Google hates you

SEO has dominated how writers craft headlines and ideas to be discoverable, with Google acting as the central authority. Media outlets invest heavily in SEO infrastructure to ensure users find specific content when searching. A concern arises that search engines could eventually optimize for themselves rather than for users. That shift is described as already underway, with Google steering users through artificial intelligence overviews, sponsored links, and other unwanted elements. The quality of search results is said to have been lacking for years. Google’s announced plan is presented as effectively killing off search results and answering queries through a Gemini AI agent instead.

"SEO has quietly lorded over every internet writer's work for decades now, forcing professionals like me to tailor our headlines, not to mention our very ideas, to its mysterious whims. If you want people to read your work, and I do, you must pay tribute to the SEO gods if you want that writing to be easily discovered. And you must kneel before one SEO god in particular: Google."

"Google has ruled the search engine market for the entirety of this century, which is why every media outlet I've ever worked at, this one included, has dedicated nearly endless amounts of both personnel and tech to make sure that when you, the reader, search for articles on why Meta's new sunglasses make you look like a complete tool, by God that's exactly what you get."

"But, while slaving away at perfecting their search engine optimization infrastructure, none of those outlets ever seriously asked themselves the question, what if there comes a day when the search engine optimizes for itself, and only itself? That day has arrived. You and I know that the quality of Google's search results has been lacking for years now."

"Last week, the company announced plans to essentially kill off its search results entirely, addressing all of your queries with its Gemini AI agent instead. Look at this horrible s-t. Look at it! Google was already attempting to steer users toward stolen content by auto-populating the top of every search with an artificial intelligence overview, followed by sponsored links and sometimes a bunch of other unwanted crap."

Read at SFGATE