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Does anybody actually enjoy this type of type of SEO content? Stuffed with filler words to the max. Maybe there is an answer to the title somewhere on the page

by TekMol 4y ago

Does anybody actually enjoy this type of type of SEO content? Stuffed with filler words to the max. Maybe there is an answer to the title somewhere on the page. But the way it is written, it just stole my time until I gave up after a few paragraphs of filler content. First sentence: Have you ever wondered why designers show sketches of concept cars with massive deep dish wheels, but when those cars actually make it to production the wheels end up being fairly flat? No. I just followed a link "Why car wheels are so flat these days" and was interested in the answer. Compare that to a classic essay "A plan for spam" by Paul Graham: http://paulgraham.com/spam.html http://paulgraham.com/spam.html First sentence: I think it's possible to stop spam, and that content-based filters are the way to do it. That's the type of content I would like to see on HN. If it was 2022 style SEO content, PG's essay would have started with "Have you ever wondered why you get so much spam into your inbox these days and why that spam is so terribly boring, sprinkled with typos and ads, often full of images and links, and what you could do to get rid of it?". Shudder.

hrbf 4y ago
Same here. Was interested in the answer but I gave up before getting to a satisfactory conclusion. Way too little information density.
kccqzy 4y ago
I think the article is fine. You might just be an impatient reader.
- Double_a_92 4y ago
  Well it's a random thing thrown at me on HackerNews... I don't care that much about car wheels to invest several minutes into reading about this completely random fact. Either it tells me relatively quickly, or I stop caring.
solardev 4y ago
I agree. Took way too long to get to the point.
blowski 4y ago
I enjoyed it. I learned something, the article delivered on the title.
goldenchrome 4y ago
I think you’re being overly harsh. This is a post on a website for car enthusiasts. Car enthusiasts do in fact look at artist’s renders of cars because they’re genuinely into car culture. I think it’s an effective hook. If you just want a straightforward answer then Google it and perhaps Google can find the right snippet that you can ingest in 8 seconds. HN isn’t a feed for TekMol’s interests.
roughly 4y ago
That article was in part a reference to another article from the site: https://www.theautopian.com/this-is-why-car-designers-always-draw-absurdly-huge-wheels-on-everything/ https://www.theautopian.com/this-is-why-car-designers-always... Which was in part a reference to some questions on the comment threads from other articles in which a designer sketched some car ideas on that site. So, you may not have wondered that, but someone on the site wondered that, and another writer on the site, who, granted, has an background in engineering car suspensions, not writing, wrote this article in response.
pmontra 4y ago
Papers have an abstract with a summary of the results then go on for pages explaining the long road to them. Maybe that could be a format to mimic and appease both kind of audiences: people with no time or interest to learn all the details and enthusiasts that want to read everything about the subject.
bunabhucan 4y ago
Mechanical engineer here, this article could have more detail and I'd have read it. The translation from nuts and bolts and rods and links in the suspension to the intangible but apparently important (for selling cars) "feel" is fascinating. It's sometimes idiotic - "make an Audi Q7 feel like a Porsche" required a movable central connection in the rear suspension for some rear wheel steer (but just using the existing play/travel) as well as a hydraulic then (v2) electric doo dah to counteract the tilt and keep the boat of a car level through turns. There's no "point" to this - it just let's them sell a souped up big SUV at 911 prices and make money hand over fist. I'm not even a car person but this article wasn't laboring the point.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  I confused as to why the feel of a car driven at road speeds isn’t a “real”/valuable/relevant selling point in road cars. That’s a huge factor in my car purchases, and it’s the thing I remember most about my old cars.
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    Because that's not something that is typically checking in "test drives" nowadays. I was once yelled at by the Renault saleswoman for braking too hard during a test drive, even though I told here that I'm about to perform an emergency stop. She had us return to the dealership. I happily bought a Focus instead, the very next day, after a proper test drive. But don't get me started on them providing a rear-disc-brake Focus for the test drive even though the trim level I was interested in had rear drums. Had I driven the drum model, I would not have bought it. But I acknowledge that I'm an outlier, who actually cares about how the vehicle handles and accelerates and brakes and takes potholes and how noisy it is at highway speeds and how it fares in a cross wind. The common, typical "test drive" doesn't cover any of those aspects anymore.
    - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
      I appreciate this comment, and read the entire thing in Dwight Shrute’s voice.
CamperBob2 4y ago
This isn't really an example of SEO content. If it were, it would ramble on for multiple paragraphs (and page/ad breaks) before getting to the point.
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
This does not seem to be a SEO content pushed out by some content farm to me (although I don't have expertise in the area being written about) the article seems like there was quite a bit of work put into it; I think probably the writer is just not as succinct as you would like.
dieselgate 4y ago
Huh? Didn’t get that vibe at all. This article is actually just what I was looking for to begin learning about steering systems, from a technical but high level, before doing some maintenance work on a truck.
joshu 4y ago
This seems like a nice article. I think you are off base.
P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
I scanned, didn't find the answer quickly, and closed the tab. I'm with you, I seriously hate that I have to read the internet that way nowadays.
jallasprit 4y ago
While I agree with the basic sentiment, this article is the type of article I will usually just skim fairly quickly, skipping sections if they aren't connected to the title.
jimjimjim 4y ago
what is an attention span...
Roark66 4y ago
I start to think these days one has to write like this and fill the page with 2k words of fluff before getting to the point if one hopes the website to show up in Google. I recently struggled a lot with a technical problem. I searched and searched and I couldn't find a solution. Then I discovered a solution myself and I created a short blog-style tutorial how to resolve it. As far as I know the only one on the Web, but does it show in Google search results when one searches for exact phrase or quite rare keywords used? No way, I've added it to Google, Google scanned it, and that's it. Searching for the problem you find my forum posts where I ask (unsuccessfully) for help about it and maybe few more people doing the same,nothing more. Perhaps instead of writing my blog entry for humans (state the problem, describe a solution). I should've written it for Google bot in a format of: - State a problem - why do we have this problem - what is the history of stuff we have the problem with - a personal story how I saved my dog while working on the solution - at the very end one sentence that hints at a solution (don't just give it away! Make 5 pages talking about it instead!) That's why we can't have nice things.
- maven29 4y ago
  Try github gist or creating a stackoverflow question and answering it, I find that even short snippets are indexed well on whitelisted platforms like these.
Double_a_92 4y ago
To be fair that's how we were thought to write essays in school... But I also find those overly long articles that don't say anything annoying.
dotancohen 4y ago
For what it's worth, I hate the fluff. But the information buried within was very interesting. Unfortunately, with a single dominant gatekeeper to all the web's content, that gatekeeper dictates how people will write. That said, I understand Google's position. Back in the WildWildWest days of the WorldWideWeb, Google made the change from preferring keyword-based text to preferring written-for-humans text. But the target humans seem to those who read for love of reading, as judged by lit majors. Now I've been teased since kindergarten for my love of reading, but as a professional I want concise and terse, not an overabundance of anecdotes and adjectives. But the lit majors who influenced the post-2008 spider algorithms correctly for the time influenced a preference for the later. Hopefully sometime Google will figure out that technical texts should be keyword based, and literary texts should be for-humans, whatever that is deemed to mean. And Google might provide either a feature to choose the algorithm, or more likely, try to guess based on heuristics.
Kaibeezy 4y ago
Agree. I was both interested enough to read the whole article AND really annoyed at the fluff. (“let me explain”, “of course”, “we’ll get back to that”) Bleh.

