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Disagree. The old way of doing SEO blogspam is dead, and good riddance. Well curated, high quality content written by humans, with information and insights you

Disagree. The old way of doing SEO blogspam is dead, and good riddance. Well curated, high quality content written by humans, with information and insights you can’t get from LLMs, will reign. Long live curation.

kridsdale1 2y ago
I sure hope you’re right.
immibis 2y ago
Disagree. The new way of doing SEO blogspam, which involves LLMs, is the way forward. Sadly, downvoting this comment won't make it not be true.
- crote 2y ago
  I've personally been seeing an overall shift in the direction of a strong dislike for any kind of low-effort content. People are pretty hostile towards AI-generated content, so any platform wanting to remain relevant is going to have to take measures to keep out AI-generated content. If you allow it in, it'll quickly become 99% of your overall content and all the human consumers will leave. As a side effect I'm seeing a lot of human-generated content getting labeled as AI-generated because it looks AI-generated. Sure, a lot of blogspam is going to be replaced by AI slop, but even human-written blogspam isn't going to survive the shift, simply because its quality is so poor that it is essentially indistinguishable from AI slop. Right now we're in an in-between phase. Most people are still using low-quality aggregators like Google. This will inevitably have to change. Either Google & friends somehow get their shit together (I doubt it), or we're going to see a shift towards known-good curated content like 1990s webrings. I wouldn't be surprised to see a vetted-human Web Of Trust, but for content.
  - immibis 2y ago
    People are hostile towards all types of spam, but it still happens.
  - julianeon 2y ago
    If you look at the revenue numbers creators of SEO-optimized websites are doing using LLMs, it's hard to believe they're losing. The AI slop website may look subpar when placed next a handcrafted niche website, but by the time that handcrafted website is done, the LLM-using creator has created 10 more. And the reality is they seem to get 80% of the traffic the handcrafted website owners make anyway. They are absolutely winning this war and, for economic reasons, everyone else will eventually have to fall in line.
- tomrod 2y ago
  Nor will calling it true make it true. Epistemology is great that way.
KaoruAoiShiho 2y ago
can't get from LLMs for 6 months until the next training run?
rchaud 2y ago
No it won't. Well curated info is paywalled everywhere besides Wikipedia and Internet Archive. SEO is still serving up content mill blogspam at an unstoppable rate.
nitwit005 2y ago
I'm sure I can make a couple of surprising or insightful articles for my current industry, and then I'll run dry. Most topics require data or information in some form, which requires time to accumulate. You end up rate limited. Even at the scale of a decent sized company, you often can only produce interesting content occasionally.
- inetknght 2y ago
  > Most topics require data or information in some form, which requires time to accumulate. You end up rate limited. Even at the scale of a decent sized company, you often can only produce interesting content occasionally. That sounds like a good thing tbqh
  - nitwit005 2y ago
    Sure, but it implies writing "quality content" won't work as a replacement.
    - inetknght 2y ago
      I don't think it implies that at all.
      - ehnto 2y ago
        It depends on your medium, many platforms require a lot of throughput in order to rank highly in their algorithms and reach people. If your business requires volume not high value customers then you need to play the volume game. But if you have high lifetime value customers, you could get away with fewer articles of higher value, authoritive, trust and reputation building content.
        ok_dad 2y ago
        Eventually, under the barrage of AI spam, the sites which "uprank" using "posting volume" metrics will lose users who will see the quality of the content drop like a rock. Other sites, which have better algorithms which are tuned for quality not quantity, will take over and you will be able to post quality content there instead. I think HN is one such place, I often see companies post high-quality content just once or twice a year and it reaches here pretty well.
bakugo 2y ago
Where can I find this "high quality content written by humans" exactly? Without paying a subscription fee for it, of course.
- jsemrau 2y ago
  I pay (and write paid) on Substack for content. There are good people who provide unique insights. I think I prefer to live in this world than in an ad engagement farm.

kridsdale1 2y ago

I sure hope you’re right.

immibis 2y ago

Disagree. The new way of doing SEO blogspam, which involves LLMs, is the way forward. Sadly, downvoting this comment won't make it not be true.

crote 2y ago
I've personally been seeing an overall shift in the direction of a strong dislike for any kind of low-effort content. People are pretty hostile towards AI-generated content, so any platform wanting to remain relevant is going to have to take measures to keep out AI-generated content. If you allow it in, it'll quickly become 99% of your overall content and all the human consumers will leave. As a side effect I'm seeing a lot of human-generated content getting labeled as AI-generated because it looks AI-generated. Sure, a lot of blogspam is going to be replaced by AI slop, but even human-written blogspam isn't going to survive the shift, simply because its quality is so poor that it is essentially indistinguishable from AI slop. Right now we're in an in-between phase. Most people are still using low-quality aggregators like Google. This will inevitably have to change. Either Google & friends somehow get their shit together (I doubt it), or we're going to see a shift towards known-good curated content like 1990s webrings. I wouldn't be surprised to see a vetted-human Web Of Trust, but for content.
- immibis 2y ago
  People are hostile towards all types of spam, but it still happens.
- julianeon 2y ago
  If you look at the revenue numbers creators of SEO-optimized websites are doing using LLMs, it's hard to believe they're losing. The AI slop website may look subpar when placed next a handcrafted niche website, but by the time that handcrafted website is done, the LLM-using creator has created 10 more. And the reality is they seem to get 80% of the traffic the handcrafted website owners make anyway. They are absolutely winning this war and, for economic reasons, everyone else will eventually have to fall in line.
tomrod 2y ago
Nor will calling it true make it true. Epistemology is great that way.

KaoruAoiShiho 2y ago

can't get from LLMs for 6 months until the next training run?

rchaud 2y ago

No it won't. Well curated info is paywalled everywhere besides Wikipedia and Internet Archive. SEO is still serving up content mill blogspam at an unstoppable rate.

nitwit005 2y ago

I'm sure I can make a couple of surprising or insightful articles for my current industry, and then I'll run dry. Most topics require data or information in some form, which requires time to accumulate. You end up rate limited. Even at the scale of a decent sized company, you often can only produce interesting content occasionally.

inetknght 2y ago
> Most topics require data or information in some form, which requires time to accumulate. You end up rate limited. Even at the scale of a decent sized company, you often can only produce interesting content occasionally. That sounds like a good thing tbqh
- nitwit005 2y ago
  Sure, but it implies writing "quality content" won't work as a replacement.
  - inetknght 2y ago
    I don't think it implies that at all.
    - ehnto 2y ago
      It depends on your medium, many platforms require a lot of throughput in order to rank highly in their algorithms and reach people. If your business requires volume not high value customers then you need to play the volume game. But if you have high lifetime value customers, you could get away with fewer articles of higher value, authoritive, trust and reputation building content.
      - ok_dad 2y ago
        Eventually, under the barrage of AI spam, the sites which "uprank" using "posting volume" metrics will lose users who will see the quality of the content drop like a rock. Other sites, which have better algorithms which are tuned for quality not quantity, will take over and you will be able to post quality content there instead. I think HN is one such place, I often see companies post high-quality content just once or twice a year and it reaches here pretty well.

bakugo 2y ago

Where can I find this "high quality content written by humans" exactly? Without paying a subscription fee for it, of course.

jsemrau 2y ago
I pay (and write paid) on Substack for content. There are good people who provide unique insights. I think I prefer to live in this world than in an ad engagement farm.