Google Aims to Level the Playing Field for SERP Results

The contemporary landscape of web design has given rise to an Internet-wide contest in which websites everywhere must adhere to vaguely codified rules to have a hope of ranking highly on Google's SERPs. Because SEO incentivizes it, websites must feature certain patterns in both their visible content and technical code behind the scenes to satisfy search engines' ranking algorithms and prove themselves worthier of the highest SERP placements. By continuously updating its metrics while keeping them hidden from the public, Google strives to ensure a level playing field and reward only the websites that prioritize the quality of their own content over more cynical efforts to strictly fulfill every technical SEO metric.

While this results in an online environment where web owners can never reliably latch onto a way to abuse the system, there are still self-evident issues that arise from the SEO-oriented culture surrounding all contenders in the online space. News stories, for example, always have to satisfy a particular word count regardless of whether the point of the article can be gotten across through more concise wording, leading to some sites posting stories in padded language. Despite how the average reader might agree that the shorter version would better fulfill its purpose, SEO culture might ironically compel the news site to sacrifice the audience's experience in order to have a better chance at a higher SERP ranking.

Another issue faced by online news outlets on account of the SEO-dictated environment comes about from the need for websites to receive many impressions and follows. Many readers of news websites tend to glance at the first few paragraphs of a story without reading it at length. Since retaining readers' interest by compelling them to scroll down the page and past other links results in extra link clicks, news sites tend to cover up most of their articles' content and make only the first paragraph visible to readers. Forcing them to click a "Continue Reading" button has the effect of "tantalizing" a reader into desiring more of the article's contents, ironically benefiting the site's engagement rates despite inconveniencing its own audience. For more information click here https://i.redd.it/gxpbzt7tn7w61.png.