SEO-based links are officially unethical!

I don’t know if it makes you frustrated, but I hate it when I click on a websites that has a title or description that is relevant to what you’re searching for, but then when you end up at that site, you realize that it’s not relevant at all! You come to a realization that the title was simply put in there for SEO (Search engine optimization) just so the website can get another “viewer” of the page so they can present larger numbers of viewers to their advertisers. They don’t care if you clicked on the site and it turns out to be irrelevant. Those websites really don’t care, because they’re simply in it for the money! For the advertisers and for the page rank, so they can maximize profit. The web is full of corrupt people who use the web and the good nature of people to gain profit from those innocent web users who don’t know any better than to click on those links.

I have personal experience with clicking on SEO-infested websites all the time! I encounter these unethical sites on a day-to-day basis. This finally pushed me overboard when I was searching for solutions for a technical problem with my Android device. A result appeared in my search that seemed to be “relevant” based on the title of the link, but of course, when I actually clicked on it, and went to the site, I realized it was only somewhat relevant and didn’t contain the content I was looking for. There was no solution to my problem on that page! It was all an SEO title just so they could grab another viewer for their advertisements!

We, “the people of the internet” (According to Jeff Jarvis), should have access to high quality content and websites that don’t grab us for the ads, but rather for the content. Old media on the web seem to have the wrong message stuck in their heads. Ads aren’t the primary source for traffic and income! If you put up crumby ads on your websites, along with poor content, then nobody is going to read your website. And I don’t care what kind of site it is. You have to produce good content on the web, in order to drive genuine traffic. Then maybe, ads could be your secondary source of revenue. A more successful strategy might be to aim for high quality content first, and then people will come along and support you (through donations etc.) People will NOT support ‘pay walls.’ Such as what the New York Times is doing. I believe that is an unsuccessful strategy. If you make high quality content a high priority, then people WILL support you, whether it’s through donations, or some other means of financial support. But my advice to you is to stay away from SEO as much as possible. It upsets us as users, and it’s an unsuccessful strategy for success in the online media and journalism space.

Bottom line, SEO is unethical!