024-09-09T20:59:04.000000Z

> participants pick a metric and take sides arguing valuation while passing revenue

Do you have an example where the metric is eyeballs?

This was a thing once! But to my knowledge, it isn't the sole basis of any company's valuation today.

detourdog · 2024-09-09T17:00:17.000000Z

I think discovery by word of mouth is a much better than SEO. I also believe that just because money is changing hands doesn’t indicate productivity.

ErikAugust · 2024-09-09T16:14:40.000000Z

It’s just one more place to stick an ad.

fedeb95 · 2024-09-09T16:00:11.000000Z

that's a form of consumption

beeboobaa3 · 2024-09-09T17:00:05.000000Z

So is tuberculosis but it's not what people mean when they use the word

spencerchubb · 2024-09-09T16:19:48.000000Z

isn't the point of seo to get in front of consumers?

skipants · 2024-09-09T18:34:58.000000Z

Yes, but not for these articles. Here's a example situation where having good SEO with filler content that makes sense: Lebron James retires.

If you are faster and have the best SEO at that point in time then that means everyone trying to read about Lebron James retiring is going to search it in Google and is going to read your article first, and you're getting the ad revenue. It's a 90/10 situation. The "top" website in the rankings is going to get 90% of the clicks.

You can only be the "top" if your SEO to that point is also the "best". And to have that you need to have all this generated content.

Retric · 2024-09-09T16:46:08.000000Z

The point is to use filler content to trick bots…

So people will see content ESPN is actually paying meaningful amounts of money to create ie videos.