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    <h1>How Google perfected the web</h1>
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 <p>As the 14th season of Bravo’s <em>Real Housewives of New York City </em>came to a close this fall, I found myself on Reddit, reading rumors about the marriage and divorce timeline of one of the show’s stars. Redditors wanted more clues about a fishy relationship history to see if they could uncover a cheating scandal.</p>

 <p><em>Were divorce papers public record in New York?</em> I wondered. I did a quick Google search to find out.</p>

 <p>The search results page was filled with my question’s exact words, repeated across site after site — websites for law firms, posts on forums, ads for creepy lookup tools — but the answer to my actual question was harder to find. At the top of the results page on my phone, Google offered two featured snippets of information quoting different websites. The first one: “Divorce records are <strong>not public in New York</strong> due to the sensitive nature of many divorce proceedings.” The second: “Due to the state’s underlying legislation regarding family law cases, <strong>each divorce is a matter of public record.</strong>”</p>

 <p>Google bolded both snippets, but it wasn’t clear to me how they squared. I clicked on both.</p>

 <p>The two law firm websites were part of an ecosystem I didn’t know existed until I accidentally went looking for it. Law firms across different fields — family law, personal injury, employment lawyers — have blogs full of keyword-addled articles being churned out at a surprisingly fast clip. The goal for firms is simple: be the top result to pop up on Google when someone is looking for legal help. The searcher might just end up hiring them.</p>

 <p>Many of these blog posts are written by people like E., a self-employed content writer who juggles law firm clients that want Google-friendly content. E. does not have a legal background; they’re just a competent writer who can turn in clean copy. They trawl health department records, looking for nursing homes that get citations for neglect or other infractions. Then E. writes a blog post about it for a firm, making sure to include the name of the offender and the wrongdoing — keywords for which concerned patients or families will likely be searching. (E. requested anonymity so as to not jeopardize their employment.)</p>


 <p>“My bosses, they all don’t want anyone else to know that they use me or that we have the specific process that we have,” E. says. Their name is nowhere to be found, but their writing is often the first thing a searcher will see. The pages were made to be found by people like me.</p>

 <p>Google controls around <a href="https://www.similarweb.com/engines/united-states/">90 percent of the search market</a>, by some measures, so it’s too valuable a referral source to just leave up to luck. Search engine optimization — or SEO, the practice of tweaking content and websites to get Google to boost your visibility — is everywhere, including on the page you’re reading now. And once you see it or SEO-ify your own work, like E. has, it’s impossible not to notice.</p>

 <p>Google’s outsized influence on how we find things <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23712602/google-search-25-years-anniversary-ai-artificial-intelligence">has been 25 years in the making</a>, and the people running businesses online have tried countless methods of getting Google to surface their content. Some business owners use generative AI to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23753963/google-seo-shopify-small-business-ai">make Google-optimized blog posts</a> so they can turn around and sell tchotchkes; brick-and-mortar businesses are <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26/23931825/google-search-local-seo-thai-food-near-me-maps">picking funny names like “Thai Food Near Me”</a> to try to game Google’s local search algorithm. <a href="https://www.theverge.com/features/23931789/seo-search-engine-optimization-experts-google-results">An entire SEO industry</a> has sprung up, dedicated to trying to understand (or outsmart) Google Search. </p>

 <p>The relentless optimizing of pages, words, paragraphs, photos, and hundreds of other variables has led to a wasteland of capital-C Content that is competing for increasingly dwindling Google Search real estate as generative AI rears its head. You’ve seen it before: the awkward subheadings and text that repeats the same phrases a dozen times, the articles that say nothing but which are sprayed with links that in turn direct you to other meaningless pages. Much of the information we find on the web — and much of what’s produced for the web in the first place — is designed to get Google’s attention.</p>

 <p>We often hear about the latest engagement hacks on other platforms like Instagram, TikTok, or X, formerly known as Twitter. But Google is consequential above all of these, acting essentially as the referee of the web. Yet deep knowledge of how its systems work is largely limited to industry publications and marketing firms — as users, we don’t get an explanation of why sites suddenly look different or how Google ranks one website above another. It just happens.</p>

 <p>Bit by bit, the internet has been remade in Google’s image. And it’s humans — not machines — who have to deal with the consequences.</p>

 </div>

 <div class="text-block ">
 <h2>1. Site performance and accessibility</h2>
 <p>There’s an inherent contradiction in what Google promises is the best way to succeed on Search. Publicly, Google representatives like search liaison Danny Sullivan give a simple, almost quaint answer to business owners who want help: you just need to make great content for people, not Google’s robots.</p>

 <p>At the same time, Google’s “<a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide">SEO Starter Guide</a>” is nearly 9,000 words long with dozens of links to additional material. There are several SEO industry publications, plus an untold number of scrappy blogs, marketing firms, and self-proclaimed SEO gurus promising to demystify Google’s black box algorithm. Small business owners must either learn how to do SEO or hire someone — even multiple people or special firms — to do it for them. It’s expensive, time consuming, and often confusing work, and failure to learn the ropes could mean trouble if your traffic begins to tank unexpectedly. Google executives like Sullivan often respond to the folk wisdom of the SEO industry with a six-word incantation meant to absolve them of the industry’s worst practices: <em>that’s not what the guidelines say</em>. It can feel like the guidelines are there to protect Google’s reputation, not actually help anyone get search traffic.</p>

 <p>Optimizing pages for Google isn’t inherently a bad thing. Google uses its influence over the web to push for objectively good results, <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ranking-factors/page-speed/">like fast-loading sites</a> and accessibility features like alt text on images, which can help audiences understand what’s on a page if an image doesn’t load or if readers use assistive technology like screen readers. Google’s <a href="https://web.dev/articles/vitals#core-web-vitals">Core Web Vitals</a> metric pushes down sites with certain kinds of intrusive ads or which have slow-loading ads that cause content on the page to shift around.</p>

 <p class="pullquote"></p><q>“[Google’s changes] did sort of homogenize the design of the internet.”</q><p>Perhaps Google’s most benevolent push has been toward a fast, mobile-first web that has forced small and large publishers alike to overhaul their publishing platforms. But even that effort has come with collateral damage — see the entire news industry reluctantly <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23711172/google-amp-accelerated-mobile-pages-search-publishers-lawsuit">embracing Google’s AMP format</a> — or in the case of smaller blogs, a flattening and whitewashing of web design across the board.
 </p><p>Valerie Stimac Bailey, a professional blogger of a decade, remembers in 2021 when Google began using a <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/04/more-details-page-experience">new metric</a> to rank sites, called “page experience,” that emphasized giving readers a “<a href="https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2020/05/evaluating-page-experience#about-page-experience">delightful</a>” web to browse. Passing Google’s Core Web Vitals tests became all the more important — Google would look at load times, interactivity, and whether visual elements would move around unexpectedly. </p>

 <p>Bloggers like Stimac Bailey, along with an untold number of other site operators and web companies, saw the writing on the wall: Google might not like your old site, with its giant logos and custom fonts, or the ads that cause text to jump around. Companies like Mediavine, a popular ad-management company, <a href="https://www.mediavine.com/newsroom/mediavine-rolls-out-wordpress-theme-framework-to-the-open-web-empowering-independent-publishers-to-pass-googles-core-web-vitals/">released web design frameworks</a> optimized for this new Google metric and Stimac Bailey, like many others, switched and redesigned her site. But she found the new theme “sterile,” she tells me, and it lacked customization options. It didn’t feel like part of her brand.</p>

 <p>“I get that that probably was the impetus for a lot of people with really old, slow themes that were not handling mobile well to move to something that was faster for the world of the mobile-first indexing and internet,” Stimac Bailey says. “That was a good impact… but simultaneously, it did sort of homogenize the design of the internet.”</p>

 <p>Stimac Bailey, who in the past published up to 11 blogs at a time, has experimented with different website themes. All eight of her current sites look nearly identical — her <a href="https://www.valisemag.com/">Alaska travel blog <em>Valerie &amp; Valise</em></a> looks the same as <em>Site School</em>, a blog where she <a href="https://siteschool.co/q3-2023-check-in/#Eat_Like_Bourdain">shares data-heavy analyses</a> of how her portfolio of websites is performing. </p>

 <p>“People spent a lot of money, and a lot of time, and a lot of heartache and stress and psychology redesigning websites,” Stimac Bailey says.</p>

 <p>Taking Google’s advice on creating good, fast, accessible websites sounds nice in theory; why not do what the search engine prefers and help your readers in the process? Creators I spoke to acknowledged that changes sometimes benefit Google and readers alike. But the line between what’s good for the search algorithm and what’s good for audiences has become blurry over time, and in some cases, the two are treated essentially as the same thing.</p>

 </div>

 <div class="text-block ">
 <h2>2. Page design and structure of articles</h2>
 <p>The small, behind-the-scenes changes site operators deployed over the years have made browsing the web — especially on mobile — more frictionless and enjoyable. But Google’s preferences and systems don’t just guide how sites run: Search has also influenced how information looks and how audiences experience the internet. The project of optimizing your digital existence for Google doesn’t stop at page design. The content has to conform, too.</p>

 <p>Take, for example, the question-based subheadings that are rampant on pages ranging from <a href="https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/what-is-an-ira/">personal finance explainers</a> to <a href="https://thepointsguy.com/guide/best-time-to-book-a-flight/">travel tips</a> to <a href="https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/home-lifestyle/a41502817/when-is-daylight-saving-time/">annual event reminders</a>. Sections like “When should I make IRA contributions?” or “What states are getting rid of Daylight Savings time?” will cascade down a page, presumably to help a reader scan for information. But subheadings are also a piece of information Google uses to understand what a page is about and to rank it in Search. Historically, subheadings <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ranking-factors/html-heading-tags-h2-h6/">have been an easy, fast way</a> to juice content for maximum visibility.</p>

 <p>Some bloggers and outlets scrape the “People Also Ask” panel on search results pages for ideas: the Google-curated section spits out strangely worded or oddly specific questions like, “What is the healthiest vegetable 2023?” and “What two vegetables can be eaten raw?”</p>

 <p>Sean Bromilow, a food writer based in Canada, has reformatted his blog posts in hopes that Google will pick up his content for placement in these fields. On a page for cucamelons, he added an FAQ section featuring questions like, “How do you eat cucamelons?” and “Are cucamelons a GMO?”</p>

 <p>“I did that in direct response to Google’s [People Also Ask questions] that they introduced,” he says. </p>

 <p class="pullquote"></p><q>Some creators scrape the “People Also Ask” panel for story ideas</q><p>A Q&amp;A format might often be the most effective way to write a story or share information — I’ve <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23802895/sag-aftra-writers-guild-strikes-hollywood-influencer-rules">done stories in this format</a>, too. But other times, question-based subheadings are harder to read, repeating the same phrases without adding anything substantial. Browse <a href="https://sublimelife.in/blogs/sublime-stories/gua-sha-101-everything-you-need-to-know-about-how-to-use-a-gua-sha">this article about gua sha</a>, a massaging technique with roots in traditional Chinese medicine, and you’ll find headings including, “What is a gua sha,” “What are the benefits of a gua sha,” “How to find your gua sha,” and “How to use your gua sha.”
 </p><p>A table of contents, too, has become a common sight, appearing at the top of articles. On a post about <a href="https://www.valisemag.com/alaska-big-five/">animals to look out for in Alaska</a>, for example, Stimac Bailey has 10 sections in the table of contents, each linking to the corresponding part of the blog post. Having a linked table of contents allows readers to skip to the part they most want to read, like if someone is strictly interested in seeing caribou.</p>

 <p>But the table of contents sections also work as jump links on Google Search that appear below the headline and other metadata. Stimac Bailey gets a reasonable amount of traffic to her <a href="https://www.valisemag.com/pacific-coast-highway-guide/">Pacific Coast Highway guide</a>, not from searchers clicking the title but through people clicking on one of the jump links below. Some SEO strategists even debate whether bloggers should leave their table of contents expanded or collapsed for maximum SEO juice. Stimac Bailey keeps hers collapsed but recently heard from a person selling SEO services that your table of contents should be auto-expanded.</p>

 <p>“At a certain point, I don’t care if it costs me time on site or it costs me ad views or costs me bounce rate or whatever it might be,” she says. “I like my site to look the way I want it to look, so that’s what I’m going to do.”</p>

