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|                                                                      |
|  TITLE: People Don't Actually Hate SEO                               |
|                                                                      |
|  DATE: May 7, 2025                                                   |
|                                                                      |
|  AUTHOR: [email protected]                                          |
|                                                                      |
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People always say that they hate SEO or that they can't stand the "SEO
content" that's polluting the web. They don't really mean that. What
they actually mean is that they hate affiliate marketers, who
frequently say that they're in the SEO business when the business that
they're really in is affiliate marketing.

Among the many other reasons to dislike Amazon, you can thank them for
inventing affiliate marketing. In case you're not familiar with the
term, here's how it works.

  - A website recommends a product and links to it with a
    personalized bit of code that saves a cookie in your browser.

  - If you then make a purchase from the linked website, the affiliate
    earns a portion of the sale as a commission for the referral.

In other words, an affiliate marketer serves as an intermediary step
between you and the site you're actually trying to get to. To attract
your visit, the marketer generates content targeted around keywords
that you're likely to search for. Think of search terms like "(product
name) review," "best (type of product)" and so on. The marketer uses
SEO tools to discover the most popular keywords in their niche, which
I guess is what gives them the illusion that they're in the SEO
business.

Amazon used its affiliate program to great effect during the company's
early days, generating brand recognition and stimulating rapid growth.
I was in my late teens at the time and didn't understand why anyone
would go through the trouble of promoting a $7.00 book in exchange for
a 70 cent commission. Talk about missing the big picture.

Everyone in the SEO business uses tools to find out what keywords
people are searching for. The difference is that most people in the
affiliate marketing business don't care about producing high-quality
content around those keywords and only care about forcing you to click
their affiliate links.

You largely have affiliate marketers to thank for the AI slop gumming
up the web. Before that, it was mediocre drivel written by non-experts
and purchased for a penny a word on content mills like Textbroker.

Some of Google's recent updates have actually demoted many small-scale
affiliate sites, in fact, which has only resulted in the production of
even more AI slop. If you produce thousands of pages of drivel, some
of it is bound to rank for something -- and thanks to AI, producing it
is essentially free.

Today, Google's ranking algorithm is largely skewed in favor of big
brands with high domain authority. That's why you see websites like
Forbes ranking for everything from tools to diapers. Turns out that
affiliate marketing can generate a lot more money than financial news
if you're on the first page for every product-related search that
exists.

All of this isn't to say that affiliate marketers aren't good at SEO.
Many of them are. It's just that some people in the affiliate
marketing profession think that they're in the SEO profession when
they're not. I should also say that some affiliate websites are
genuinely useful and helpful; they're just rare.

There are also some people who are business owners and actually do
hate SEO because they've been burned by a shady agency.

This is also a case -- although it's an intentional one -- of someone
not stating their true profession.

There are many "SEO agencies" out there that aren't in the business
of SEO but are rather in the sales business. They only exist to sell
SEO contracts and not to do any of the actual work. The work is
farmed out to low-cost overseas freelancers or -- more commonly these
days -- to ChatGPT. They don't care whether the client sees any
benefit from the work because they've already moved on to the next
mark.

So, whether you're annoyed to death by affiliate marketers or have
been burned by salespeople claiming that they do SEO, I'm sorry that
they've given the honest ones in the business a bad name.


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