Scott Nesbit’s Weekly Musings are one of my favorite sources to follow. In Musing number 101 he writes about SEO, Search Engine Optimization.

I would love to quote everything he writes because I totally agree with his view. Here is an excerpt:

When Tim Berners Lee came up with the idea of the World Wide Web back in the day, he envisioned it as a way of sharing knowledge. SEO is a slap in the face and a kick to a point lower down to that vision. SEO isn’t about sharing or disseminating knowledge. It’s about about weighing you down with the promise of giving you what you want. It’s about pulling in clicks and eyeballs, often in some of the most devious ways possible.

He’s right. While SEO in itself could be a useful thing that can allow you to actually find what you are looking for online, unfortunately the opposite is true. SEO is abused to steal time and attention.

If I search for something online and only get to a miserably long article that promises me a result at first glance, but then is nothing more than drivel, it wastes my life time. There are probably banner ads to the left and right and above and below and in the middle of the article, so that my stolen attention can be monetized.

But unfortunately, SEO is the first thing you hear about when you’re looking for blogging tips. You are always told to take care of SEO, do keyword research, use plugins that improve SEO, create great thumbnails.

In my opinion, however, this is bullshit, unless you want to generate money with stolen attention. If you’re not blogging for financial gain, then it’s enough to simply make sure that the site is usable and that the content you create is honest and perhaps helpful. Then writing is probably more fun as well than having to make sure you have a minimum word count and mention keywords correctly.