Why Google is ruining SEO

I think what’s most interesting (in our most recent blog article) from a performance marketing/SEO perspective is the blatant duplication/copying/plagiarism of each other’s lists that Google rewarded in the top 10 (heck, the top 50) serps.

That was a surprising by-product of this exercise. Realizing Google doesn’t give af about the advice/guidance they give or SEOs in general.

I kind of feel like I’ve know it all along for the last 15-ish years. But this was the straw that broke the camels back for me.

WTF are you talking about?

Well, selfishly, we were putting together a list of challenges marketers are dealing with in 2023. We pulled the top organic results from Google as well as asked ChatGPT (pro version) what it thought; twice.

We compiled the results and coded them. We did a simply tally of how much each item was mentioned and then sorted it. The idea is the more articles mention specific challenges, the more important they must be if multiple marketers have it on their lists of things that are important to them. If you want to read more about the approach, or just use/view the actual list, here you go: https://thinkendurance.com/top-challenges-marketers-face-in-2023/

So what exactly am i complaining about?

*** Well, items on different lists from hubspot to cmo magazine were identical. And not just the concepts, but the actual text. ***

For example, we know that personalization is probably on large, fortune 1000 company lists of challenges from their CMOs. It’s been a challenge for years. So we’d expect to see “personalization” on most lists.

But what about “Leveraging CRM to its fullest potential.” that’s pretty damn specific. And it was on multiple lists… verbatim.

Or how about “Having to pivot my marketing strategy due to major events?” on multiple lists, word-for-word, copied-and-pasted.

On average, one list/page copied 1-3 items from other lists in the top 10 SERPs

***The problem?

Google rewarded these pages for plagiarizing each other.

It didn’t award original copy.

It didn’t award original thought.

It didn’t aware original concepts.

It should be awarding the marketer who spent the time to describe exactly what it is about personalization that is challenging to them.

What Google is awarding is exactly what they tell SEOs NOT TO DO. And that’s bullshit.

It’s part of the reason SEOs get a bad name, it’s part of the reason we’ll do everything 100% correctly and won’t see results we expect… GOOGLE IS THE BAD APPLE IN THE BUNCH!

If you can’t tell, this really upsets me. I’ve been there before. I’ve done everything right for a client and still haven’t see the reward they promise when we do all the right things according to Google.

AND GUESS WHAT the most original (and insightful) content was!!!

A list a freaking robot made not once, but TWICE.

Good on yah #OpenAI – Good on yah #chatgpt

And good riddance Google. I hope the new Bing brings on a new era for SEO. One that’s more transparent and helps our industry regain some respect you’re responsible for it losing.