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We should not be optimizing for search engines. We should be optimizing for humans. If Google wants to shoot themselves in the foot by refusing to show their us

We should not be optimizing for search engines. We should be optimizing for humans. If Google wants to shoot themselves in the foot by refusing to show their users the content they're looking for, let them. Don't let Google drag you down with them by encouraging you to make your site worse.

thfuran 3y ago
And how do you propose making that happen?
- Zambyte 3y ago
  1. Identify a target audience 2. Identify what that audience wants (by asking them) 3. Build what the target audience asked for if you agree that it is a sensible thing to create. 4. Tell the target audience that you have built your thing. Note that "target audience" here is probably not Google, but on all 4 points, SEO replaces "target audience" with "Google". Pruning old information is not something that any group of humans have requested besides Google.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - abduhl 3y ago
    Isn’t the most effective way to do 4 to get your thing at the top of Google?
    - Zambyte 3y ago
      If I want to tell my mom something, the most effective way is not to try to sneak my message into some search result of hers. When I say "target audience" and "humans" I mean it in the most literal sense. The most effective way to tell people that you built something for them is to tell them.
      - adventured 3y ago
        The premise you're suggesting is only the most effective way to tell a small number of people (ie tell them directly). That's why radio, TV, newspaper advertising was so effective for so long. Even for a small convenience store, larger scale - mass audience, automated - advertising is almost always a necessity and a far more effective use of time.
      - lolinder 3y ago
        Let's make this concrete. Let's say you're CNET—your target audience is millions upon millions of people who are interested in tech news. What is your alternative strategy for telling these tens of millions of people that you have a new article on topic X? Note that only a tiny fraction of your audience is already subscribed to some form of push notification from your service.
        Zambyte 3y ago
        > What is your alternative strategy for telling these tens of millions of people that you have a new article on topic X? None. I don't know tens of millions of people. Why do you think that CNET - a relatively small group of people - should have the power to reach an influence tens of millions of people, even if only in a small way per person? I don't think that's healthy for anyone involved.
        lolinder 3y ago
        I see. So when you refer to your mom you meant that literally—humans should only ever strive to do business with people they know directly. I happen to disagree, but it's obvious that we're working from such completely different axioms that there's no point in arguing this further.
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    If your target audience is a close set of friends, family, professional associates, or other well-defined community, then yes, reaching out through that specific network is probably the best way of reaching it. Which in mondern parlance is what is being accomplished by newsletters, mailing lists, and various social media feeds. But if you're in the business, as in commercial enterprise, of reaching out to a large and generally undefined audience, or are responsible for government or NGO services, etc., general Web search is among your most valuable marketing mechanisms. And that sector includes literally billions of people and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of transactions or equivalent value. And manual outreach through a small group ... really isn't effective. I'm not saying that your specific use case is invalid. I am saying, as someone with a deep and abiding animosity to virtually all modern marketing, advertising, and SEO, that modern marketing, advertising, and SEO do in fact have a place. And that your comments here are largely asserting otherwise.
    - Zambyte 3y ago
      > But if you're in the business, as in commercial enterprise, of reaching out to a large and generally undefined audience I don't think people should skip step 1 in the name of making a buck. Having a target audience should be critical for a commercial endeavor. > And manual outreach through a small group ... really isn't effective. Why do you think that?
      - dredmorbius 3y ago
        Target audiences are identified in mass-marketing campaigns, the term of art is market research. Your second question simply doesn't deserve a response.
        Zambyte 3y ago
        > Your second question simply doesn't deserve a response. Clearly it did, and quite a disrespectful one at that. I guess (and I have to guess, since you won't tell me) you think that because you can't talk to many people, and you think it is self evident that businesses should target many people. I do not think that is self evident. I think instead of few people targeting many people, many people should target few people. You have probably heard that you can't make everyone happy. That's true. But it becomes less true the smaller the group that "everyone" is. If your target audience is a handful of people, you can make them all happy. You can even potentially individualize what you produce to meet the needs of specific individuals. You cannot do that when your target audience is a billion people. Be nicer next time.
dragontamer 3y ago
That's all good in theory and all, but we all know that the #1 step of most humans is to type a search into Google, and that Humans refuse to look at anything outside the top page of hits (maybe the first ~5 entries). The name of the game, if you're trying to serve humans, is to get to the top ~5 entries on Google.
- Zambyte 3y ago
  My website is https://robbyzambito.me https://robbyzambito.me. Did you discover that from Google? Did you refuse to look at that link because it wasn't presented as a top 5 hit on Google? Are you not human? My point is that information can be propagated outside of search engines very easily. Every link on Hacker News is presented to you outside of a search engine. Optimize for humans. Tell humans that you made something. If Google doesn't want to service their users, that's not a problem you should work on fixing.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    Are you seriously suggesting that manual word of mouth marketing over niche forums has the same reach as hitting the top 5 hits on Google through Search Engine Optimization?
    - Zambyte 3y ago
      No. I'm arguing that "reach" is not something you should strive for. Quality is.
      - dragontamer 3y ago
        That's all well and all, but CNET is an advertising supported website, so "reach" is its revenue stream.
        Zambyte 3y ago
        Okay. And do you think that's a good thing?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pessimizer 3y ago
That sounds instead like optimizing your car for the parking lot. If Google doesn't see your site, you've got to put 100x the effort into marketing that site.

thfuran 3y ago

And how do you propose making that happen?

