The Illusion of Free Will, Google Version

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.


From Andrew Sullivan:

Fear not. The Dish will not succumb to SEOs. I’m still too enthralled with the immediate unfiltered reader-writer experience that blogging alone allows.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, the dark art of writing blog posts or news articles that will rise to the top of Google search pages. But although Andrew may not be SEO-ing his own site, he’s already succumbed to SEO. After all, the article he links to in the post above is a week-old review by Sean Gallagher of a tool called InboundWriter, which is designed to help you write Google-friendly prose:

To get a feel for what SEO experts think determines a “high-quality” page from the standpoint of a search engine, I used InboundWriter to search-optimize this story. I’ll let you be the judge of the outcome; InboundWriter gave it a score of 99 out of a possible 100.

In other words, Andrew may think that he wrote about SEO today of his own free will. But free will is an illusion. In reality, he wrote about it because Gallagher’s article had been honed to perfection and thus gotten lots of attention. I blindly followed along. Resistance is futile.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

December is make or break for us. A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. A strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength. A weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

The December 31 deadline is closing in fast. To reach our $400,000 goal, we need readers who’ve never given before to join the ranks of MoJo donors. And we need our steadfast supporters to give again today—any amount.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do.

That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

December is make or break for us. A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. A strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength. A weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

The December 31 deadline is closing in fast. To reach our $400,000 goal, we need readers who’ve never given before to join the ranks of MoJo donors. And we need our steadfast supporters to give again today—any amount.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do.

That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate