Mia Sato, a Verge platforms reporter specializing in Google Search and SEO, joins to discuss the evolution and current state of Google Search. They dive into how aggressive SEO tactics are reshaping online content, often at the expense of quality. Sato reveals the ethical dilemmas of content creation in today's digital landscape, especially with AI's rise. The conversation also highlights Google's struggle with spam and the challenges it faces in maintaining search quality as users explore alternative platforms.
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question_answer ANECDOTE
HouseFresh vs. Big Publishers
HouseFresh, a website reviewing air purifiers, struggles to rank on Google.
Larger publishers with less expertise dominate search results for "best" product queries.
insights INSIGHT
The Broken Promise of the Internet
The internet promises that expertise can thrive, like a dedicated air purifier site.
Google's dominance creates pressure to prioritize SEO over quality content.
insights INSIGHT
Big Publishers and SEO Spam
Big publishers exploit SEO to gain search traffic, even without expertise.
They create low-effort content farms targeting high-traffic keywords, like "best leggings."
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If you’ve been listening to Decoder or the Vergecast for a while, you know that I am obsessed with Google Search, the web, and how both of those things might change in the age of AI. But to really understand how something might change, you have to step back and understand what it is right now.
So today I’m talking with Verge platforms reporter Mia Sato about Google Search, the industries it’s created, and more importantly, how relentless search engine optimization, or SEO, has utterly changed the web in its image. Mia and I really dug into this to explain why search results are so terrible now, what Google is trying to do about it, and why this is such an important issue for the future of the internet.
Links:
How Google is killing independent sites like ours — HouseFresh