 <p>But many websites just do what they think Google wants or what’s being recommended by SEO experts, even if there’s no guarantee it will work. Google is both overbearing with manuals and withholding of clear answers. Give too much away, and everyone could game the system. In that void, creators and website operators throw things at the wall to see what sticks. And once they start designing their page for Google, it’s easy for their content to be fashioned for Google, too.</p>

 </div>

 <div class="text-block ">
 <h2>3. Keyword research and what content is made</h2>
 <p>For publishers handcuffed to Google Search traffic, there’s often no reason to produce content if people aren’t searching for it. So marketers, writers, and bloggers use a suite of keyword research tools to assess whether there’s enough interest to write the article or make the video in the first place. The result is that publishers end up producing a mountain of material, with Google keywords essentially acting like the assigning editor.</p>

 <p>When Stimac Bailey writes for her <a href="https://londonmymind.com/">London travel blog</a>, for example, she strategically picks topics that the site will be able to rank highly for — keywords and topics that are too competitive get put on the backburner.</p>

 <p>“[My writers and I] work on picking topics together, but we need them to be productive because not only am I [monetizing them], I’m paying people for their work, and I’m trying to pay very fairly for that work,” she says. “It’s like, ‘I gotta find these low-competition, high-volume, magic keywords.” For a popular destination like London, those magic keywords don’t really exist.</p>

 <p>Catherine Cusick understands this tension well. Cusick worked in media for years — including in SEO — before creating the <a href="https://www.selfemployedfaq.com/">Self-Employed FAQ</a> in March. The subscription-driven business acts as a help guide for people who are new to self-employment or who simply have a specific question they can’t get an answer to elsewhere. </p>

 <p>Most of Cusick’s answers to queries like “Do I need an accountant?” or “What are my healthcare options?” are behind a paywall, so she curates a small number of unlocked articles meant to give prospective customers a sampling of what she offers. These are what Cusick calls “SEO plays.”</p>


 <p>For these articles, she is <a href="https://www.selfemployedfaq.com/how-to-pay-yourself-single-member-llc">only targeting long-tail keywords</a> — lengthier search terms that are often more specific and, as a result, have fewer people searching for them and are less competitive.</p>

 <p>“The keyword search term that I am going for is, ‘How to pay yourself from a single member LLC.’ My game is entirely long-tail keywords,” she says. “I’m not even competing with ‘How to pay myself LLC.’ Like, that’s too high of a term for me, let alone something like ‘LLC.’”</p>

 <p>Cusick wrestles with the disconnect between who her business is for — scared, uncertain people trying to make a living — and the SEO requirements she needs to fulfill. Time strategizing and reading technical manuals can feel like time “stolen” from making in-person connections and writing paywalled articles meant to help people through self-employment.</p>

 <p>“I will need to have a different page for humans, and then another page that’s more of a directory that points humans who’ve arrived to the directory to other pages that will tell them a story,” she says. “The directory page can be structured in a way that makes search engine crawlers satisfied.” In Cusick’s view, we’re asking one piece of content to do too much: fulfill all the SEO requirements <em>and </em>do<em> </em>the careful, uninterrupted work of getting real answers to a reader.</p>

 <p class="pullquote"></p><q>I rewrote my prose over and over, but it didn’t seem to satisfy my robot grader</q><p>In an emailed statement, Google spokesperson Jennifer Kutz offered a dozen links to public documentation around search, along with generalities about keeping content “helpful” and “relevant.” All points underscored the company’s most common refrain: make content for human audiences.
 </p><p>“We’ve given longstanding guidance to create content that’s first and foremost helpful, and we work very hard to ensure that our ranking systems reward content designed for people first. Many sites perform well on Search simply by creating this helpful content, without undertaking extensive SEO efforts,” Kutz tells <em>The Verge</em>. “We continuously refine our ranking systems, and where we identify areas we can improve in ranking people-first content, we prioritize them. For more than a year, we’ve had focused efforts to <a href="https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-discussions-forums-news/">show</a> more <a href="https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-perspectives/">content</a> based on first-hand <a href="https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-november-2023-update/">experience</a> in Search, and to <a href="https://blog.google/products/search/more-content-by-people-for-people-in-search/">reduce</a> content created solely for search engines, and this work continues.”</p>

 <p>Kutz did not comment on my questions around specific strategies outlined in this piece, saying that giving granular guidance might make creators “lose sight” of the people-first guidance put forth by Google. Instead, the advice is for website operators to “ask themselves if [a tactic] would be helpful for someone visiting their site.”</p>

 <p>But in order to be helpful to readers, website operators need people to visit their site in the first place. Fine-tuning content to match exact search terms is a common strategy that can entice users to click on a page that looks like it will answer their question. That doesn’t guarantee content will be better or even good — and sometimes, how users search can create an echo chamber of errors, oft-repeated misinformation, or poorly researched content.</p>

 <p>One instance of errors multiplying sticks out to Bromilow, the food writer. For a while, he says that Google was returning a litany of incorrect information about Ethiopian cardamom, or korarima. Though black cardamom and korarima look similar, their flavors are not. Websites and writers — and by extension, Google results — were confusing the ingredients. At one point, Bromilow says the first picture on Google Images was of the wrong plant. </p>


 <p>“If people are searching the wrong thing because that’s what they’ve been given, how do you return a result to them that explains that they’re incorrect, while also being found by them?” Bromilow says. “You don’t want to reinforce the mistake, right? It’s really weird and complicated.”</p>

 <p>That Ethiopian recipes are being translated from Amharic to English also brings a host of problems: how should Bromilow spell the names of dishes? Should he use whatever spelling people are searching for the most? <a href="https://www.diversivore.com/savory-pancakes-with-four-variations/">A post on savory pancakes</a> sums it up, in which the Canadian Bromilow explains why he’s opted to omit the “u” in savoury: “The choice, while it breaks my maple-syrup filled heart, is obvious — savory is searched for more often, and using that spelling is more likely to [get] a recipe noticed by the all-powerful and oft-mysterious search engine algorithms.”</p>

 <p>To understand what pure SEO-optimized writing looks like, I put <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26/23931825/google-search-local-seo-thai-food-near-me-maps">my recent story about Google-optimized local businesses</a> through an SEO tool called Semrush that’s reportedly used by 10 million people. </p>

 <p>Among its suggestions: write a longer headline; split a six-sentence paragraph up because it’s “too long”; and replace “too complex” words like “invariably,” “notoriety,” and “modification.” Dozens of sentences were flagged as being confusing (I disagree) — and it really hated em dashes. I rewrote my prose over and over, but it didn’t seem to satisfy my robot grader. I finally chose one thought per sentence, broke up paragraphs, and replaced words with suggested keywords to get rid of the red dots signaling problems. </p>

 <p>The result feels like an AI summary of my story — at any moment, a paragraph could start with “In conclusion…” or “The next thing to consider is…” The nuance, voice, and unexpected twists and turns have been snuffed out. I’m sure some people would prefer this uncomplicated, beat-by-beat version of the story, but it’s gone from being a story written by a real person to a clinical, stiff series of sentences.</p>

 <p>Now imagine thousands of website operators all using this same plug-in to rewrite content. No wonder people feel like the answers are increasingly robotic and say nothing.</p>

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 <div class="text-block ">
 <h2>4.  Building “trust,” Google’s way</h2>
 <p>If you’re a regular reader of <em>The Verge</em>, you might have noticed some changes to our author bylines in recent months: they’re a lot longer, with more details, name-dropping, and quantifying our professional experiences. You can thank Google for that.</p>

 <p>In December 2022, Google updated the metrics it uses to assess the quality of the content it serves up to searchers. Previously, the company looked for expertise, authority, and trust in webpages — <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/12/google-raters-guidelines-e-e-a-t">now, the company said it would tack on <em>experience</em></a> to the rating system. In SEO parlance, it’s called E-E-A-T. </p>

 <p>Demonstrating<em> </em>experience by Google’s standards is supposed to show audiences that the person producing the content has participated in the topic matter in some way. If they’re writing about hairdryers, one way to show experience might be a reviewer mentioning how they’ve tested different products themselves. If someone is recommending a restaurant, they could indicate they dined there. The emphasis on experience and trust is in response to issues that, in some ways, are Google’s own creation — on Search, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/google-alphabet-ads-fund-disinformation-covid-elections">anyone can profit from clicks</a>, including websites spewing disinformation.  </p>

 <p>It’s easy to notice these attempts to prove “experience” in the wild: on <em>CNET, </em><a href="https://www.cnet.com/profiles/connieguglielmo/">author bios have very literal subheadings</a> like “expertise” and “credentials.” Earlier this year, <em>The New York Times</em> began adding enhanced bylines to some stories. A recent investigation into Kanye West’s business deals with Adidas reads, “For this article, Megan Twohey traveled to Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles; interviewed current and former employees of Adidas and of Kanye West; and obtained hundreds of previously undisclosed internal records.” The<em> Times </em><a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/05/the-new-york-times-launches-enhanced-bylines-with-more-information-about-how-journalists-did-the-reporting/">told Nieman Lab</a> the change wasn’t prompted by Google’s policy update, but it’s just the kind of sign of trustworthiness Google likes.</p>

 <p>The problem, of course, is that anyone can write up an author bio promising years of expertise — and writing that you’re an expert doesn’t make it true. In November, <em>Sports Illustrated </em>was caught publishing articles <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/27/23978389/sports-illustrated-ai-fake-authors-advon-commerce-gannett-usa-today">attributed to AI-generated authors</a>, complete with specific biographical information and what they like to do in their free time.</p>

 <p class="pullquote"></p><q>The problem is that anyone can write up a bio promising years of expertise</q><p>For reputable news outlets, the challenge of producing work that Google likes <em>and </em>that meets high-quality standards is magnified; you can’t fill articles with SEO-bait keywords without readers noticing. Shelby Blackley, SEO editor at <em>The Athletic</em>, emphasizes that her work’s goal is to get reporters’ stories in front of readers without sacrificing the integrity of the journalism for Google’s algorithms.
 </p><p>“The philosophy that I’ve always had is the journalism comes first. And regardless of what we try to do from a search perspective, or what Google wants, [that] is always going to be after the journalism,” Blackley tells <em>The Verge.</em></p>

 <p>Blackley co-writes the popular <a href="https://www.seoforjournalism.com/"><em>WTF is SEO? </em>newsletter</a> with Jessie Willms, SEO editor at <em>The Guardian. WTF is SEO? </em>is a guide for newsroom SEO editors and audience experts who want to make sure content will reach Google users, but not at the expense of the reporting. Until recently, there were few SEO resources for people in roles like theirs, Willms says.</p>

 <p>Showing Google that an author has experience in the topic will look different depending on the type of journalism, says Willms. An investigative team might create an accompanying explainer detailing how they went about requesting records, finding sources, and fact-checking their story; a laptop reviewer, meanwhile, might publish a piece explaining how they assess and test products, so readers know they can trust their reviews.</p>

 <p>But even as publications double down to try to prove their experience, and AI-generated synthetic content floods platforms, Google is increasingly trusting and elevating individuals — and sometimes anonymous users. Earlier this summer, some in the SEO industry noticed that <a href="https://www.amsive.com/insights/seo/google-august-2023-core-update-winners-losers-analysis/">Reddit’s visibility on Google was skyrocketing</a>, and <a href="https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-hidden-gems-ranking-algorithm-36388.html">Google later revealed</a> it had deployed a “hidden gems” algorithm to surface content from forums or blogs. It’s as if Google saw the discourse about adding “reddit” to the end of search queries and decided to systematize it. Google is also increasingly elevating user-generated content in Search <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/10/google-perspectives-integrates-reddit-youtube-tiktok-and-more-in-search-results/">through a “Perspectives” filter</a> that features content from TikTok and other platforms. </p>

 <p>The sleazier SEO strategists have already caught on, waiting and hoping for their chance to exploit whatever Google prioritizes. There are product recommendation articles with titles like “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231205230522/https://intoptrend.com/best-espresso-machine-reddit/">Best Espresso Machine Reddit 2023</a>” and entire websites filled with reviews “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231206211804/https://redditconsumer.com/gaming-2/best-graphics-card-reddit/">according to Reddit</a>” that appear to be fake accounts talking to each other. Some subreddits <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskConsumerAdvice/comments/13m90er/reddit_users_recommend_these_air_purifiers_in_2023/">are overrun</a> with affiliate link spam.</p>

