How SEO Broke the Internet
By Lisa Norman
I remember when finding something to read online felt like discovering a treasure.
Back in the 1980s, we had nothing like Google. If you were curious and a little techy, you might sneak into a bulletin board system in the middle of the night. Your modem chirped, producing a beautiful musical sound, and suddenly you connected to strangers who felt like friends. You’d browse through posts, download stories, and maybe stumble across a file that someone had written just for fun.
CompuServe was my favorite. It opened to the public in 1979, and by the time I found it, there were forums full of writers and readers talking about stories they loved. We didn’t worry about keywords or rankings. We shared links like secret handshakes. You found the good stuff because someone you trusted said, “You’ve got to read this.”
Reading felt like an adventure, not a transaction.
We didn’t scroll. We didn’t skim. We read slowly, like every word was meant to be there.
Those connections were often real and powerful. I made lifelong friends in those forums.
When the Robots Moved In
That all changed in the late 1990s when Google came onto the scene. At first, it felt magical. Suddenly, you could type in a question and the answer would appear, as if the internet finally knew what you needed.
Google officially launched in 1998, and its PageRank system was revolutionary. Instead of listing websites alphabetically or matching keywords, it ranked them based on how many other sites linked to them. Popularity became power.
It didn’t take long for people to figure out how to play the game. Writers and marketers learned to shape content in ways that pleased the algorithm. Headlines became formulas. Writers padded posts to hit ideal word counts. Keywords were carefully chosen, sometimes at the expense of flow or meaning.
And yet, for a while, creative writers held our own.
We weren’t chasing trends or stuffing posts with jargon, but we produced lots of good content. We told stories. We shared insights. We built blogs that grew communities, often without realizing we were checking the SEO boxes just enough to stay visible.
But the algorithms kept changing. It wasn’t just SEO either. The internet began shifting from open discovery to platform-driven visibility. Social networks and aggregators started choosing what readers saw.
As search engines began prioritizing domain authority, backlink networks, and structured data, our voices started to slip. Content farms and big media companies could outpace us on volume and technical polish. Eventually, even great writing was barely enough.
The Ones Who Vanished (and the Ones Who Adapted)
Some creators faded quietly.
The hobby bloggers. The zine-style websites. The personal pages filled with stories, art, and in-depth explanations of niche topics. Communities that once thrived on curiosity and connection found themselves buried under content mills and commercial optimization. For many, staying visible meant learning to out-game the algorithm. Not everyone had the time, knowledge, or desire to do that.
But fandom didn’t die.
It pivoted.
Writers and readers who once gathered on scattered forums and fan sites found new homes. Platforms like Wattpad, which launched in 2006, became hubs for serialized fiction and fan creativity. Others migrated to Archive of Our Own (AO3), a nonprofit, community-built platform launched in 2009. AO3 wasn’t just a backup plan. It was a statement. If the web wouldn’t make space for fan voices, they would build it themselves.
Writers adapted. They moved between platforms, followed readers, and found new ways to connect. That flexibility saved them.
But something changed in the process.
Discovery stopped being organic. It became managed. Curated. Quantified by algorithms.
Big corporations were putting up barbed wire fences to cordon off the wild frontier.
The Rise of the Skim
As SEO took hold of the web, something deeper shifted. Something that crept in slowly but changed everything.
Readers changed.
When the internet began rewarding content that was short, structured, and scannable, we started to read differently. Articles turned into checklists. Posts began with titles like “5 Ways to…” or “The Ultimate Guide to…” We trained ourselves to search for bold phrases and bullet points. We skimmed for answers instead of settling in for the full story.
Just like writers adapted to please the algorithms, readers adapted too.
We stopped lingering.
We stopped getting lost in the middle of a long, thoughtful paragraph.
We became more impatient.
We got used to getting what we wanted, fast.
Even fiction felt the pressure. Writers were told to hook readers in the first sentence. Page one had to sparkle. Page two had to deliver tears. That advice may still have value, but it came from a culture shaped by speed and distraction.
In 2023, a book called Smart Brevity offered guidance for writing in an age of limited attention. The authors, from Axios, championed getting to the point. There’s something useful about that. If you’ve only got ten seconds of a reader’s time, you learn to make those ten seconds count.
But when every sentence is optimized for speed, something else gets lost.
Nuance.
Rhythm.
Emotion.
The space between the words — the place where a reader pauses and feels something — starts to disappear.
We didn’t just teach ourselves to read faster.
Maybe without realizing it, we also started expecting less.
What Comes After the Skim
So here we are.
We trained ourselves to write for search engines. Then we learned to read like machines. In the process, we lost something.
But we didn’t lose everything.
There are still readers who want more than bullet points and summaries. They want voice. They want meaning. They want to be moved.
And that’s what writers still do best.
Even when the platforms shift. Even when algorithms rewrite the rules. Even when AI starts answering before anyone reaches our pages.
We can still write with heart. We can still connect.
That’s what Part Two of this series is all about.
Next month, I’ll talk about GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and how AI is changing the way people find and consume content. We’ll also talk about what writers can do to stay visible, stay connected, and keep doing the thing that no machine can replicate.
This isn’t the end of the story.
It’s just the next chapter.
Have you noticed your own writing or reading habits changing over the last 20 years? And if you are younger, can you imagine a world without search engines?
* * * * * *
About Lisa
Lisa Norman's passion has been writing since she could hold a pencil. While that is a cliché, she is unique in that her first novel was written on gum wrappers. As a young woman, she learned to program and discovered she has a talent for helping people and computers learn to work together and play nice. When she's not playing with her daughter, writing, or designing for the web, she can be found wandering the local beaches.
Lisa writes as Deleyna Marr and is the owner of No Stress Writing Academy. She also runs Heart Ally Books, LLC, an indie publishing firm.
Interested in learning more from Lisa? Sign up for her newsletter or check out her school, No Stress Writing Academy, where she teaches social media, organization, technical skills, and marketing for authors!
Lisa and several others of our amazing WITS folks will be presenting at a Virtual Writing Symposium on June 21 and 22.
There's still time to sign up! We even have a few agent pitch appointments left! This is on GoBrunch, which will give you a glimpse of some of the new technology Lisa has been raving about!
(If you sign up after the symposium, you won't be able to join live, but you will be able to view the recordings.)
Top image from depositphotos.
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This is critical information, timely, and full of insights we all need now. YES! I have noticed that I have changed as a reader, and not proud of it. I was a Russian Language and Literature major in school and would spend hours immersed in heavy tomes of Tolstoy and other 19thC giants of literature. Now, I can't get through a few chapters if the story doesn't move. I read essays or information or articles, racing and skimming in order to "get to the point." I have not lost my love of beautiful prose, but my brain has lost its ability to be patient. Too often, it will skip on to the next thing rather than persevere. So I am all too anxious to read about what we writers need to do about this in order to serve/reach/connect with readers.
Lisa, I see you making good moves in your building and writing. That's our secret. I used to get lost in a character description written by Dickens... The nuances and subtle hilarity! And I do know a few readers who still seek out Tolstoy! These upcoming changes will affect us, and I think writers and readers will be at the heart of it. Interesting times ahead!
Oh, I remember Compuserve. It's how I got started writing.
Wasn't it fantastic? You know they still exist, right? litforum.com - a brilliant example of how a strong community can adjust and survive.
There are a lot of reasons why our attention spans are shorter these days, and why certain forms of writing have changed. But I wouldn't lay them at the feet of SEO. SEO is the mirror; it's not the mirror's subject.
Come back with me (yes, I lived all this), to the 80s, when MTV actually played music, and cuts were short and the time between them was also short. Advertisers adapted, noticing that an ad didn't have to be 60 seconds in order to get a similar level of sales as a 45 second ad did. And then the 30 second ad, etc. MTV played right into this, because three 1-minute ads couldn't hold a candle to six 30-second ads within the same length of time. More advertisers = more $ and more versatility.
And since it's Pride Month, I'll also mention that this is when it was taking forever to get AIDS drugs through testing. ACT-UP thankfully pushed the powers that be to speed up the process radically. This saved lives, but it was another contributor to more of a hurry up culture. There are plenty of other such examples.
As more and more people got cell phones, communications stopped being something that you couldn't do while traveling. It used to be, if you took public transportation somewhere, and you hadn't made arrangements before, you'd have to wait until the ride was over and stand on a line for a pay phone. Then, assuming you had the correct change, you would call whoever was supposed to pick you up from the station or airport, and you might reach their three-year-old. If the toddler hung up on you, you'd have to dig for some more change and make another call.
Online culture also changed in the late 90s, early 00s or so, when the 'net started to get some cachet. It turned from a refuge for folks who knew programming (and were often ridiculed about that), to people who wanted to see what all the fuss was about. In '03, MySpace was launched, and the social part of being online got a lot less niche. By 2006, Facebook was allowing non-academics to join, and everything got a lot more democratized.
