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I've seen this sentiment more and more over the last few years here (and on Reddit). Can you give an example of some high quality content that loses out to SEO

I've seen this sentiment more and more over the last few years here (and on Reddit). Can you give an example of some high quality content that loses out to SEO clickbait at the moment? As far as I can see, a "correctly" crafted query (read: the querymy parents would ask, not the query I would ask) will lead me to a well thought out response on Google 9/10 times, which is judtas often as it did 10 years ago.

DamnInteresting 5y ago
I have some first-hand experience with this problem. I'll give a specific example: In 2005 I published one of the Internet's earliest articles on the "Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon"[1], also known as Frequency Illusion. In the intervening 15 years, thousands of sites have linked to my article, so you would think it would rank really well. Instead, my article is barely on the first page of Google's search results. Above mine are more recent copycat articles, few of them containing any meaningful details beyond what I included in mine. Some of them are so similar that they are clearly just lazy rewrites of my article (similar jokes, etc). They appear to be ranked higher than mine solely due to being more recent, and presumably some SEO shenanigans. This is not the only example--far from it--but it's one of the clearest. [1]: https://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon/ https://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomeno...
- maccard 5y ago
  Thanks for replying! There's clearly some "google-washing" going on here, as searching for "baader meinhof phenomenon" on google places the Damn interesting article 5th in my search results. The other results above that may not have huge differences, but they do offer at least the same information on "more reputable" (read: names that I recognize in 2021) websites which would likely Garner a click from Mr..
hyperpallium2 5y ago
OP here, a recent one I was thinking of (I don't recall the exact search I used) "bicycle pedals threading" https://www.google.com/search?q=bicycle+pedals+threading https://www.google.com/search?q=bicycle+pedals+threading The top results (including youtubers) gave the right answer, but the wrong reasons. You have to get down to the 5th (Sheldon Brown's) for expertise (it's "precession"). Sheldon passed away a few years ago, and now his site has ads - a limitation of personal websites. > a "correctly" crafted query (read: the querymy parents would ask, not the query I would ask) Can you elaborate please; an example? Maybe you mean a grammatically correct sentence, which good for finding answers on forums, but I'm more interested in an expert's whole site. Note that correct terminology is half the battle for searching, perhaps much more!

DamnInteresting 5y ago

I have some first-hand experience with this problem. I'll give a specific example: In 2005 I published one of the Internet's earliest articles on the "Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon"[1], also known as Frequency Illusion. In the intervening 15 years, thousands of sites have linked to my article, so you would think it would rank really well. Instead, my article is barely on the first page of Google's search results. Above mine are more recent copycat articles, few of them containing any meaningful details beyond what I included in mine. Some of them are so similar that they are clearly just lazy rewrites of my article (similar jokes, etc). They appear to be ranked higher than mine solely due to being more recent, and presumably some SEO shenanigans. This is not the only example--far from it--but it's one of the clearest. [1]: https://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon/ https://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomeno...

maccard 5y ago
Thanks for replying! There's clearly some "google-washing" going on here, as searching for "baader meinhof phenomenon" on google places the Damn interesting article 5th in my search results. The other results above that may not have huge differences, but they do offer at least the same information on "more reputable" (read: names that I recognize in 2021) websites which would likely Garner a click from Mr..

hyperpallium2 5y ago

OP here, a recent one I was thinking of (I don't recall the exact search I used) "bicycle pedals threading" https://www.google.com/search?q=bicycle+pedals+threading https://www.google.com/search?q=bicycle+pedals+threading The top results (including youtubers) gave the right answer, but the wrong reasons. You have to get down to the 5th (Sheldon Brown's) for expertise (it's "precession"). Sheldon passed away a few years ago, and now his site has ads - a limitation of personal websites. > a "correctly" crafted query (read: the querymy parents would ask, not the query I would ask) Can you elaborate please; an example? Maybe you mean a grammatically correct sentence, which good for finding answers on forums, but I'm more interested in an expert's whole site. Note that correct terminology is half the battle for searching, perhaps much more!