 <p>The problem with setting up an ever-scaling system of winners and losers is that someone will always try to cheat and, at least for a bit, they’ll get away with it.</p>

 </div>

 <div class="text-block  endmark">
 <h2>5. Generative AI and the future of Search</h2>
 <p>Earlier this year, Google unveiled what could become the biggest shift in how people find information online since the advent of Search: <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/10/23717120/google-search-ai-results-generated-experience-io">results generated using artificial intelligence</a>.</p>

 <p>When users opt in to Search Generative Experience (SGE), Google puts AI content front and center, spitting out AI answers and placing them above organic search results. Google has experimented with how to cite sources its AI tool is pulling from, but SGE takes up valuable real estate on the results page, pushing down standard links and potentially killing publishers’ traffic. Why keep scrolling if you can find an answer to your cooking question right at the top of the page?</p>

 <p>SEO experts are already thinking about how AI search might change the content they produce. Publishers could double down on creating content in categories that Google <em>won’t </em>include in SGE, for example, like health, finance, or others where the risk of getting it wrong could have negative consequences. Google calls those categories Your Money or Your Life and says <a href="https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//search/howsearchworks/google-about-SGE.pdf">SGE, like Search, requires a higher bar</a> for ranking in these areas. Publishers have a way to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/28/23894779/google-ai-extended-training-data-toggle-bard-vertex">block Google from training its chatbot, Bard, on their work</a>, but <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-pushes-deeper-into-ai-publishers-see-fresh-challenges-2023-10-19/">there’s currently no way to opt out of SGE</a> without also disappearing from Search — a death sentence for most outlets.</p>

 <p>Some bloggers are also strategizing for the coming AI wave and its potential for destabilizing their business. Zhen Zhou, who runs the cooking blog <a href="https://www.greedygirlgourmet.com/"><em>Greedy Girl Gourmet</em></a>, recently started a second site focused on traveling in Asia with elderly relatives, believing it’s a niche that is relatively untapped on Google. The hope is that the travel blog and its contents will fare better in the face of generative AI search results than Asian cooking will.</p>

 <p>“Maybe after a while the AI will trawl the internet enough to give you just as good recommendations, but at least I think there’s slightly more longevity there,” Zhou says.</p>

 <p class="pullquote"></p><q>“I have zero desire to satisfy a checklist for generative AI.”</q><p>But others, like Cusick, are pulling back. Instead of pivoting to write for whatever role generative AI will play in search, Cusick says she is doubling down on the tactics that work for her, which are often one-to-one, intimate interactions with potential customers.
 </p><p>“I have zero desire to satisfy a checklist for generative AI or suddenly change tactics in a way that doesn’t align with my values,” she says. These days, outside of Search, Cusick has found success through in-person speaking events or private Discord communities — instead of hitching her wagon to Google and its algorithm, these avenues feel more sustainable.</p>

 <p>Though Google has maintained a monopoly on search for years, there are signs that could be changing. <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23869483/us-v-google-search-antitrust-case-updates">The <em>US v. Google</em> antitrust case</a> hinges on Search, its biggest and most ubiquitous product. Other platforms like TikTok are <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23365101/tiktok-search-google-replacement">increasingly being used</a> by young people as a search engine, and the video platform has been <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/21/23884278/tiktok-google-search-results-antitrust-case">testing a partnership with Google</a> to insert search queries into TikTok results pages. </p>

 <p>Publishers are already strategizing how their content will need to change as the impending generative AI takeover looms closer. But chasing algorithms <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23450270/buzzfeed-social-media-aggregation-news-digital-media">has never worked out for the media industry</a>, and increasingly, it looks like <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23846048/google-search-memes-images-pagerank-altavista-seo-keywords">this era of search online is waning</a>.</p>

 <p>SEO experts like Willms and Blackley are thinking in the long term about how to reliably reach their audiences. Algorithms — and the platforms themselves — ebb and flow; what sticks around is the audience base who comes straight to you.</p>

 <p>The habit of prioritizing Google is hard to break — it’s quite impossible to ignore the biggest search company in the world. And though 25 years of living in Google’s world feels eternal, it’s also a drop in the bucket. If Google knows anything, it’s that a young upstart can <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23846048/google-search-memes-images-pagerank-altavista-seo-keywords">come along and change everything</a>.</p>

 <p>But no matter what happens with Search, there’s already a splintering: a web full of cheap, low-effort content and a whole world of human-first art, entertainment, and information that lives behind paywalls, in private chat rooms, and on websites that are working toward a more sustainable model. As with young people using TikTok for search, or the practice of adding “reddit” to search queries, users are signaling they want a different way to find things and feel no particular loyalty to Google.</p>

 <p>It’s all but certain that a new era of content relentlessly optimized for AI search engines is bound to result in the same kinds of problems we have today. And with that realization, there is a chance at another way forward, without the almost religious dependence on Google; searching and creating for a vacillating overlord feels increasingly futile. And when the creators and searchers leave the web for good, Google will have nobody to blame but itself.</p>

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--- a/cache/2024/3debc675a055d691b32c7d6904531eb4/index.md
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 title: How Google perfected the web
 url: https://www.theverge.com/c/23998379/google-search-seo-algorithm-webpage-optimization
 hash_url: 3debc675a055d691b32c7d6904531eb4
 archive_date: 2024-01-09

 <div class="text-block ">
 <p>As the 14th season of Bravo’s <em>Real Housewives of New York City </em>came to a close this fall, I found myself on Reddit, reading rumors about the marriage and divorce timeline of one of the show’s stars. Redditors wanted more clues about a fishy relationship history to see if they could uncover a cheating scandal.</p>

 <p><em>Were divorce papers public record in New York?</em> I wondered. I did a quick Google search to find out.</p>

 <p>The search results page was filled with my question’s exact words, repeated across site after site — websites for law firms, posts on forums, ads for creepy lookup tools — but the answer to my actual question was harder to find. At the top of the results page on my phone, Google offered two featured snippets of information quoting different websites. The first one: “Divorce records are <strong>not public in New York</strong> due to the sensitive nature of many divorce proceedings.” The second: “Due to the state’s underlying legislation regarding family law cases, <strong>each divorce is a matter of public record.</strong>”</p>

 <p>Google bolded both snippets, but it wasn’t clear to me how they squared. I clicked on both.</p>

 <p>The two law firm websites were part of an ecosystem I didn’t know existed until I accidentally went looking for it. Law firms across different fields — family law, personal injury, employment lawyers — have blogs full of keyword-addled articles being churned out at a surprisingly fast clip. The goal for firms is simple: be the top result to pop up on Google when someone is looking for legal help. The searcher might just end up hiring them.</p>

 <p>Many of these blog posts are written by people like E., a self-employed content writer who juggles law firm clients that want Google-friendly content. E. does not have a legal background; they’re just a competent writer who can turn in clean copy. They trawl health department records, looking for nursing homes that get citations for neglect or other infractions. Then E. writes a blog post about it for a firm, making sure to include the name of the offender and the wrongdoing — keywords for which concerned patients or families will likely be searching. (E. requested anonymity so as to not jeopardize their employment.)</p>


 <p>“My bosses, they all don’t want anyone else to know that they use me or that we have the specific process that we have,” E. says. Their name is nowhere to be found, but their writing is often the first thing a searcher will see. The pages were made to be found by people like me.</p>

 <p>Google controls around <a href="https://www.similarweb.com/engines/united-states/">90 percent of the search market</a>, by some measures, so it’s too valuable a referral source to just leave up to luck. Search engine optimization — or SEO, the practice of tweaking content and websites to get Google to boost your visibility — is everywhere, including on the page you’re reading now. And once you see it or SEO-ify your own work, like E. has, it’s impossible not to notice.</p>

 <p>Google’s outsized influence on how we find things <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23712602/google-search-25-years-anniversary-ai-artificial-intelligence">has been 25 years in the making</a>, and the people running businesses online have tried countless methods of getting Google to surface their content. Some business owners use generative AI to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23753963/google-seo-shopify-small-business-ai">make Google-optimized blog posts</a> so they can turn around and sell tchotchkes; brick-and-mortar businesses are <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26/23931825/google-search-local-seo-thai-food-near-me-maps">picking funny names like “Thai Food Near Me”</a> to try to game Google’s local search algorithm. <a href="https://www.theverge.com/features/23931789/seo-search-engine-optimization-experts-google-results">An entire SEO industry</a> has sprung up, dedicated to trying to understand (or outsmart) Google Search. </p>

 <p>The relentless optimizing of pages, words, paragraphs, photos, and hundreds of other variables has led to a wasteland of capital-C Content that is competing for increasingly dwindling Google Search real estate as generative AI rears its head. You’ve seen it before: the awkward subheadings and text that repeats the same phrases a dozen times, the articles that say nothing but which are sprayed with links that in turn direct you to other meaningless pages. Much of the information we find on the web — and much of what’s produced for the web in the first place — is designed to get Google’s attention.</p>

 <p>We often hear about the latest engagement hacks on other platforms like Instagram, TikTok, or X, formerly known as Twitter. But Google is consequential above all of these, acting essentially as the referee of the web. Yet deep knowledge of how its systems work is largely limited to industry publications and marketing firms — as users, we don’t get an explanation of why sites suddenly look different or how Google ranks one website above another. It just happens.</p>

 <p>Bit by bit, the internet has been remade in Google’s image. And it’s humans — not machines — who have to deal with the consequences.</p>

 </div>



 <div class="text-block ">
 <h2>1. Site performance and accessibility</h2>
 <p>There’s an inherent contradiction in what Google promises is the best way to succeed on Search. Publicly, Google representatives like search liaison Danny Sullivan give a simple, almost quaint answer to business owners who want help: you just need to make great content for people, not Google’s robots.</p>

 <p>At the same time, Google’s “<a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide">SEO Starter Guide</a>” is nearly 9,000 words long with dozens of links to additional material. There are several SEO industry publications, plus an untold number of scrappy blogs, marketing firms, and self-proclaimed SEO gurus promising to demystify Google’s black box algorithm. Small business owners must either learn how to do SEO or hire someone — even multiple people or special firms — to do it for them. It’s expensive, time consuming, and often confusing work, and failure to learn the ropes could mean trouble if your traffic begins to tank unexpectedly. Google executives like Sullivan often respond to the folk wisdom of the SEO industry with a six-word incantation meant to absolve them of the industry’s worst practices: <em>that’s not what the guidelines say</em>. It can feel like the guidelines are there to protect Google’s reputation, not actually help anyone get search traffic.</p>

 <p>Optimizing pages for Google isn’t inherently a bad thing. Google uses its influence over the web to push for objectively good results, <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ranking-factors/page-speed/">like fast-loading sites</a> and accessibility features like alt text on images, which can help audiences understand what’s on a page if an image doesn’t load or if readers use assistive technology like screen readers. Google’s <a href="https://web.dev/articles/vitals#core-web-vitals">Core Web Vitals</a> metric pushes down sites with certain kinds of intrusive ads or which have slow-loading ads that cause content on the page to shift around.</p>

 <p class="pullquote"></p><q>“[Google’s changes] did sort of homogenize the design of the internet.”</q><p>Perhaps Google’s most benevolent push has been toward a fast, mobile-first web that has forced small and large publishers alike to overhaul their publishing platforms. But even that effort has come with collateral damage — see the entire news industry reluctantly <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23711172/google-amp-accelerated-mobile-pages-search-publishers-lawsuit">embracing Google’s AMP format</a> — or in the case of smaller blogs, a flattening and whitewashing of web design across the board.
 </p><p>Valerie Stimac Bailey, a professional blogger of a decade, remembers in 2021 when Google began using a <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/04/more-details-page-experience">new metric</a> to rank sites, called “page experience,” that emphasized giving readers a “<a href="https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2020/05/evaluating-page-experience#about-page-experience">delightful</a>” web to browse. Passing Google’s Core Web Vitals tests became all the more important — Google would look at load times, interactivity, and whether visual elements would move around unexpectedly. </p>

 <p>Bloggers like Stimac Bailey, along with an untold number of other site operators and web companies, saw the writing on the wall: Google might not like your old site, with its giant logos and custom fonts, or the ads that cause text to jump around. Companies like Mediavine, a popular ad-management company, <a href="https://www.mediavine.com/newsroom/mediavine-rolls-out-wordpress-theme-framework-to-the-open-web-empowering-independent-publishers-to-pass-googles-core-web-vitals/">released web design frameworks</a> optimized for this new Google metric and Stimac Bailey, like many others, switched and redesigned her site. But she found the new theme “sterile,” she tells me, and it lacked customization options. It didn’t feel like part of her brand.</p>

 <p>“I get that that probably was the impetus for a lot of people with really old, slow themes that were not handling mobile well to move to something that was faster for the world of the mobile-first indexing and internet,” Stimac Bailey says. “That was a good impact… but simultaneously, it did sort of homogenize the design of the internet.”</p>

 <p>Stimac Bailey, who in the past published up to 11 blogs at a time, has experimented with different website themes. All eight of her current sites look nearly identical — her <a href="https://www.valisemag.com/">Alaska travel blog <em>Valerie &amp; Valise</em></a> looks the same as <em>Site School</em>, a blog where she <a href="https://siteschool.co/q3-2023-check-in/#Eat_Like_Bourdain">shares data-heavy analyses</a> of how her portfolio of websites is performing. </p>

 <p>“People spent a lot of money, and a lot of time, and a lot of heartache and stress and psychology redesigning websites,” Stimac Bailey says.</p>

 <p>Taking Google’s advice on creating good, fast, accessible websites sounds nice in theory; why not do what the search engine prefers and help your readers in the process? Creators I spoke to acknowledged that changes sometimes benefit Google and readers alike. But the line between what’s good for the search algorithm and what’s good for audiences has become blurry over time, and in some cases, the two are treated essentially as the same thing.</p>

 </div>



 <div class="text-block ">
 <h2>2. Page design and structure of articles</h2>
 <p>The small, behind-the-scenes changes site operators deployed over the years have made browsing the web — especially on mobile — more frictionless and enjoyable. But Google’s preferences and systems don’t just guide how sites run: Search has also influenced how information looks and how audiences experience the internet. The project of optimizing your digital existence for Google doesn’t stop at page design. The content has to conform, too.</p>

 <p>Take, for example, the question-based subheadings that are rampant on pages ranging from <a href="https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/what-is-an-ira/">personal finance explainers</a> to <a href="https://thepointsguy.com/guide/best-time-to-book-a-flight/">travel tips</a> to <a href="https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/home-lifestyle/a41502817/when-is-daylight-saving-time/">annual event reminders</a>. Sections like “When should I make IRA contributions?” or “What states are getting rid of Daylight Savings time?” will cascade down a page, presumably to help a reader scan for information. But subheadings are also a piece of information Google uses to understand what a page is about and to rank it in Search. Historically, subheadings <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ranking-factors/html-heading-tags-h2-h6/">have been an easy, fast way</a> to juice content for maximum visibility.</p>

 <p>Some bloggers and outlets scrape the “People Also Ask” panel on search results pages for ideas: the Google-curated section spits out strangely worded or oddly specific questions like, “What is the healthiest vegetable 2023?” and “What two vegetables can be eaten raw?”</p>

 <p>Sean Bromilow, a food writer based in Canada, has reformatted his blog posts in hopes that Google will pick up his content for placement in these fields. On a page for cucamelons, he added an FAQ section featuring questions like, “How do you eat cucamelons?” and “Are cucamelons a GMO?”</p>

 <p>“I did that in direct response to Google’s [People Also Ask questions] that they introduced,” he says. </p>

 <p class="pullquote"></p><q>Some creators scrape the “People Also Ask” panel for story ideas</q><p>A Q&amp;A format might often be the most effective way to write a story or share information — I’ve <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23802895/sag-aftra-writers-guild-strikes-hollywood-influencer-rules">done stories in this format</a>, too. But other times, question-based subheadings are harder to read, repeating the same phrases without adding anything substantial. Browse <a href="https://sublimelife.in/blogs/sublime-stories/gua-sha-101-everything-you-need-to-know-about-how-to-use-a-gua-sha">this article about gua sha</a>, a massaging technique with roots in traditional Chinese medicine, and you’ll find headings including, “What is a gua sha,” “What are the benefits of a gua sha,” “How to find your gua sha,” and “How to use your gua sha.”
 </p><p>A table of contents, too, has become a common sight, appearing at the top of articles. On a post about <a href="https://www.valisemag.com/alaska-big-five/">animals to look out for in Alaska</a>, for example, Stimac Bailey has 10 sections in the table of contents, each linking to the corresponding part of the blog post. Having a linked table of contents allows readers to skip to the part they most want to read, like if someone is strictly interested in seeing caribou.</p>

 <p>But the table of contents sections also work as jump links on Google Search that appear below the headline and other metadata. Stimac Bailey gets a reasonable amount of traffic to her <a href="https://www.valisemag.com/pacific-coast-highway-guide/">Pacific Coast Highway guide</a>, not from searchers clicking the title but through people clicking on one of the jump links below. Some SEO strategists even debate whether bloggers should leave their table of contents expanded or collapsed for maximum SEO juice. Stimac Bailey keeps hers collapsed but recently heard from a person selling SEO services that your table of contents should be auto-expanded.</p>

 <p>“At a certain point, I don’t care if it costs me time on site or it costs me ad views or costs me bounce rate or whatever it might be,” she says. “I like my site to look the way I want it to look, so that’s what I’m going to do.”</p>

 <p>But many websites just do what they think Google wants or what’s being recommended by SEO experts, even if there’s no guarantee it will work. Google is both overbearing with manuals and withholding of clear answers. Give too much away, and everyone could game the system. In that void, creators and website operators throw things at the wall to see what sticks. And once they start designing their page for Google, it’s easy for their content to be fashioned for Google, too.</p>

 </div>



 <div class="text-block ">
 <h2>3. Keyword research and what content is made</h2>
 <p>For publishers handcuffed to Google Search traffic, there’s often no reason to produce content if people aren’t searching for it. So marketers, writers, and bloggers use a suite of keyword research tools to assess whether there’s enough interest to write the article or make the video in the first place. The result is that publishers end up producing a mountain of material, with Google keywords essentially acting like the assigning editor.</p>

 <p>When Stimac Bailey writes for her <a href="https://londonmymind.com/">London travel blog</a>, for example, she strategically picks topics that the site will be able to rank highly for — keywords and topics that are too competitive get put on the backburner.</p>

 <p>“[My writers and I] work on picking topics together, but we need them to be productive because not only am I [monetizing them], I’m paying people for their work, and I’m trying to pay very fairly for that work,” she says. “It’s like, ‘I gotta find these low-competition, high-volume, magic keywords.” For a popular destination like London, those magic keywords don’t really exist.</p>

 <p>Catherine Cusick understands this tension well. Cusick worked in media for years — including in SEO — before creating the <a href="https://www.selfemployedfaq.com/">Self-Employed FAQ</a> in March. The subscription-driven business acts as a help guide for people who are new to self-employment or who simply have a specific question they can’t get an answer to elsewhere. </p>

 <p>Most of Cusick’s answers to queries like “Do I need an accountant?” or “What are my healthcare options?” are behind a paywall, so she curates a small number of unlocked articles meant to give prospective customers a sampling of what she offers. These are what Cusick calls “SEO plays.”</p>


 <p>For these articles, she is <a href="https://www.selfemployedfaq.com/how-to-pay-yourself-single-member-llc">only targeting long-tail keywords</a> — lengthier search terms that are often more specific and, as a result, have fewer people searching for them and are less competitive.</p>

 <p>“The keyword search term that I am going for is, ‘How to pay yourself from a single member LLC.’ My game is entirely long-tail keywords,” she says. “I’m not even competing with ‘How to pay myself LLC.’ Like, that’s too high of a term for me, let alone something like ‘LLC.’”</p>

 <p>Cusick wrestles with the disconnect between who her business is for — scared, uncertain people trying to make a living — and the SEO requirements she needs to fulfill. Time strategizing and reading technical manuals can feel like time “stolen” from making in-person connections and writing paywalled articles meant to help people through self-employment.</p>

 <p>“I will need to have a different page for humans, and then another page that’s more of a directory that points humans who’ve arrived to the directory to other pages that will tell them a story,” she says. “The directory page can be structured in a way that makes search engine crawlers satisfied.” In Cusick’s view, we’re asking one piece of content to do too much: fulfill all the SEO requirements <em>and </em>do<em> </em>the careful, uninterrupted work of getting real answers to a reader.</p>

 <p class="pullquote"></p><q>I rewrote my prose over and over, but it didn’t seem to satisfy my robot grader</q><p>In an emailed statement, Google spokesperson Jennifer Kutz offered a dozen links to public documentation around search, along with generalities about keeping content “helpful” and “relevant.” All points underscored the company’s most common refrain: make content for human audiences.
 </p><p>“We’ve given longstanding guidance to create content that’s first and foremost helpful, and we work very hard to ensure that our ranking systems reward content designed for people first. Many sites perform well on Search simply by creating this helpful content, without undertaking extensive SEO efforts,” Kutz tells <em>The Verge</em>. “We continuously refine our ranking systems, and where we identify areas we can improve in ranking people-first content, we prioritize them. For more than a year, we’ve had focused efforts to <a href="https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-discussions-forums-news/">show</a> more <a href="https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-perspectives/">content</a> based on first-hand <a href="https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-november-2023-update/">experience</a> in Search, and to <a href="https://blog.google/products/search/more-content-by-people-for-people-in-search/">reduce</a> content created solely for search engines, and this work continues.”</p>

 <p>Kutz did not comment on my questions around specific strategies outlined in this piece, saying that giving granular guidance might make creators “lose sight” of the people-first guidance put forth by Google. Instead, the advice is for website operators to “ask themselves if [a tactic] would be helpful for someone visiting their site.”</p>

 <p>But in order to be helpful to readers, website operators need people to visit their site in the first place. Fine-tuning content to match exact search terms is a common strategy that can entice users to click on a page that looks like it will answer their question. That doesn’t guarantee content will be better or even good — and sometimes, how users search can create an echo chamber of errors, oft-repeated misinformation, or poorly researched content.</p>

 <p>One instance of errors multiplying sticks out to Bromilow, the food writer. For a while, he says that Google was returning a litany of incorrect information about Ethiopian cardamom, or korarima. Though black cardamom and korarima look similar, their flavors are not. Websites and writers — and by extension, Google results — were confusing the ingredients. At one point, Bromilow says the first picture on Google Images was of the wrong plant. </p>


 <p>“If people are searching the wrong thing because that’s what they’ve been given, how do you return a result to them that explains that they’re incorrect, while also being found by them?” Bromilow says. “You don’t want to reinforce the mistake, right? It’s really weird and complicated.”</p>

 <p>That Ethiopian recipes are being translated from Amharic to English also brings a host of problems: how should Bromilow spell the names of dishes? Should he use whatever spelling people are searching for the most? <a href="https://www.diversivore.com/savory-pancakes-with-four-variations/">A post on savory pancakes</a> sums it up, in which the Canadian Bromilow explains why he’s opted to omit the “u” in savoury: “The choice, while it breaks my maple-syrup filled heart, is obvious — savory is searched for more often, and using that spelling is more likely to [get] a recipe noticed by the all-powerful and oft-mysterious search engine algorithms.”</p>

 <p>To understand what pure SEO-optimized writing looks like, I put <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26/23931825/google-search-local-seo-thai-food-near-me-maps">my recent story about Google-optimized local businesses</a> through an SEO tool called Semrush that’s reportedly used by 10 million people. </p>

 <p>Among its suggestions: write a longer headline; split a six-sentence paragraph up because it’s “too long”; and replace “too complex” words like “invariably,” “notoriety,” and “modification.” Dozens of sentences were flagged as being confusing (I disagree) — and it really hated em dashes. I rewrote my prose over and over, but it didn’t seem to satisfy my robot grader. I finally chose one thought per sentence, broke up paragraphs, and replaced words with suggested keywords to get rid of the red dots signaling problems. </p>

 <p>The result feels like an AI summary of my story — at any moment, a paragraph could start with “In conclusion…” or “The next thing to consider is…” The nuance, voice, and unexpected twists and turns have been snuffed out. I’m sure some people would prefer this uncomplicated, beat-by-beat version of the story, but it’s gone from being a story written by a real person to a clinical, stiff series of sentences.</p>

 <p>Now imagine thousands of website operators all using this same plug-in to rewrite content. No wonder people feel like the answers are increasingly robotic and say nothing.</p>

 </div>



 <div class="text-block ">
 <h2>4.  Building “trust,” Google’s way</h2>
 <p>If you’re a regular reader of <em>The Verge</em>, you might have noticed some changes to our author bylines in recent months: they’re a lot longer, with more details, name-dropping, and quantifying our professional experiences. You can thank Google for that.</p>

 <p>In December 2022, Google updated the metrics it uses to assess the quality of the content it serves up to searchers. Previously, the company looked for expertise, authority, and trust in webpages — <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/12/google-raters-guidelines-e-e-a-t">now, the company said it would tack on <em>experience</em></a> to the rating system. In SEO parlance, it’s called E-E-A-T. </p>

 <p>Demonstrating<em> </em>experience by Google’s standards is supposed to show audiences that the person producing the content has participated in the topic matter in some way. If they’re writing about hairdryers, one way to show experience might be a reviewer mentioning how they’ve tested different products themselves. If someone is recommending a restaurant, they could indicate they dined there. The emphasis on experience and trust is in response to issues that, in some ways, are Google’s own creation — on Search, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/google-alphabet-ads-fund-disinformation-covid-elections">anyone can profit from clicks</a>, including websites spewing disinformation.  </p>

 <p>It’s easy to notice these attempts to prove “experience” in the wild: on <em>CNET, </em><a href="https://www.cnet.com/profiles/connieguglielmo/">author bios have very literal subheadings</a> like “expertise” and “credentials.” Earlier this year, <em>The New York Times</em> began adding enhanced bylines to some stories. A recent investigation into Kanye West’s business deals with Adidas reads, “For this article, Megan Twohey traveled to Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles; interviewed current and former employees of Adidas and of Kanye West; and obtained hundreds of previously undisclosed internal records.” The<em> Times </em><a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/05/the-new-york-times-launches-enhanced-bylines-with-more-information-about-how-journalists-did-the-reporting/">told Nieman Lab</a> the change wasn’t prompted by Google’s policy update, but it’s just the kind of sign of trustworthiness Google likes.</p>

 <p>The problem, of course, is that anyone can write up an author bio promising years of expertise — and writing that you’re an expert doesn’t make it true. In November, <em>Sports Illustrated </em>was caught publishing articles <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/27/23978389/sports-illustrated-ai-fake-authors-advon-commerce-gannett-usa-today">attributed to AI-generated authors</a>, complete with specific biographical information and what they like to do in their free time.</p>

 <p class="pullquote"></p><q>The problem is that anyone can write up a bio promising years of expertise</q><p>For reputable news outlets, the challenge of producing work that Google likes <em>and </em>that meets high-quality standards is magnified; you can’t fill articles with SEO-bait keywords without readers noticing. Shelby Blackley, SEO editor at <em>The Athletic</em>, emphasizes that her work’s goal is to get reporters’ stories in front of readers without sacrificing the integrity of the journalism for Google’s algorithms.
 </p><p>“The philosophy that I’ve always had is the journalism comes first. And regardless of what we try to do from a search perspective, or what Google wants, [that] is always going to be after the journalism,” Blackley tells <em>The Verge.</em></p>

 <p>Blackley co-writes the popular <a href="https://www.seoforjournalism.com/"><em>WTF is SEO? </em>newsletter</a> with Jessie Willms, SEO editor at <em>The Guardian. WTF is SEO? </em>is a guide for newsroom SEO editors and audience experts who want to make sure content will reach Google users, but not at the expense of the reporting. Until recently, there were few SEO resources for people in roles like theirs, Willms says.</p>

 <p>Showing Google that an author has experience in the topic will look different depending on the type of journalism, says Willms. An investigative team might create an accompanying explainer detailing how they went about requesting records, finding sources, and fact-checking their story; a laptop reviewer, meanwhile, might publish a piece explaining how they assess and test products, so readers know they can trust their reviews.</p>

 <p>But even as publications double down to try to prove their experience, and AI-generated synthetic content floods platforms, Google is increasingly trusting and elevating individuals — and sometimes anonymous users. Earlier this summer, some in the SEO industry noticed that <a href="https://www.amsive.com/insights/seo/google-august-2023-core-update-winners-losers-analysis/">Reddit’s visibility on Google was skyrocketing</a>, and <a href="https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-hidden-gems-ranking-algorithm-36388.html">Google later revealed</a> it had deployed a “hidden gems” algorithm to surface content from forums or blogs. It’s as if Google saw the discourse about adding “reddit” to the end of search queries and decided to systematize it. Google is also increasingly elevating user-generated content in Search <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/10/google-perspectives-integrates-reddit-youtube-tiktok-and-more-in-search-results/">through a “Perspectives” filter</a> that features content from TikTok and other platforms. </p>

 <p>The sleazier SEO strategists have already caught on, waiting and hoping for their chance to exploit whatever Google prioritizes. There are product recommendation articles with titles like “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231205230522/https://intoptrend.com/best-espresso-machine-reddit/">Best Espresso Machine Reddit 2023</a>” and entire websites filled with reviews “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231206211804/https://redditconsumer.com/gaming-2/best-graphics-card-reddit/">according to Reddit</a>” that appear to be fake accounts talking to each other. Some subreddits <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskConsumerAdvice/comments/13m90er/reddit_users_recommend_these_air_purifiers_in_2023/">are overrun</a> with affiliate link spam.</p>

 <p>The problem with setting up an ever-scaling system of winners and losers is that someone will always try to cheat and, at least for a bit, they’ll get away with it.</p>

 </div>



 <div class="text-block  endmark">
 <h2>5. Generative AI and the future of Search</h2>
 <p>Earlier this year, Google unveiled what could become the biggest shift in how people find information online since the advent of Search: <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/10/23717120/google-search-ai-results-generated-experience-io">results generated using artificial intelligence</a>.</p>

 <p>When users opt in to Search Generative Experience (SGE), Google puts AI content front and center, spitting out AI answers and placing them above organic search results. Google has experimented with how to cite sources its AI tool is pulling from, but SGE takes up valuable real estate on the results page, pushing down standard links and potentially killing publishers’ traffic. Why keep scrolling if you can find an answer to your cooking question right at the top of the page?</p>

 <p>SEO experts are already thinking about how AI search might change the content they produce. Publishers could double down on creating content in categories that Google <em>won’t </em>include in SGE, for example, like health, finance, or others where the risk of getting it wrong could have negative consequences. Google calls those categories Your Money or Your Life and says <a href="https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//search/howsearchworks/google-about-SGE.pdf">SGE, like Search, requires a higher bar</a> for ranking in these areas. Publishers have a way to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/28/23894779/google-ai-extended-training-data-toggle-bard-vertex">block Google from training its chatbot, Bard, on their work</a>, but <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-pushes-deeper-into-ai-publishers-see-fresh-challenges-2023-10-19/">there’s currently no way to opt out of SGE</a> without also disappearing from Search — a death sentence for most outlets.</p>

 <p>Some bloggers are also strategizing for the coming AI wave and its potential for destabilizing their business. Zhen Zhou, who runs the cooking blog <a href="https://www.greedygirlgourmet.com/"><em>Greedy Girl Gourmet</em></a>, recently started a second site focused on traveling in Asia with elderly relatives, believing it’s a niche that is relatively untapped on Google. The hope is that the travel blog and its contents will fare better in the face of generative AI search results than Asian cooking will.</p>

 <p>“Maybe after a while the AI will trawl the internet enough to give you just as good recommendations, but at least I think there’s slightly more longevity there,” Zhou says.</p>

 <p class="pullquote"></p><q>“I have zero desire to satisfy a checklist for generative AI.”</q><p>But others, like Cusick, are pulling back. Instead of pivoting to write for whatever role generative AI will play in search, Cusick says she is doubling down on the tactics that work for her, which are often one-to-one, intimate interactions with potential customers.
 </p><p>“I have zero desire to satisfy a checklist for generative AI or suddenly change tactics in a way that doesn’t align with my values,” she says. These days, outside of Search, Cusick has found success through in-person speaking events or private Discord communities — instead of hitching her wagon to Google and its algorithm, these avenues feel more sustainable.</p>

 <p>Though Google has maintained a monopoly on search for years, there are signs that could be changing. <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23869483/us-v-google-search-antitrust-case-updates">The <em>US v. Google</em> antitrust case</a> hinges on Search, its biggest and most ubiquitous product. Other platforms like TikTok are <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23365101/tiktok-search-google-replacement">increasingly being used</a> by young people as a search engine, and the video platform has been <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/21/23884278/tiktok-google-search-results-antitrust-case">testing a partnership with Google</a> to insert search queries into TikTok results pages. </p>

 <p>Publishers are already strategizing how their content will need to change as the impending generative AI takeover looms closer. But chasing algorithms <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23450270/buzzfeed-social-media-aggregation-news-digital-media">has never worked out for the media industry</a>, and increasingly, it looks like <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23846048/google-search-memes-images-pagerank-altavista-seo-keywords">this era of search online is waning</a>.</p>

 <p>SEO experts like Willms and Blackley are thinking in the long term about how to reliably reach their audiences. Algorithms — and the platforms themselves — ebb and flow; what sticks around is the audience base who comes straight to you.</p>

 <p>The habit of prioritizing Google is hard to break — it’s quite impossible to ignore the biggest search company in the world. And though 25 years of living in Google’s world feels eternal, it’s also a drop in the bucket. If Google knows anything, it’s that a young upstart can <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23846048/google-search-memes-images-pagerank-altavista-seo-keywords">come along and change everything</a>.</p>

 <p>But no matter what happens with Search, there’s already a splintering: a web full of cheap, low-effort content and a whole world of human-first art, entertainment, and information that lives behind paywalls, in private chat rooms, and on websites that are working toward a more sustainable model. As with young people using TikTok for search, or the practice of adding “reddit” to search queries, users are signaling they want a different way to find things and feel no particular loyalty to Google.</p>

 <p>It’s all but certain that a new era of content relentlessly optimized for AI search engines is bound to result in the same kinds of problems we have today. And with that realization, there is a chance at another way forward, without the almost religious dependence on Google; searching and creating for a vacillating overlord feels increasingly futile. And when the creators and searchers leave the web for good, Google will have nobody to blame but itself.</p>

