The Verge: A notoriously anti-SEO publication appears to call GEO BS

[madscandi]

Pretty much all true. The number of bullshitters in SEO has never been higher.

[RyanTylerThomas]

Bless the Verge for making a strong statement.

[theverge]

Thanks for sharing this! Here’s a bit from the article:

Marketers have long used what are essentially filler webpages to try to get the attention of search engine algorithms — but as the web has changed, so too have the efforts to try to manipulate it.

AI-powered search has put the search engine optimization (SEO) industry through the wringer. Google has added more and more AI-generated content to search results, effectively summarizing the web instead of its tradition of linking and ranking sites. In the AI era, the content that gets surfaced the most isn’t necessarily from big websites, but rather a grab bag of blogs, news articles, and highly specific Reddit threads. Some users are searching elsewhere, using chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude to find things they had used traditional search for. For some publishers and brands, Google traffic has been on such a steady decline that it has become an existential threat. Google constantly tweaks its algorithms and introduces updates to how its systems assess content online, keeping the SEO industry on its toes, but AI represents a new era ripe for disruption — or growth and profit.

SEO firms are entering the space promising clients they’ll get chatbots to mention their brand. New tactics, like the self-serving listicles, are becoming trends (AI SEO firms are, unsurprisingly, also publishing lists ranking themselves as the best option). The SEO industry has always operated amid ambiguity, testing hypotheses, chasing down hints, and arguing over what works and what doesn’t. But AI has created a whole new set of questions, and new openings for spammers, snake oil salesmen, and well-meaning but misinformed practitioners.

Gift link: [https://www.theverge.com/tech/900302/ai-seo-industry-google-search-chatgpt-gemini-marketing?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6IjY5RTdsc0piVVYiLCJwIjoiL3RlY2gvOTAwMzAyL2FpLXNlby1pbmR1c3RyeS1nb29nbGUtc2VhcmNoLWNoYXRncHQtZ2VtaW5pLW1hcmtldGluZyIsImV4cCI6MTc3NTkxMDQ2OCwiaWF0IjoxNzc1NDc4NDY4fQ.dJ0D5fyXrXvix7hUVl4WjQOIJV2bMAkDatxNGrpgR3I](https://www.theverge.com/tech/900302/ai-seo-industry-google-search-chatgpt-gemini-marketing?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6IjY5RTdsc0piVVYiLCJwIjoiL3RlY2gvOTAwMzAyL2FpLXNlby1pbmR1c3RyeS1nb29nbGUtc2VhcmNoLWNoYXRncHQtZ2VtaW5pLW1hcmtldGluZyIsImV4cCI6MTc3NTkxMDQ2OCwiaWF0IjoxNzc1NDc4NDY4fQ.dJ0D5fyXrXvix7hUVl4WjQOIJV2bMAkDatxNGrpgR3I)

[johnspikah]

From my experience, good old SEO tactics still work and generative AI helps my clients get their websites in order. If proper care is taken, they are rewarded with better visibility, including in the zero position. Simple as that.

[AbleInvestment2866]

While I get the point, **the article is now wrong in its essence.**

Last year it would have been true, but nowadays you can influence AI. It is not for everybody (not an easy task and you need quite some knowledge), but it is doable. With the proper resources it is quite fast, actually much faster than regular SEO, and as a side benefit, SEO gets better. The problem is that right now, getting the right group of people is quite expensive (this is not a one-man-only task, you need one or two hyper-specialized people, I mean PhD level, and a full team doing things at scale that knows the basics). For the amount of traffic you will get, I do not think it is for Joe or Bob; this is only for big corporations.

But just as I said one or two years ago *”it is not possible… yet”* and now it is possible, I also say *”it will be possible for more and more people”* in the near future. Perhaps someone launches some kind of specialized agent that can replace all the difficult work (not me, that is for sure), perhaps new students or CS people who are in other areas move to the greener AI pastures, or perhaps LLMs change their models (well, that is a given, all of them are launching new versions in the upcoming 3 months, but I mean perhaps a change of paradigm).

But yeah, it is absolutely possible today. And while I said it is only for corporations, once you have the setup it works for menial tasks. Just last week I “killed” some idiot’s business here on Reddit in a “negative AI” experiment, and once he saw what I could do, I undid it so he could see that as well. My point is it will also become really wild, because negative AI is also really easy (and much faster than negative SEO). As a matter of fact, I think the real force will be to counter negative AI, at least until LLMs learn how to stop it

EDIT: thank you for the downvotes. If you think this is not true I’m sure you won’t mind posting your site and see it by yourself, right? Then at least you will se if “AI can be influenced” or not. Let’s call it an experiment.

[thesupermikey]

is the verge anti seo or are they reporting on scammers use the framework of seo and digital marketing to exploit vulnerable people?

[MeestaRoboto]


[chaw1431]

All true.

[shaihalud69]

I mean, no lies detected. If you’ve built your business model around spam content and cheap tech fixes, you’re going to get crushed in search and extra crushed in AI search. Pivot or start swinging a hammer for work instead.

[MyRoos]

The entire post leaves Google out of the picture, which is a mistake. They’ve actively shaped an environment that pushes people toward spammy, snake-oil tactics from every corner, business and angle.

People who’ve been doing SEO properly for years can see what’s happening. Many of these “new terms” are just a boondoggle; giving cover to those who couldn’t execute before, while diluting real expertise.