by TekMol 4y ago

hrbf 4y ago

Same here. Was interested in the answer but I gave up before getting to a satisfactory conclusion. Way too little information density.

kccqzy 4y ago

I think the article is fine. You might just be an impatient reader.

Double_a_92 4y ago
Well it's a random thing thrown at me on HackerNews... I don't care that much about car wheels to invest several minutes into reading about this completely random fact. Either it tells me relatively quickly, or I stop caring.

solardev 4y ago

I agree. Took way too long to get to the point.

blowski 4y ago

I enjoyed it. I learned something, the article delivered on the title.

goldenchrome 4y ago

I think you’re being overly harsh. This is a post on a website for car enthusiasts. Car enthusiasts do in fact look at artist’s renders of cars because they’re genuinely into car culture. I think it’s an effective hook. If you just want a straightforward answer then Google it and perhaps Google can find the right snippet that you can ingest in 8 seconds. HN isn’t a feed for TekMol’s interests.

roughly 4y ago

That article was in part a reference to another article from the site: https://www.theautopian.com/this-is-why-car-designers-always-draw-absurdly-huge-wheels-on-everything/ https://www.theautopian.com/this-is-why-car-designers-always... Which was in part a reference to some questions on the comment threads from other articles in which a designer sketched some car ideas on that site. So, you may not have wondered that, but someone on the site wondered that, and another writer on the site, who, granted, has an background in engineering car suspensions, not writing, wrote this article in response.

pmontra 4y ago

Papers have an abstract with a summary of the results then go on for pages explaining the long road to them. Maybe that could be a format to mimic and appease both kind of audiences: people with no time or interest to learn all the details and enthusiasts that want to read everything about the subject.

bunabhucan 4y ago

Mechanical engineer here, this article could have more detail and I'd have read it. The translation from nuts and bolts and rods and links in the suspension to the intangible but apparently important (for selling cars) "feel" is fascinating. It's sometimes idiotic - "make an Audi Q7 feel like a Porsche" required a movable central connection in the rear suspension for some rear wheel steer (but just using the existing play/travel) as well as a hydraulic then (v2) electric doo dah to counteract the tilt and keep the boat of a car level through turns. There's no "point" to this - it just let's them sell a souped up big SUV at 911 prices and make money hand over fist. I'm not even a car person but this article wasn't laboring the point.

