Has Google's prominence and SEO actually made the internet worse?

I mean, the fact they're so well known has kind of made promotional tactics about 99% dependant on Google's policies, which can't exactly be a good thing. And while SEO is something that exists for good reason, I do think it's caused a lot of people to completely lose sight of quality content or just making websites for humans rather than machines, as well as obviously about 99% of problems with things like forum spam.

Anyone else feel the same way?

 

Yes. Their algorithm is fixed so that the sites they want to have the highest page ranks and the largest exposure do. Not coincidentally, those are the sites that pay Google a ton of money for advertising. It's rigged.
No matter how quality my content is it will never be ahead of ESPN's.

 

There is one thing I have learned over the years. Never put your eggs in one basket. The minute Google decides to drop you on the search results traffic drys up. You should be using other methods to drive traffic and use Google as a bonus.

Greg

 

I don't believe so, it hasn't stopped people from creating high-quality websites. Competiton makes people want to work harder. I'm glad I also get traffic from other means like referrals and bookmarks. I also get a bit of traffic from Facebook and Tumblr because I sometimes post my threads there along with twitter. @Gregman is right, never place your eggs all in one basket.

Branch out and get links from all over the place especially those sites that are related to your community in one way or another. Also, I've been competiting against a company for a while for the "virtual pets" keyword and the only way I'll be able to beat them if I get more links and content on my site.

 

I'm a far better car review writer than the hack that works at my local newspaper, but his review will be top ranking in Google where as mine will barely show. Google's algorithm will continue to favor his articles rather than mine simply because of the pagerank of his parent site.... but ignore the fact that his article are crap.

 

I have had enough of Google's constantly changing policies and fighting for the top 10 spots rather than concentrating on quality. No more!

For the last couple of months, I have been trying to gain more social media followers and blog subscribers. They are easier to convert into customers and you can easily have a good relationship with them.

I am at the point where 1/3 of my traffic comes from Pinterest and subscribers while the rest comes from organic traffic. All in all, my blog is still dependent on organic traffic, but I am gradually moving away from it.

 

I think that it is just like real life where the product that is marketed better simply wins over the one that might be better but still isn't marketed much. Same goes for good musicians or anything good for that matter. Marketing is definitely important and if you don't understand how it works usually your stuff gets weeded out in favor of the one that is "popular". It is sad how it works but knowing this allows you to implement different strategies when you are creating your content and still come out with something that has the best of both worlds. Just my thoughts.

 

But much SEO out there isn't "marketing". It's an attempt to game the search engines so they think you're the most relevant result for the search customer.

 

All I know is after my old site took a nosedive toward mediocrity and shut down, I thought hey let's have a chillout period and then revamp the site, bring it into the new world and include the old posts as a side note so that old users would have something to feel familiar with and accustomed to...

Apparently Google doesn't seem to like a site that shares most of its posts with a site that shut down six months ago and now I don't even rank when searching FOR THE ACTUAL DOMAIN.

Very displeased in general with google these days. I think eventually there's going to be a paradigm shift away from this culture of mass spoonfeeding.