Is SEO Cheating? And Why It Doesn’t Matter

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is everywhere. Every Google query gives you a list of websites, and every single one has been optimized to be there. No one finds themselves on the first page of Google by chance, but… is it fair? Or is SEO cheating?

Is SEO cheating?

I know people who never stopped saying that the internet is not what it used to be. It’s no longer wild and uncharted, and it’s impossible to rank high without doing some major SEO work. That means that what you see is not the best content but the best-optimized content. Is it a problem? And is it really unfair?

Some say that SEO is inherently unfair, involving shady tactics created to manipulate search engines. Keyword stuffing used to be everywhere until it stopped working. Now there are other, even less transparent tactics that sometimes work and sometimes don’t. But the fact is (they say), it takes away from the user experience. The content is created with SEO in mind, not the end user, which results in it being uninformative and bloated.

Is it cheating? Not really, since Google and Bing are well aware of the practice. They routinely ban overoptimized websites with low-effort content and generally distrust domains with everything “by the book.” But on the other hand, SEO helped optimize not only the search but also the pages themselves. SEO-optimized content is structured, easy to read and engaging. In 2023, only quality content can rank higher, which leads to most websites making even more efforts to provide users with verified and well-formatted information.

Good SEO also means accessible websites, and that has massively helped people with disabilities and generally made the internet a better place. Maybe not as fun or unpredictable, but certainly more accessible and organized. Trust us: it’s a good thing.