system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: SEO and clickbait(ish) headlines/titles have ruined online content, and any person or entity that uses either of these tactics is only in it for clicks and bucks.

I am done with the web and searching for content on it.  It's now at the point that almost any given search anywhere results in little more than clickbait(ish) titles, over-SEO'd pages, sales pitches, and malicious crap on a hacked WordPress site.  Good luck searching for something that's not pop culture  or the fucking Kardashians or something you're looking to buy.  if I see any of this attached to your content, all that tells me is that you are only in it for clicks and profits and nothing else, and that your online ventures are part of the massive friggin' malignant cancer that is today's online "content", the lowest of the low.

The following are what will lead you and your content to be immediately and permanently block-listed in my books:

* titles/headlines beginning with a number, or the words "this", "here", "here's", "how" or any of the five W's
* titles/headlines written as questions
* titles/headlines with at least one all-caps word (not an acronym)
* any mention of affiliate links/marketing/etc.
* blog posts that, in the end, are sales pitches
* listicles
* titles/headlines containing the words/phrases "best" or "top" \*and\* "in \[current year\]"
* any references to *Charlie Oscar Victor India Delta One-Niner*

I have even started seeing traditionally reputable newsgathering organizations around the world, and not just in the U.S. or Canada, constantly employing these tactics in their online content.  Why?  Because they care more about clicks and profits than they do quality content.

I get that the web and news media are almost always businesses first and foremost and that these organizations need to make money, but when you use B.S. tactics such as clickbait(ish) headlines and SEO shit to lure people to your content, that, again, tells me that you are only in it for clicks and profits and not to provide high-quality, useful and 100% correct, complete and true information.  Oh, and don't bother mentioning your "shareholders", because your greedy, faceless, good-for-nothing shareholders are fucking idiots who, again, only care about profits and nothing else.  Is there not more to life than fucking profits, profits and more profits?

Stop employing this shit RIGHT NOW. PERMANENTLY. FOREVER. Unless you can actually convince me that, without referring to money or metrics/analytics, there is any good in your shit SEO/clickbait-ish tactics.
gpt
I think what you're missing is that, because of the dominant position of search engines, the internet is going to look like whatever Google ends up favoring. An individual person or business has no choice to opt-out of what google's algorithm design wants. The only thing they'd be opting out of is being seen by people at all.

I'd liken them to plants in a garden, where google is the gardener. A plant that doesn't exhibit characteristics that the gardener desires is going to be removed from the garden. Not playing google's game means you are an internet weed.