SEO starts in around '97 or so, with Google being founded in '98. It was and is reflecting the continuing trend of a hurry-up culture, but it is also pushing the idea of better cutting to the chase.
Google's raison d'etre is to make sure that people are getting the best possible answers to their questions. The question about what's a great story about hunting a whale is Moby Dick. It's not, "Call me Ishmael...."
Google follows its model and constantly tweaks it, because if it doesn't give people a great search experience, then they'll go to Bing.
But the answer, as I stated, is the two-word title. It's the information about the book, but not the book itself.
When it comes to fiction (and memoir, nonfiction, etc., the stuff of books, that is), write for yourself, write for passion, write for fun, write for art.
But when it comes to articles about that stuff? Write for SEO.
And I'm curious to see what you'll be saying about LLMO.
I love this answer, Janet, because of course it is much more nuanced. One of my favorite articles was written by Laura Ingalls Wilder in a women's magazine about the change the phone had caused in her lifetime.
The changes ahead are going to be both dramatic and nuanced.
You've hit the key point: Google can't afford to lose traffic to Bing, and they have been. Every percentage point in overall search traffic they lose it around $1-2 billion dollars. They notice even a small change.
They're embracing AI to stay relevant. SEO is still at the heart of what's coming, but it is not the key many authors see it as.
And you highlighted the actual key: providing what people want. Consider the folks I work with: authors who have been taught to focus on SEO, often to the exclusion of trying to understand their fans. They believe that if they can just hit the right keyword combination, they'll find an audience. My point in this series is to start pulling people away from the edge of that crumbling cliff.
And yes, there are many good things coming!
Oh, hooray!
One of the things I think authors who are emphasizing keywords vs actual connections may be misunderstanding something fundamental about advertising online: you're not mass communicating in the sense that you're trying to reach everyone, everywhere, all the time.
This isn't a 1950s ad for toothpaste.
Rather, you're looking to connect with a small subset of people. The people who love you and your stuff, or who would if they only knew about you.
But you don't need to convince Joe Skeptic who'll never be into your vampire elf/pixie dinosaur Regency romance (dang, I think I may need to write this now...). But romance lovers? Jane Austen aficionados? LOTR fans? Folks who enjoy Chuck Tingle-type stuff? They're your audience. You only have to reach THEM.
Excellent article. Made me nostalgic. Sadly, I am affected by the pattern of skimming and reading titles to gauge the main idea and looking how many people liked it and also how many people like what I have to say regardless of having any “profound “ thoughts. Very not proud of myself. I keep thinking about the episode Nosebleed Black Mirror.
I am on Substack now, but I see it becoming more and more commercialized and oriented on likes which are eventually, for the “lucky” one are translated into the monetary compensation making this site very competitive. I
would love to hear some thoughts about Substack.
"There are still readers who want more than bullet points and summaries. They want voice. They want meaning. They want to be moved."
It's just a matter of time before we the number of such readers start trending upward. Otherwise, it's difficult to imagine a world without story.
Life without SEO? Not sure it can happen without an rise in critical thinking skills and returning freedom to curiosity, but ... let's go!
Thank you, Lisa!
Jennifer, the average length of books in some genres seems to be trending up. There is a trend in readers towards a real love of reading. The change is coming whether we are ready or not. It has already started. As someone who monitors a lot of statistics from author and other industry websites... The change is coming. Driven perhaps more by economics and trends than a change in thinking... Maybe. But the change is already here.
YAY!!! I love how you monitor and stay apprised of the industry. Thank you!
I just finished reading a handful of Substacks that I subscribe to and hit my email on Fridays. I have found the artists and creatives have found a platform on Substack that provides content, creativity and readers. Yes. A lot of readers want the short, compact summary AI is giving everywhere but the ones who want intellectual depth and curiosity are still there.
Yup.
Great point, Mindy.
That's where I found my little 'corner'...over on Substack.
Over two years happy there.
Lots of talent, conversations and lovely, LOVELY stories. =)
Speaking of those brilliant Substack authors... And you've seen, keywords still major, but knowing your audience and providing solid content is the real gold!
Exactly, Mindy! That's it. You can get an AI summary, but you can also delight in beautiful writing and deep thought.
And Substack is one of the platforms to keep an eye on.
I'm being a little over simplistic pointing just at SEO, but that's considering my audience. 90% of SEO has always been good content. I've watched writers sacrifice that content in pursuit of a higher SEO score.