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    <h1>When “Everything” Becomes Too Much: The npm Package Chaos of 2024</h1>
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  <p>Happy 2024, folks! Just when we thought we'd seen it all, an npm user named PatrickJS, aka <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/npm/user/gdi2290">gdi2290</a>, threw us a curveball. He (<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://uncenter.dev/posts/npm-install-everything/">along with a group of contributors</a>) kicked off the year with a bang, launching a troll campaign that uploaded an npm package aptly named <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/npm/package/everything"><code>everything</code></a>. This package, true to its name, depends on every other public npm package, creating millions of transitive dependencies.</p>
 <h3>The Chaos Unleashed</h3>
 <p>The <code>everything</code> package and its 3,000+ sub-packages have caused a <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/glossary/denial-of-service-dos">Denial of Service (DOS)</a> for anyone who installs it. We're talking about storage space running out and system resource exhaustion.</p>
 <p>But that's not all. The creator took their prank to the next level by setting up http://everything.npm.lol, showcasing the chaos they unleashed. They even included a meme from Skyrim, adding some humor (or mockery, depending on your perspective) to the situation.</p>
 <h4><code>everything</code>'s <code>package.json</code> file</h4>
 <pre class="css-1nw4yob"><code class="chakra-code css-y2ougk" lang="json">{
  "name": "everything",
  "version": "3.0.0",
  "description": "npm install everything",
  "main": "index.js",
  "contributors": [
    "PatrickJS &lt;github@patrickjs.com&gt;",
    "uncenter &lt;hi@uncenter.dev&gt;",
    "ChatGPT &lt;chatgpt@openai.com&gt;",
    "trash &lt;trash@trash.dev&gt;",
    "Hacksore &lt;sean@boult.me&gt;"
  ],
  "scripts": {},
  "keywords": [
    "everything",
    "allthethings",
    "everymodule"
  ],
  "license": "MIT",
  "homepage": "https://github.com/everything-registry/everything",
  "repository": {
    "type": "git",
    "url": "git+https://github.com/everything-registry/everything.git"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "@everything-registry/chunk-0": "0.1.0",
    "@everything-registry/chunk-1": "0.1.0",
    "@everything-registry/chunk-2": "0.1.0",
    "@everything-registry/chunk-3": "0.1.0",
    "@everything-registry/chunk-4": "0.1.0"
  }
 }</code></pre>
 <h3>Echoes of the Past</h3>
 <p>This isn't the first time we've seen such a stunt. Last year, the <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/npm/package/no-one-left-behind/overview/2018.2.10"><code>no-one-left-behind</code></a> package by <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/npm/user/zalastax">Zalastax</a> attempted something similar. It was removed, but then reemerged under a different scope with over 33,000 sub-packages. It's like playing whack-a-mole with npm packages!</p>
 <p>It’s also reminiscent of a package called “hoarders” that used to directly depend on every module on npm (approximately 20,000 in 2012). It was published by software engineer Josh Holbrook, created to be “node.js's most complete utility grab bag.”</p>
 <p>In an effort to maintain a secure and reliable ecosystem for JavaScript developers, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://github.com/jfhbrook/hoarders#history">hoarders was effectively “cancelled”</a> by Isaac Schlueter (creator of the npm package manager) after a year, due to the strain it caused on the registry's database.</p>
 <h3>Unintended Consequences</h3>
 <p>The "everything" package, with its 5 sub-packages and thousands of dependencies, has essentially locked down the ability for authors to unpublish their packages. This situation is due to npm's policy shift following the infamous <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://qz.com/646467/how-one-programmer-broke-the-internet-by-deleting-a-tiny-piece-of-code">"left-pad" incident in 2016</a>, where a popular package <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/npm/package/left-pad"><code>left-pad</code></a> was removed, grinding development to a halt across much of the developer world. In response, npm tightened its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://docs.npmjs.com/policies/unpublish">rules around unpublishing</a>, specifically preventing the unpublishing of any package that is used by another package.</p>
 <p>Ironically, this policy trapped PatrickJS in his own web. Upon realizing the impact of his prank, he attempted to remove the <code>everything</code> package but was unable to do so. He reached out to the npm support team for help, but the damage was done.</p>
 <p>PatrickJS wrote this apology on GitHub in a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://github.com/everything-registry/everything/issues/17">since-removed GitHub issue</a>:</p>
 <blockquote>Hi all! First, just want to apologize about any difficulties this package has caused. We are working to resolve the issues and we have contacted NPM regarding support with this matter (see below). We appreciate your patience.<br><br>The major issue here is that when a package depends on another package at a specific version, that version cannot be unpublished. We've since realized there is an issue with "star" versions - a.k.a depending on any/all versions of another package ( "package-xyz": "*" ) - any version of that package is now unable to unpublish. As I previously mentioned, we've reached out to npm and are hoping they can either A) allow folks to unpublish when the packages that depend on them use a "star" version, B) not permit star versions in published packages going forward, or as a last resort, C) remove our npm organization entirely (and remove all of the packages that are blocking unpublishing). As far as we can tell, there is simply nothing we can do on our own - we can't unpublish the packages ourselves (because other packages depend on them) and publishing a new version over them doesn't change anything.</blockquote>
 <p>However, we now see that while <code>everything</code> remains on the registry, the <code>@everything-registry</code> scoped packages have been made private, potentially offering a resolution.</p>
 <h3>The Ripple Effect</h3>
 <p>This whole saga is more than just a digital prank. It highlights the <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/blog/inside-node-modules">ongoing challenges</a> in package management within the npm ecosystem. For developers, it's a reminder of the cascading effects of dependencies and the importance of mindful package creation, maintenance, and consumption.</p>
 <p><img alt=" " loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/cgdhsj6q/production/14461d25dd2f7a1cf456a840fe3bc1e98670e3e0-2162x1902.png?w=1600&amp;fit=max&amp;auto=format">
 <p>As we navigate the open source world, incidents like the <code>everything</code> package remind us of the delicate balance between freedom and responsibility in open-source software.</p></p>
 <p>Install <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/github-app">Socket for GitHub</a> to stay secure this year, and let's see what the rest of 2024 has in store for us!</p>
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--- a/cache/2024/4a56aa5497e68df0c5bb1d5331203219/index.md
+++ b/cache/2024/4a56aa5497e68df0c5bb1d5331203219/index.md
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
 title: When “Everything” Becomes Too Much: The npm Package Chaos of 2024
 url: https://socket.dev/blog/when-everything-becomes-too-much
 hash_url: 4a56aa5497e68df0c5bb1d5331203219
 archive_date: 2024-01-09

 <p>Happy 2024, folks! Just when we thought we'd seen it all, an npm user named PatrickJS, aka <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/npm/user/gdi2290">gdi2290</a>, threw us a curveball. He (<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://uncenter.dev/posts/npm-install-everything/">along with a group of contributors</a>) kicked off the year with a bang, launching a troll campaign that uploaded an npm package aptly named <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/npm/package/everything"><code>everything</code></a>. This package, true to its name, depends on every other public npm package, creating millions of transitive dependencies.</p><h3>The Chaos Unleashed</h3><p>The <code>everything</code> package and its 3,000+ sub-packages have caused a <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/glossary/denial-of-service-dos">Denial of Service (DOS)</a> for anyone who installs it. We're talking about storage space running out and system resource exhaustion.</p><p>But that's not all. The creator took their prank to the next level by setting up http://everything.npm.lol, showcasing the chaos they unleashed. They even included a meme from Skyrim, adding some humor (or mockery, depending on your perspective) to the situation.</p><h4><code>everything</code>'s <code>package.json</code> file</h4><pre class="css-1nw4yob"><code class="chakra-code css-y2ougk" lang="json">{
  "name": "everything",
  "version": "3.0.0",
  "description": "npm install everything",
  "main": "index.js",
  "contributors": [
    "PatrickJS &lt;github@patrickjs.com&gt;",
    "uncenter &lt;hi@uncenter.dev&gt;",
    "ChatGPT &lt;chatgpt@openai.com&gt;",
    "trash &lt;trash@trash.dev&gt;",
    "Hacksore &lt;sean@boult.me&gt;"
  ],
  "scripts": {},
  "keywords": [
    "everything",
    "allthethings",
    "everymodule"
  ],
  "license": "MIT",
  "homepage": "https://github.com/everything-registry/everything",
  "repository": {
    "type": "git",
    "url": "git+https://github.com/everything-registry/everything.git"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "@everything-registry/chunk-0": "0.1.0",
    "@everything-registry/chunk-1": "0.1.0",
    "@everything-registry/chunk-2": "0.1.0",
    "@everything-registry/chunk-3": "0.1.0",
    "@everything-registry/chunk-4": "0.1.0"
  }
 }</code></pre><h3>Echoes of the Past</h3><p>This isn't the first time we've seen such a stunt. Last year, the <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/npm/package/no-one-left-behind/overview/2018.2.10"><code>no-one-left-behind</code></a> package by <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/npm/user/zalastax">Zalastax</a> attempted something similar. It was removed, but then reemerged under a different scope with over 33,000 sub-packages. It's like playing whack-a-mole with npm packages!</p><p>It’s also reminiscent of a package called “hoarders” that used to directly depend on every module on npm (approximately 20,000 in 2012). It was published by software engineer Josh Holbrook, created to be “node.js's most complete utility grab bag.”</p><p>In an effort to maintain a secure and reliable ecosystem for JavaScript developers, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://github.com/jfhbrook/hoarders#history">hoarders was effectively “cancelled”</a> by Isaac Schlueter (creator of the npm package manager) after a year, due to the strain it caused on the registry's database.</p><h3>Unintended Consequences</h3><p>The "everything" package, with its 5 sub-packages and thousands of dependencies, has essentially locked down the ability for authors to unpublish their packages. This situation is due to npm's policy shift following the infamous <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://qz.com/646467/how-one-programmer-broke-the-internet-by-deleting-a-tiny-piece-of-code">"left-pad" incident in 2016</a>, where a popular package <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/npm/package/left-pad"><code>left-pad</code></a> was removed, grinding development to a halt across much of the developer world. In response, npm tightened its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://docs.npmjs.com/policies/unpublish">rules around unpublishing</a>, specifically preventing the unpublishing of any package that is used by another package.</p><p>Ironically, this policy trapped PatrickJS in his own web. Upon realizing the impact of his prank, he attempted to remove the <code>everything</code> package but was unable to do so. He reached out to the npm support team for help, but the damage was done.</p><p>PatrickJS wrote this apology on GitHub in a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://github.com/everything-registry/everything/issues/17">since-removed GitHub issue</a>:</p><blockquote>Hi all! First, just want to apologize about any difficulties this package has caused. We are working to resolve the issues and we have contacted NPM regarding support with this matter (see below). We appreciate your patience.<br><br>The major issue here is that when a package depends on another package at a specific version, that version cannot be unpublished. We've since realized there is an issue with "star" versions - a.k.a depending on any/all versions of another package ( "package-xyz": "*" ) - any version of that package is now unable to unpublish. As I previously mentioned, we've reached out to npm and are hoping they can either A) allow folks to unpublish when the packages that depend on them use a "star" version, B) not permit star versions in published packages going forward, or as a last resort, C) remove our npm organization entirely (and remove all of the packages that are blocking unpublishing). As far as we can tell, there is simply nothing we can do on our own - we can't unpublish the packages ourselves (because other packages depend on them) and publishing a new version over them doesn't change anything.</blockquote><p>However, we now see that while <code>everything</code> remains on the registry, the <code>@everything-registry</code> scoped packages have been made private, potentially offering a resolution.</p><h3>The Ripple Effect</h3><p>This whole saga is more than just a digital prank. It highlights the <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/blog/inside-node-modules">ongoing challenges</a> in package management within the npm ecosystem. For developers, it's a reminder of the cascading effects of dependencies and the importance of mindful package creation, maintenance, and consumption.</p><img alt=" " loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/cgdhsj6q/production/14461d25dd2f7a1cf456a840fe3bc1e98670e3e0-2162x1902.png?w=1600&amp;fit=max&amp;auto=format"><p>As we navigate the open source world, incidents like the <code>everything</code> package remind us of the delicate balance between freedom and responsibility in open-source software.</p><p>Install <a class="chakra-link css-pmuo56" href="https://socket.dev/github-app">Socket for GitHub</a> to stay secure this year, and let's see what the rest of 2024 has in store for us!</p>
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 <article>
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    <h1>Data Luddism</h1>
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 <p>I propose Data Luddism as a radical response to the productive power of big data and predictive algorithms. My starting point is not the Romantic neo-Luddism of Kirkpatrick Sale but the historical Luddism of 1811-1816, and the Luddites' own rhetoric regarding their resistance to 'obnoxious machines' [1].</p>
 <p>The Luddites' opposition to steam-powered machines of production was based on the new social relations of power they produced, which parallels the present emergence of data-powered algorithmic machines. As discussed in my paper on Algorithmic States of Exception [2] the operations of machine learning and datamining and the production of predictive knowledge is leading to the irruption of preemption across the social field, from employment to social services and policing. The consequent loss of agency and establishment of new powers unbalanced by effective rights can be fruitfully compared to the effect of new machinery on nineteenth century woolen and silk industries.  Based on this I examine key aspects of Luddite resistance for their contemporary relevance. </p>
 <p>Compare the adoption of a collective name ('General Ludd') and the evolution of Luddism as it expanded from the customary communities of Nottinghamshire through metropolitan Manchester and the radicalised West Riding, to the trajectory of the contemporary hacktivist movement Anonymous. It is critical to recall the political sophistication of the Luddites and the way machine breaking was situated in a cycle of negotiation, parliamentary petition and combination, and ask what this means for a contemporary resistance to data power that restricts itself to issues of privacy and ethics. </p>
 <p>Most importantly, the Luddites had an alternative social vision of self-governance and community commons and that we, too, should posit a positive vision against the encroachment of algorithmic states of exception. However, I ask whether (in contrast to the Luddites) we can use the new machines to bring these different possibilities in to being.  The Luddites saw themselves as a self-governing socius, which we can compare torecent experiments in technology enabled self-organisation such as 'liquid democracy' software.</p>
 <p>Beyond this, we should focus on the Luddites call to 'put down all Machinery hurtful to Commonality' to ask if we can adapt the machines to support the commons. 
 An example is the recent proposal that the blockchain (the technology behind bitcoin) can enable distributed collaborative organizations and tackle traditional issues related to shared common-pool resources, such as the free rider problem [3]. If we are serious about resisting the injustices that could come from data-driven algorithmic preemption we have a lot to learn from the historical Luddites, but also that we have the opportunity to 'hack' the machines in the service of a positive social vision. </p>
 <p>[1] Binfield, K. ed., 2004. Writings of the Luddites, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.</p>
 <p>[2] McQuillan, D., 2015. Algorithmic states of exception. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 18(4-5), pp.564–576. Available at: http://ecs.sagepub.com/content/18/4-5/564 </p>
 <p>[3] David Bollier, 2015. The Blockchain: A Promising New Infrastructure for Online Commons. Available at: http://www.bollier.org/blog/blockchain-promising-new-infrastructure-online-commons </p>
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 title: Data Luddism
 url: https://www.danmcquillan.org/dataluddism.html
 hash_url: b1da1249f2db388d7e84d6ad23c2fc5d
 archive_date: 2024-01-09