DiggyJohnson 4y ago
I confused as to why the feel of a car driven at road speeds isn’t a “real”/valuable/relevant selling point in road cars. That’s a huge factor in my car purchases, and it’s the thing I remember most about my old cars.
- dotancohen 4y ago
  Because that's not something that is typically checking in "test drives" nowadays. I was once yelled at by the Renault saleswoman for braking too hard during a test drive, even though I told here that I'm about to perform an emergency stop. She had us return to the dealership. I happily bought a Focus instead, the very next day, after a proper test drive. But don't get me started on them providing a rear-disc-brake Focus for the test drive even though the trim level I was interested in had rear drums. Had I driven the drum model, I would not have bought it. But I acknowledge that I'm an outlier, who actually cares about how the vehicle handles and accelerates and brakes and takes potholes and how noisy it is at highway speeds and how it fares in a cross wind. The common, typical "test drive" doesn't cover any of those aspects anymore.
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    I appreciate this comment, and read the entire thing in Dwight Shrute’s voice.

CamperBob2 4y ago

This isn't really an example of SEO content. If it were, it would ramble on for multiple paragraphs (and page/ad breaks) before getting to the point.

bryanrasmussen 4y ago

This does not seem to be a SEO content pushed out by some content farm to me (although I don't have expertise in the area being written about) the article seems like there was quite a bit of work put into it; I think probably the writer is just not as succinct as you would like.

dieselgate 4y ago

Huh? Didn’t get that vibe at all. This article is actually just what I was looking for to begin learning about steering systems, from a technical but high level, before doing some maintenance work on a truck.

joshu 4y ago

This seems like a nice article. I think you are off base.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago

I scanned, didn't find the answer quickly, and closed the tab. I'm with you, I seriously hate that I have to read the internet that way nowadays.

jallasprit 4y ago

While I agree with the basic sentiment, this article is the type of article I will usually just skim fairly quickly, skipping sections if they aren't connected to the title.

jimjimjim 4y ago

what is an attention span...

Roark66 4y ago

I start to think these days one has to write like this and fill the page with 2k words of fluff before getting to the point if one hopes the website to show up in Google. I recently struggled a lot with a technical problem. I searched and searched and I couldn't find a solution. Then I discovered a solution myself and I created a short blog-style tutorial how to resolve it. As far as I know the only one on the Web, but does it show in Google search results when one searches for exact phrase or quite rare keywords used? No way, I've added it to Google, Google scanned it, and that's it. Searching for the problem you find my forum posts where I ask (unsuccessfully) for help about it and maybe few more people doing the same,nothing more. Perhaps instead of writing my blog entry for humans (state the problem, describe a solution). I should've written it for Google bot in a format of: - State a problem - why do we have this problem - what is the history of stuff we have the problem with - a personal story how I saved my dog while working on the solution - at the very end one sentence that hints at a solution (don't just give it away! Make 5 pages talking about it instead!) That's why we can't have nice things.

maven29 4y ago
Try github gist or creating a stackoverflow question and answering it, I find that even short snippets are indexed well on whitelisted platforms like these.

Double_a_92 4y ago

To be fair that's how we were thought to write essays in school... But I also find those overly long articles that don't say anything annoying.

dotancohen 4y ago

For what it's worth, I hate the fluff. But the information buried within was very interesting. Unfortunately, with a single dominant gatekeeper to all the web's content, that gatekeeper dictates how people will write. That said, I understand Google's position. Back in the WildWildWest days of the WorldWideWeb, Google made the change from preferring keyword-based text to preferring written-for-humans text. But the target humans seem to those who read for love of reading, as judged by lit majors. Now I've been teased since kindergarten for my love of reading, but as a professional I want concise and terse, not an overabundance of anecdotes and adjectives. But the lit majors who influenced the post-2008 spider algorithms correctly for the time influenced a preference for the later. Hopefully sometime Google will figure out that technical texts should be keyword based, and literary texts should be for-humans, whatever that is deemed to mean. And Google might provide either a feature to choose the algorithm, or more likely, try to guess based on heuristics.

Kaibeezy 4y ago

Agree. I was both interested enough to read the whole article AND really annoyed at the fluff. (“let me explain”, “of course”, “we’ll get back to that”) Bleh.