Are SEO’s the New Propagandists?
“Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels. A propaganda organization employs propagandists who engage in propagandism—the applied creation and distribution of such forms of persuasion.”
—R.A. Nelson, A Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States, 1996
I have been daydreaming a lot as of late, and I recently came to wonder whether or not SEO’s are the new propagandists? I spend far too much time studying the serps, and I am frequently amazed at how thin content sites with no decent links can rank for some relatively competitive terms. What amazes me even more, is how similar sites can rank for VERY competitive terms on the strength of aged, yet spammy links. Oh, to be a filthy rotten spammer ten years ago!
I’ve been in search marketing for a couple of years now, and my only regret in this business so far is that I didn’t get in the game sooner. Due to the heavy significance given to “trust” and “authority” in the current Google ranking algorithm, “aged” and “trusted” links are worth many times their weight in gold. You can rank for some serious money terms with a handful of good links, some decent on-page SEO, and a crusty, old domain. Don’t even get me started on parasite SEO and reputation management.
There has been a longstanding relationship between the techniques shared by both propagandists and marketers. In fact, one could go as far to suggest that marketing, advertising, and public relations were all born of the perception management techniques perfected by the war departments of various states…both failed and existing. How do these techniques apply to search marketing? To begin, we have to understand and acknowledge the role that search plays in modern life.
Search has displaced every traditional information source in our society; people no longer look to broadcasters or journalists or libraries for their information. The natural instinct in our modern culture is to search for information using a search engine, and to determine the relevance of that information based upon our own personal preferences and tastes. The user is now in a position to determine the legitimacy of their information sources.
Or are they? With millions of websites on the internet today, all clamoring for a position on the first page of the search engine result pages, does the average user actually look into the legitimacy of the sites providing the information they seek? Does the average user expect that the search engine has provided them with the absolute most relevant search result? Does that same user blindly trust the search engine to determine the legitimacy of a source, instead of digging deeper into those results to determine for themselves the most legitmate? Does a top search result imply that the search engine itself has given a specific webpage it’s stamp of approval with regards to relevance?
For anyone working in this business, the answer would be a resounding “NO”! But for the average user, the less than savvy user, I would argue that they do perceive the #1 position to be held by the most authoritative source as it relates to their query. I touched upon this idea in a previous post. In that instance, the site in the first position for the query “global warming” was owned and operated by the energy lobby. Is the energy lobby really considered, by the search engine, as being the most trusted source for information about global warming? Not likely, but to the average user, it would appear to be the case.
Which brings us full circle to the notion that SEO’s are the new propagandists. By nature, search engine optimization is precisely about using various techniques to propel a website into the top position in the search results, and crafty SEO’s have learned how to play on the weaknesses inherent in the search engine algorithms. Search engines currently employ a citation based model for ranking a particular website or page. The number, authority and trustworthiness of those citations are what help websites rank for particular search terms. On the web, those citations are called links.
With an election looming in America next year, I have to wonder if Google is trying to reign in the potential for SEO’s to play a decisive role in swaying the public vote, with their recent attempt to defeat the tactic known as GoogleBombing. The relationship between search marketing and propaganda is one I intend to explore further, but for now I leave you with the following video on the history of propaganda. And as always, your comments are most welcome!