 <p><img src="https://www.danmcquillan.org/images/burnmill.jpg"></p>
 <p>I propose Data Luddism as a radical response to the productive power of big data and predictive algorithms. My starting point is not the Romantic neo-Luddism of Kirkpatrick Sale but the historical Luddism of 1811-1816, and the Luddites' own rhetoric regarding their resistance to 'obnoxious machines' [1].</p>
 <p>The Luddites' opposition to steam-powered machines of production was based on the new social relations of power they produced, which parallels the present emergence of data-powered algorithmic machines. As discussed in my paper on Algorithmic States of Exception [2] the operations of machine learning and datamining and the production of predictive knowledge is leading to the irruption of preemption across the social field, from employment to social services and policing. The consequent loss of agency and establishment of new powers unbalanced by effective rights can be fruitfully compared to the effect of new machinery on nineteenth century woolen and silk industries.  Based on this I examine key aspects of Luddite resistance for their contemporary relevance. </p>
 <p>Compare the adoption of a collective name ('General Ludd') and the evolution of Luddism as it expanded from the customary communities of Nottinghamshire through metropolitan Manchester and the radicalised West Riding, to the trajectory of the contemporary hacktivist movement Anonymous. It is critical to recall the political sophistication of the Luddites and the way machine breaking was situated in a cycle of negotiation, parliamentary petition and combination, and ask what this means for a contemporary resistance to data power that restricts itself to issues of privacy and ethics. </p>
 <p>Most importantly, the Luddites had an alternative social vision of self-governance and community commons and that we, too, should posit a positive vision against the encroachment of algorithmic states of exception. However, I ask whether (in contrast to the Luddites) we can use the new machines to bring these different possibilities in to being.  The Luddites saw themselves as a self-governing socius, which we can compare torecent experiments in technology enabled self-organisation such as 'liquid democracy' software.</p>
 <p>Beyond this, we should focus on the Luddites call to 'put down all Machinery hurtful to Commonality' to ask if we can adapt the machines to support the commons. 
 An example is the recent proposal that the blockchain (the technology behind bitcoin) can enable distributed collaborative organizations and tackle traditional issues related to shared common-pool resources, such as the free rider problem [3]. If we are serious about resisting the injustices that could come from data-driven algorithmic preemption we have a lot to learn from the historical Luddites, but also that we have the opportunity to 'hack' the machines in the service of a positive social vision. </p>
 <p>[1] Binfield, K. ed., 2004. Writings of the Luddites, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.</p>
 <p>[2] McQuillan, D., 2015. Algorithmic states of exception. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 18(4-5), pp.564–576. Available at: http://ecs.sagepub.com/content/18/4-5/564 </p>
 <p>[3] David Bollier, 2015. The Blockchain: A Promising New Infrastructure for Online Commons. Available at: http://www.bollier.org/blog/blockchain-promising-new-infrastructure-online-commons </p>
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    <h1>Where have all the websites gone?</h1>
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  <p>It’s Tuesday morning. The year is 2009. You’re just waking up after a long and boozy New Year’s Eve with friends. Your head rings, and your mouth is the type of dry that makes you question your adulthood. You feel something scratch against your arm. Did you take a lover last night? Sort of. It’s a pizza box. Meat lovers.</p>
 <p>You reach for your phone. There’s no TikTok or Snapchat yet. Facebook and Instagram are a thing, but they exist as a type of social syndicator— a place to see what your friends were up to last night. You already know as much. The occasional whiff of rank vodka keeps your memory jogged. You tap the browser icon and start typing a webaddress, perhaps appending <code>www</code> as a precautionary relic. <em>Who got drunker than me</em>, you wonder. After a brief page load, you arrive at textsfromlastnight.com. “<em>I cant get the smell of ass out of my nose</em>,” reads the top post.</p>
 <p>You scroll, pausing only for the occasional forward to your best friend, who undoubtedly hurts as much as you. You both laugh at the crass misfortunes of others and quietly hope you hadn’t somehow made it onto the front page yourself.</p>
 <p>You copy the link to the best of the bunch, the story that made you laugh the hardest, and post it to your Facebook.</p>
 <h2 id="for-you-but-not-by-us" tabindex="-1">For you, but not by us. </h2>
 <p>For better or worse, the web doesn’t work like that anymore. No one clicks a webpage hoping to learn which cat <em>can haz cheeseburger</em>. Weirdos, maybe. <em>Sickos</em>.</p>
 <p>No, we get our content from a For You Page now— algorithmically selected videos and images made by our favorite creators, produced explicitly for our preferred platform. Which platform doesn’t matter much. So long as it’s one of the big five. Creators churn out content for all of them.</p>
 <p>It’s a technical marvel, that internet. Something so mindblowingly impressive that if you showed it to someone even thirty years ago, their face would melt the fuck off. So why does it feel like something’s missing? Why are we all so collectively unhappy with the state of the web?</p>
 <h2 id="where-did-all-the-websites-go" tabindex="-1">Where <em>did</em> all the websites go? </h2>
 <p>A tweet went viral this Thanksgiving when a Twitter user posed a question to their followers. A peek at the comments, and I could only assume the tweet struck a nerve. It certainly did with me. It's why I wrote this piece.</p>
 <p><img src="https://fromjason.xyz/img/image-wheredidallthewebsitesgo.jpg" alt="tweet"></p>
 <p>Everyone had their own answer. Some comments blamed the app-ification of the web. "<em>Everything is an app now!</em>," one user replied. Others point to the death of Adobe Flash and how so many sites and games died along with it. Everyone agrees that websites have indeed vanished, and we all miss the days we were free to visit them.</p>
 <p>I have good news and bad news.</p>
 <p>The good news is that websites didn’t go anywhere. There are currently one billion websites on the World Wide Web. Here’s a few from my bookmarks that are <em>amazing</em>.</p>

 <p>Cool, right? So here’s the bad news— <em>we</em> are the ones who vanished, and I suspect what we really miss are the joys of discovery.</p>
 <h2 id="we-miss-curation" tabindex="-1">We miss curation </h2>
 <p>We used to know how to do this. Not long ago, we were good at separating the signal from noise. Granted, there’s a lot more noise these days, but most of it comes from and is encouraged by the silos we dwell in.</p>
 <p>Somewhere between the late 2000’s aggregator sites and the contemporary For You Page, we lost our ability to <em>curate</em> the web. Worse still, we’ve outsourced our discovery to corporate algorithms. Most of us did it in exchange for an endless content feed. By most, I mean upwards of 90% who don’t make content on a platform as understood by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule">90/9/1 rule</a>. And that’s okay! Or, at least, it makes total sense to me. Who wouldn’t want a steady stream of dopamine shots?</p>
 <p>The rest of us, <a href="https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/how-do-we-stop-meta-in-2024-we-fix-the-information-loop/">posters, amplifiers, and aggregators</a>, traded our discovery autonomy for a chance at fame and fortune. Not all, but enough to change the social web landscape.</p>
 <p>But that gold at the end of the rainbow isn’t for us. “Creator funds” pull from a fixed pot. It’s a line item in a budget that doesn’t change, whether one hundred or one million hands dip inside it. Executives in polished cement floor offices, who you’ll never meet, <em>choose</em> their winners and losers. And I’m guessing it’s not a meritocracy-based system. They pick their tokens, round up their shills, and stuff Apple Watch ads between them.</p>
 <p>So when we wonder where all the websites have gone, know it’s the <em>curators</em> we’re nostalgic for because the curators showed us the best the web had to offer once upon a time. And the curators— the tenders, aggregators, collectors, and connectors— can bring us back to something better. Because it’s still out there, we just have to find it.</p>
 <p>Here’s the best part. You can be that curator right now, at this very moment. You can start to rebuild the interconnectivity that made the web fun to explore. And you don’t need to be a computer scientist to do it.</p>
 <p>Open a Linktree account or whatever. And instead of adding your other social media accounts, add three links to your favorite blog posts. Or, add links to a few artists with their own sites. Or your favorite aggregator sites. It doesn’t matter what you include, so long as we make portals to other digital green spaces that exist outside of Instagram.</p>
 <p><strong>Then, throw that list into your link-in-bio</strong>. I just <a href="https://www.instagram.com/jasondotgov/">swapped my IG link</a> from my home page to a post listing my favorite blogging platforms. Most, if not all, are from “indie” developers. And who knows, maybe someone clicks on it and the web gains a new writer. How cool would that be?</p>
 <p>So what do ya say? Let's make a bunch of open web <em>portals</em> for 2024! I guess I set this up for a two-parter, haven’t I? I’ll see you at the next post.</p>
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 title: Where have all the websites gone?
 url: https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/where-have-all-the-websites-gone/
 hash_url: c3272392d462da90874d32841e5caac8
 archive_date: 2024-01-09

 <p>It’s Tuesday morning. The year is 2009. You’re just waking up after a long and boozy New Year’s Eve with friends. Your head rings, and your mouth is the type of dry that makes you question your adulthood. You feel something scratch against your arm. Did you take a lover last night? Sort of. It’s a pizza box. Meat lovers.</p>
 <p>You reach for your phone. There’s no TikTok or Snapchat yet. Facebook and Instagram are a thing, but they exist as a type of social syndicator— a place to see what your friends were up to last night. You already know as much. The occasional whiff of rank vodka keeps your memory jogged. You tap the browser icon and start typing a webaddress, perhaps appending <code>www</code> as a precautionary relic. <em>Who got drunker than me</em>, you wonder. After a brief page load, you arrive at textsfromlastnight.com. “<em>I cant get the smell of ass out of my nose</em>,” reads the top post.</p>
 <p>You scroll, pausing only for the occasional forward to your best friend, who undoubtedly hurts as much as you. You both laugh at the crass misfortunes of others and quietly hope you hadn’t somehow made it onto the front page yourself.</p>
 <p>You copy the link to the best of the bunch, the story that made you laugh the hardest, and post it to your Facebook.</p>
 <h2 id="for-you-but-not-by-us" tabindex="-1">For you, but not by us. </h2>
 <p>For better or worse, the web doesn’t work like that anymore. No one clicks a webpage hoping to learn which cat <em>can haz cheeseburger</em>. Weirdos, maybe. <em>Sickos</em>.</p>
 <p>No, we get our content from a For You Page now— algorithmically selected videos and images made by our favorite creators, produced explicitly for our preferred platform. Which platform doesn’t matter much. So long as it’s one of the big five. Creators churn out content for all of them.</p>
 <p>It’s a technical marvel, that internet. Something so mindblowingly impressive that if you showed it to someone even thirty years ago, their face would melt the fuck off. So why does it feel like something’s missing? Why are we all so collectively unhappy with the state of the web?</p>
 <h2 id="where-did-all-the-websites-go" tabindex="-1">Where <em>did</em> all the websites go? </h2>
 <p>A tweet went viral this Thanksgiving when a Twitter user posed a question to their followers. A peek at the comments, and I could only assume the tweet struck a nerve. It certainly did with me. It's why I wrote this piece.</p>
 <p><img src="https://fromjason.xyz/img/image-wheredidallthewebsitesgo.jpg" alt="tweet"></p>
 <p>Everyone had their own answer. Some comments blamed the app-ification of the web. "<em>Everything is an app now!</em>," one user replied. Others point to the death of Adobe Flash and how so many sites and games died along with it. Everyone agrees that websites have indeed vanished, and we all miss the days we were free to visit them.</p>
 <p>I have good news and bad news.</p>
 <p>The good news is that websites didn’t go anywhere. There are currently one billion websites on the World Wide Web. Here’s a few from my bookmarks that are <em>amazing</em>.</p>

