pacohope
commented
2 years ago I agree with all you wrote, but I feel like you left out an important detail. The only search engine you mentioned is Google. And this is meant to be a post about the Web, not about Google. So the explanatory bit you left out is that for a huge number of people Google IS the Web. What Google shows them in response to search is all that they can find on the web. Ranking high in a Google search is profoundly important to every legitimate business, not just the illegitimate ones. So anything that improves a web site’s visibility in Google search results becomes important—even to a mom & pop business just trying to have a useful web presence. THAT is why SEO bullshit is this cancer spreading into every web site. THAT is why, even if you don’t use Google to search, all the pages you find have this Google-flavoured bullshit in their text. Google is so dominant on both sides of the equation (genuine content and ad farms) that putting garbage in to feed their algorithm becomes the norm everywhere, affecting the whole web, not just the Google-using part of the web.
Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google. :: Reasonably Polymorphic
https://reasonablypolymorphic.com/blog/monotonous-web/index.html