John Dvorak thinks search engine optimization, "the marketing tool advertising and marketing industries call SEO," is "killing the Internet." He gripes about not being able to find product reviews and
facts when searching online for information. He searches for facts, but gets advertisements instead. Maybe he just doesn't know how to conduct searches online.
During his gripe
session, Dvorak calls SEO an "epidemic in Silicon Valley," and believes that search engines on average do a bad job at countering SEO efforts of companies just trying to advertise their wares. He says
it's working so well that brands needing help to get their products found online should contact and hire the SEO tricksters redirecting to auto-filled queries, because "this sort of thing is no
accident," he writes.
Read the whole story at PCMag.com »
this is news? or even a new idea? "search" used to be a mission to organize the world's knowledge. now, in its evolved and refined form, it's no more than the chatchke selling tool of choice.
John's trying to get a rise out of the SEO community again...and he'll probably get it. It's calculated, and I have to give him credit for knowing that this will help him get more readers. This will please his higher-ups.
I just can't help but wonder what John really thinks about SEO. He needs to reach back to the voodoo doll and fairy dust days of SEO-perception in order to attempt to make his points. My guess is that he's performed at least enough research to be more educated about SEO than he appears to be.