 <p>Cool, right? So here’s the bad news— <em>we</em> are the ones who vanished, and I suspect what we really miss are the joys of discovery.</p>
 <h2 id="we-miss-curation" tabindex="-1">We miss curation </h2>
 <p>We used to know how to do this. Not long ago, we were good at separating the signal from noise. Granted, there’s a lot more noise these days, but most of it comes from and is encouraged by the silos we dwell in.</p>
 <p>Somewhere between the late 2000’s aggregator sites and the contemporary For You Page, we lost our ability to <em>curate</em> the web. Worse still, we’ve outsourced our discovery to corporate algorithms. Most of us did it in exchange for an endless content feed. By most, I mean upwards of 90% who don’t make content on a platform as understood by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule">90/9/1 rule</a>. And that’s okay! Or, at least, it makes total sense to me. Who wouldn’t want a steady stream of dopamine shots?</p>
 <p>The rest of us, <a href="https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/how-do-we-stop-meta-in-2024-we-fix-the-information-loop/">posters, amplifiers, and aggregators</a>, traded our discovery autonomy for a chance at fame and fortune. Not all, but enough to change the social web landscape.</p>
 <p>But that gold at the end of the rainbow isn’t for us. “Creator funds” pull from a fixed pot. It’s a line item in a budget that doesn’t change, whether one hundred or one million hands dip inside it. Executives in polished cement floor offices, who you’ll never meet, <em>choose</em> their winners and losers. And I’m guessing it’s not a meritocracy-based system. They pick their tokens, round up their shills, and stuff Apple Watch ads between them.</p>
 <p>So when we wonder where all the websites have gone, know it’s the <em>curators</em> we’re nostalgic for because the curators showed us the best the web had to offer once upon a time. And the curators— the tenders, aggregators, collectors, and connectors— can bring us back to something better. Because it’s still out there, we just have to find it.</p>
 <p>Here’s the best part. You can be that curator right now, at this very moment. You can start to rebuild the interconnectivity that made the web fun to explore. And you don’t need to be a computer scientist to do it.</p>
 <p>Open a Linktree account or whatever. And instead of adding your other social media accounts, add three links to your favorite blog posts. Or, add links to a few artists with their own sites. Or your favorite aggregator sites. It doesn’t matter what you include, so long as we make portals to other digital green spaces that exist outside of Instagram.</p>
 <p><strong>Then, throw that list into your link-in-bio</strong>. I just <a href="https://www.instagram.com/jasondotgov/">swapped my IG link</a> from my home page to a post listing my favorite blogging platforms. Most, if not all, are from “indie” developers. And who knows, maybe someone clicks on it and the web gains a new writer. How cool would that be?</p>
 <p>So what do ya say? Let's make a bunch of open web <em>portals</em> for 2024! I guess I set this up for a two-parter, haven’t I? I’ll see you at the next post.</p>
--- a/cache/2024/faa1d8cae94da6838ff9351e5df791ca/index.html
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 <article>
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    <h1>Make the indie web easier</h1>
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  <p><img src="https://gilest.org/2024/dangerously-muddy.jpg" alt="A sign in a forest: DANGER, TRACK DANGEROUSLY MUDDY, DO NOT ENTER"></p>

 <p>OK, developers, I have a challenge for you.</p>

 <p>I’ll assume that we’re all on board with the 2024 indie web revival. We all want things to <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/internet-future-about-to-get-weird-1234938403/">get weird again</a>, right? Yeah.</p>

 <p>And, I’ll assume we all agree that owning your own website is a <em>good thing</em>, and we all want more people to do it. </p>

 <p>But here’s the thing: we need more tools for it. We need simpler tools for it. And we need to make installing and using them <em>trivially simple</em>. </p>

 <p>We need more self-hosted platforms for personal publishing that <em>aren’t Wordpress</em>. And don’t point me to Hugo or Netlify or Eleventy or all those things - all of them are great, but none of them are simple enough. We need web publishing tools that do not require users to open the Terminal <em>at all</em>. And we need lots of them. </p>

 <p>We need a whole <em>galaxy</em> of options. </p>

 <p>So that next time we say to someone: “You should own your own domain, and publish on your own website,” and they answer with “How?”, we can give an answer that’s more than just: “Install Wordpress.”</p>

 <p>It’s not that I hate Wordpress. I don’t <em>use</em> it, personally, but I don’t hate it. I can see the benefits of using it. It’s a great tool. </p>

 <p>But it needs more competition. People coming fresh to web publishing should have more options.</p>

 <p>If we want the future web we’re all clamouring for, we need to give people more options for self-hosted independence. If we seriously, truly want the independent, non-enshittified personal web to flourish, we need to make it <strong>easier for people to join in</strong>. </p>

 <p>Why not build static website generators that people can just unzip, upload to the shared hosting they’ve just paid for, and start using via a browser?</p>

 <p>Why not make backups automatic, and make upgrades simple? Why not make the tricky technical stuff go away?</p>

 <p>Terminal commands are easy for <em>you</em>, but they’re a huge hurdle for most people to overcome. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen a link to a static website generator, which claims to be simple, and then the instructions start with something like: </p>

 <blockquote>
  <p>It’s easy! Just <tt>gem install blah</tt><br>then <tt>blah setup mywebsite</tt><br>then <tt>cd mywebsite</tt><br>then use <tt>nano</tt> or your favourite editor to write Markdown files! So easy!</p>
 </blockquote>

 <p>This is not easy.</p>

 <p>If we <em>truly</em> want to open up the web for everyone to publish on, we have to make it easier. Let’s give people choices. Let’s give people options for tools they can set up and use, with no more knowledge than the knowledge they already have.</p>
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--- a/cache/2024/faa1d8cae94da6838ff9351e5df791ca/index.md
+++ b/cache/2024/faa1d8cae94da6838ff9351e5df791ca/index.md
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
 title: Make the indie web easier
 url: https://gilest.org/indie-easy.html
 hash_url: faa1d8cae94da6838ff9351e5df791ca
 archive_date: 2024-01-09

 <p><img src="https://gilest.org/2024/dangerously-muddy.jpg" alt="A sign in a forest: DANGER, TRACK DANGEROUSLY MUDDY, DO NOT ENTER"></p>



 <p>OK, developers, I have a challenge for you.</p>

 <p>I’ll assume that we’re all on board with the 2024 indie web revival. We all want things to <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/internet-future-about-to-get-weird-1234938403/">get weird again</a>, right? Yeah.</p>

 <p>And, I’ll assume we all agree that owning your own website is a <em>good thing</em>, and we all want more people to do it. </p>

 <p>But here’s the thing: we need more tools for it. We need simpler tools for it. And we need to make installing and using them <em>trivially simple</em>. </p>

 <p>We need more self-hosted platforms for personal publishing that <em>aren’t Wordpress</em>. And don’t point me to Hugo or Netlify or Eleventy or all those things - all of them are great, but none of them are simple enough. We need web publishing tools that do not require users to open the Terminal <em>at all</em>. And we need lots of them. </p>

 <p>We need a whole <em>galaxy</em> of options. </p>

 <p>So that next time we say to someone: “You should own your own domain, and publish on your own website,” and they answer with “How?”, we can give an answer that’s more than just: “Install Wordpress.”</p>

 <p>It’s not that I hate Wordpress. I don’t <em>use</em> it, personally, but I don’t hate it. I can see the benefits of using it. It’s a great tool. </p>

 <p>But it needs more competition. People coming fresh to web publishing should have more options.</p>

 <p>If we want the future web we’re all clamouring for, we need to give people more options for self-hosted independence. If we seriously, truly want the independent, non-enshittified personal web to flourish, we need to make it <strong>easier for people to join in</strong>. </p>

 <p>Why not build static website generators that people can just unzip, upload to the shared hosting they’ve just paid for, and start using via a browser?</p>

 <p>Why not make backups automatic, and make upgrades simple? Why not make the tricky technical stuff go away?</p>

 <p>Terminal commands are easy for <em>you</em>, but they’re a huge hurdle for most people to overcome. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen a link to a static website generator, which claims to be simple, and then the instructions start with something like: </p>

 <blockquote>
  <p>It’s easy! Just <tt>gem install blah</tt><br>then <tt>blah setup mywebsite</tt><br>then <tt>cd mywebsite</tt><br>then use <tt>nano</tt> or your favourite editor to write Markdown files! So easy!</p>
 </blockquote>

 <p>This is not easy.</p>

 <p>If we <em>truly</em> want to open up the web for everyone to publish on, we have to make it easier. Let’s give people choices. Let’s give people options for tools they can set up and use, with no more knowledge than the knowledge they already have.</p>
--- a/cache/2024/index.html
+++ b/cache/2024/index.html
@@ -78,10 +78,18 @@
      
        <li><a href="/david/cache/2024/b80f5159ee7ac70bcaa6a9fde16c2408/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : Behind the controversy at Basecamp">Behind the controversy at Basecamp</a> (<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406673/basecamp-political-speech-policy-controversy" title="Accès à l’article original distant : Behind the controversy at Basecamp">original</a>)</li>
      
        <li><a href="/david/cache/2024/faa1d8cae94da6838ff9351e5df791ca/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : Make the indie web easier">Make the indie web easier</a> (<a href="https://gilest.org/indie-easy.html" title="Accès à l’article original distant : Make the indie web easier">original</a>)</li>
      
        <li><a href="/david/cache/2024/3debc675a055d691b32c7d6904531eb4/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : How Google perfected the web">How Google perfected the web</a> (<a href="https://www.theverge.com/c/23998379/google-search-seo-algorithm-webpage-optimization" title="Accès à l’article original distant : How Google perfected the web">original</a>)</li>
      
        <li><a href="/david/cache/2024/d75afc90a9d3c3b5a56b69446795fbb5/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : plaisir d'ébauche">plaisir d'ébauche</a> (<a href="https://www.la-grange.net/2024/01/06/ebauche" title="Accès à l’article original distant : plaisir d'ébauche">original</a>)</li>
      
        <li><a href="/david/cache/2024/c3272392d462da90874d32841e5caac8/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : Where have all the websites gone?">Where have all the websites gone?</a> (<a href="https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/where-have-all-the-websites-gone/" title="Accès à l’article original distant : Where have all the websites gone?">original</a>)</li>
      
        <li><a href="/david/cache/2024/99e7d2ba7e4adc69dbf0f1b2858a5248/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : Style with Stateful, Semantic Selectors">Style with Stateful, Semantic Selectors</a> (<a href="https://benmyers.dev/blog/semantic-selectors/" title="Accès à l’article original distant : Style with Stateful, Semantic Selectors">original</a>)</li>
      
        <li><a href="/david/cache/2024/4a56aa5497e68df0c5bb1d5331203219/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : When “Everything” Becomes Too Much: The npm Package Chaos of 2024">When “Everything” Becomes Too Much: The npm Package Chaos of 2024</a> (<a href="https://socket.dev/blog/when-everything-becomes-too-much" title="Accès à l’article original distant : When “Everything” Becomes Too Much: The npm Package Chaos of 2024">original</a>)</li>
      
        <li><a href="/david/cache/2024/b31ba18e3de1fc479b79f1885043026a/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : When to use CSS text-wrap: balance; vs text-wrap: pretty;">When to use CSS text-wrap: balance; vs text-wrap: pretty;</a> (<a href="https://blog.stephaniestimac.com/posts/2023/10/css-text-wrap/" title="Accès à l’article original distant : When to use CSS text-wrap: balance; vs text-wrap: pretty;">original</a>)</li>
      
        <li><a href="/david/cache/2024/55477786fc56b6fc37bb97231b634d90/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : Fabrique : concept">Fabrique : concept</a> (<a href="https://www.quaternum.net/2023/06/02/fabrique-concept/" title="Accès à l’article original distant : Fabrique : concept">original</a>)</li>
@@ -90,6 +98,8 @@
      
        <li><a href="/david/cache/2024/e5056f8e0e6acf87c5777ba5b3a2ba92/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : The UX of HTML ⚒ Nerd">The UX of HTML ⚒ Nerd</a> (<a href="https://vasilis.nl/nerd/the-ux-of-html/" title="Accès à l’article original distant : The UX of HTML ⚒ Nerd">original</a>)</li>
      
        <li><a href="/david/cache/2024/b1da1249f2db388d7e84d6ad23c2fc5d/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : Data Luddism">Data Luddism</a> (<a href="https://www.danmcquillan.org/dataluddism.html" title="Accès à l’article original distant : Data Luddism">original</a>)</li>
      
    </ul>
 </main>