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The disconnect between search engine optimization (SEO) and usability.

Nov. 25, 2024, 9:01 a.m.

Abstract image of a gradient color.

After a brief hiatus; I have returned.

My experience using certain websites has gotten worse. How has your experience been? The websites that easily come to mind are recipe websites. I’d even go as far as calling some of these websites, rude. What I’ve noticed is the website has a sad story about as a child with some form of caretaker always making food, etc. In my internal monologue I’d argue, yes, for the most part we have had a caretaker of some form nourish us with some type of food they’ve generally know how to make in the room designed for preparing said food. Does the recipe have to make me cry? I’m just looking to make a cake before my shit burns since I thought I could just quickly look up a recipe! (Yes!, sometimes I get ahead of myself and start making what I know before planning ahead but by then it’s too late; salvage it now or lose it) From a users perspective I find it overwhelming, clunky or ridden with ads. Another type of website that comes to mind is the “free stuff” website. When was the last time free was given without some request for your billing information or personal information to surprise surprise charge you if you forget to cancel, easier to “just don’t!”. To keep things short, I’ll stick with recipe websites.
As I was writing this blog I had remembered a concept to which I decided to search and refresh my memory on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Silly me, this generally answers my internet based frustrations. All in all it can be fun to write about an easier to write topic as I try to generate website traffic from the all powerful algorithm.

In funny terms SEO is an all powerful algorithm that ranks websites and indexes it in whatever way it was designed for. It can incorporate good aspects or bad aspects it can be paid or it can be unpaid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

SEO can be a large topic, therefore, I will try to keep a narrow scope. When I search for a recipe I am greeted by a plethora of unrelated content in what appears to be video or GIF format. A spinning tire?, oh it’s a car commercial. Generally I’m left feeling aggravated.

I’ll explain a few ways I would improve the usability of a recipe website. I would start by keeping relevant information better organized as to never have content overlapping. I would make the relevant parts into a grid where currently there are ads or junk overlaying the relevant content. I find it to be exhausting to look at. OK, maybe it’s just me let me click on “Reader Mode” surely that will deliver as expected. Nope!, the website now reads “This ad will end in 5, 00:09, 00:05, 00:15” at the beginning of the page.

What is that?!

Finally, “le-crème de resistance” by adding a “Jump-to-section” the user can use the website without adding further friction or fatigue while allowing the SEO to do it’s thing. To illustrate a picture let us say that you need all those ads in that un-grid like fashion. A jump to section at the top of the page would allow the user can access the reason they visited the website in the first place.