Zambyte 3y ago
1. Identify a target audience 2. Identify what that audience wants (by asking them) 3. Build what the target audience asked for if you agree that it is a sensible thing to create. 4. Tell the target audience that you have built your thing. Note that "target audience" here is probably not Google, but on all 4 points, SEO replaces "target audience" with "Google". Pruning old information is not something that any group of humans have requested besides Google.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- abduhl 3y ago
  Isn’t the most effective way to do 4 to get your thing at the top of Google?
  - Zambyte 3y ago
    If I want to tell my mom something, the most effective way is not to try to sneak my message into some search result of hers. When I say "target audience" and "humans" I mean it in the most literal sense. The most effective way to tell people that you built something for them is to tell them.
    - adventured 3y ago
      The premise you're suggesting is only the most effective way to tell a small number of people (ie tell them directly). That's why radio, TV, newspaper advertising was so effective for so long. Even for a small convenience store, larger scale - mass audience, automated - advertising is almost always a necessity and a far more effective use of time.
    - lolinder 3y ago
      Let's make this concrete. Let's say you're CNET—your target audience is millions upon millions of people who are interested in tech news. What is your alternative strategy for telling these tens of millions of people that you have a new article on topic X? Note that only a tiny fraction of your audience is already subscribed to some form of push notification from your service.
      - Zambyte 3y ago
        > What is your alternative strategy for telling these tens of millions of people that you have a new article on topic X? None. I don't know tens of millions of people. Why do you think that CNET - a relatively small group of people - should have the power to reach an influence tens of millions of people, even if only in a small way per person? I don't think that's healthy for anyone involved.
        lolinder 3y ago
        I see. So when you refer to your mom you meant that literally—humans should only ever strive to do business with people they know directly. I happen to disagree, but it's obvious that we're working from such completely different axioms that there's no point in arguing this further.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  If your target audience is a close set of friends, family, professional associates, or other well-defined community, then yes, reaching out through that specific network is probably the best way of reaching it. Which in mondern parlance is what is being accomplished by newsletters, mailing lists, and various social media feeds. But if you're in the business, as in commercial enterprise, of reaching out to a large and generally undefined audience, or are responsible for government or NGO services, etc., general Web search is among your most valuable marketing mechanisms. And that sector includes literally billions of people and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of transactions or equivalent value. And manual outreach through a small group ... really isn't effective. I'm not saying that your specific use case is invalid. I am saying, as someone with a deep and abiding animosity to virtually all modern marketing, advertising, and SEO, that modern marketing, advertising, and SEO do in fact have a place. And that your comments here are largely asserting otherwise.
  - Zambyte 3y ago
    > But if you're in the business, as in commercial enterprise, of reaching out to a large and generally undefined audience I don't think people should skip step 1 in the name of making a buck. Having a target audience should be critical for a commercial endeavor. > And manual outreach through a small group ... really isn't effective. Why do you think that?
    - dredmorbius 3y ago
      Target audiences are identified in mass-marketing campaigns, the term of art is market research. Your second question simply doesn't deserve a response.
      - Zambyte 3y ago
        > Your second question simply doesn't deserve a response. Clearly it did, and quite a disrespectful one at that. I guess (and I have to guess, since you won't tell me) you think that because you can't talk to many people, and you think it is self evident that businesses should target many people. I do not think that is self evident. I think instead of few people targeting many people, many people should target few people. You have probably heard that you can't make everyone happy. That's true. But it becomes less true the smaller the group that "everyone" is. If your target audience is a handful of people, you can make them all happy. You can even potentially individualize what you produce to meet the needs of specific individuals. You cannot do that when your target audience is a billion people. Be nicer next time.

dragontamer 3y ago

That's all good in theory and all, but we all know that the #1 step of most humans is to type a search into Google, and that Humans refuse to look at anything outside the top page of hits (maybe the first ~5 entries). The name of the game, if you're trying to serve humans, is to get to the top ~5 entries on Google.

Zambyte 3y ago
My website is https://robbyzambito.me https://robbyzambito.me. Did you discover that from Google? Did you refuse to look at that link because it wasn't presented as a top 5 hit on Google? Are you not human? My point is that information can be propagated outside of search engines very easily. Every link on Hacker News is presented to you outside of a search engine. Optimize for humans. Tell humans that you made something. If Google doesn't want to service their users, that's not a problem you should work on fixing.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  Are you seriously suggesting that manual word of mouth marketing over niche forums has the same reach as hitting the top 5 hits on Google through Search Engine Optimization?
  - Zambyte 3y ago
    No. I'm arguing that "reach" is not something you should strive for. Quality is.
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      That's all well and all, but CNET is an advertising supported website, so "reach" is its revenue stream.
      - Zambyte 3y ago
        Okay. And do you think that's a good thing?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

pessimizer 3y ago

That sounds instead like optimizing your car for the parking lot. If Google doesn't see your site, you've got to put 100x the effort into marketing that site.