The content is more important than SEO. And as things change, hopefully that is going to strengthen.
Enjoy those brilliant Substack authors!
I remember those days, too. My ex was a computer programmer and brought home a used teletype. Yup. We connected to the internet via the teletype--could only read one word at a time as it was typed or let it type out the whole reply or story then read it. It was a different world. And so it goes...
Have my reading habits changed? I was also taught speed reading at a very young age. So I've been able to read very fast. I do skim sometimes when searching for an answer to something. But on social media platforms--yeah, I skim a lot. While I concede SEO is a huge factor in changing how we access information, I blame skimming on the vast number of people who throw junk on the internet. One can say people do that to try to game SEO but we humans do that for attention no matter what media we're perusing. SEO may have made it worse, but if we humans didn't do that would SEO be so difficult? I don't know. And I'm not certain it matters anymore. As you said, GEO is the next chapter. Can't wait to read your take on it.
I was taught to speed read early as well. Probably from the same book. (grin) For many industries, SEO has become the way they survive, and the content they create is not even intended to be read by humans, but is optimized for the search engines. I'm sure that these attempts to game the system will only intensify as more and more algorithms come into play.
Brilliant content that appeals to humans will hopefully still be our foundation. You're another of the authors that I've seen learning to recognize their audience and creating that brilliant content.
Next will be to learn how to curate that content and get it seen after the search engines switch to helpfully summarizing for us!
Well THAT was depressing as hell.
Not your article, Lisa...of course not. This was brilliant.
I'm referring to surfacing memories for myself, how I was introduced to the internet and my journey with my own writing from the early 90s until now.
I feel it still, the frustration. How each and every pivot I made felt almost useless, because as soon as I found my pace again, things would change and I couldn't hold on to it.
So I stopped.
Just...stopped.
"Screw this," I said out loud at some point. I know I confused my wife, but when I explained much of what you just clarified, she would nod.
"What are you going to do then?" she'd ask.
"I'll do it my way," I said then. Still say it now.
I'll use the tools I have in front of me and around me to be the very best version of myself and hopefully, someway, give voice to the thousands of people and creations in my mind.
Give life to the near limitless stories and web-like connections in my brain, so I can share a different perspective. All wrapped up in addictive, unbiased fiction, whose only goal is to entertain...while holding up a mirror to the person living the story, so they discover themselves and how flippin' amazing they truly are.
I gave up the ghost on trying to comply a long time ago.
Now I just plant seeds, literally anywhere...in the hopes of letting other souls in this crowded room of screamers know...
There's still peace, love, laughter, and creative conversations in this corner, over here.
Looking forward to reading next month.
THANK you, Lisa, as always...for being you.
[laughing]
....it's my favorite part about you [cheeky grin].
Jaime: THIS is the magic: "wrapped up in addictive... fiction, whose only goal is to entertain" THAT will outweigh any algorithm. Maybe not instantly, but over time.
This is what the humans ACTUALLY want. And in the end, the search engines want to keep the humans happy.
I read the way you've described it on a computer screen, unless I'm editing the material. But I still read physical books and magazines. I want to think and feel when I read.
Debbie - THAT: I want to think and feel when I read.
THAT is beautiful and brilliant. When I see corporate SEO types worried about the coming changes, I remember this. Because you are not alone. And this is where writers still have a foothold in the future of the internet. Because people DO still want the type of material we create.
EVEN when it isn't SEO perfect.
Hello, lovely! I got a visceral flash of a conversation where my brother said, "Hang up and go read your email. Then call me back." The boing-boing of the modem, the magic of the forums. We've come a long way...
But I believe that connection is more important than ever. The pandemic taught people that, if nothing else. People need meaningful connections.
But, yes, the skim has changed things irrevocably. We get 2 inches or 6 seconds to catch someone's attention, whether it's an email, and article, or a dating profile. It makes me sad.
That modem connecting sound is STILL a visceral trigger, right? And it WAS the connection that actually gave us that dopamine hit.
I'm sure you've noticed the statistics shifts on other websites. Sites with strong content and CONNECTIONS to their readers? I've barely seen the needle moving. In fact, I've seen growth. Sites that were focusing more on SEO than content? WOW. Those stats are terrifying.
Where I'm going with this series: we've seen tectonic shifts in our lifetimes. Another is coming. But just maybe... maybe it is a beautiful one? No idea, but I'm hopeful!
An excellent article. I, too, miss the days of CompuServe, and admit that I have succumbed too often to skimming longer articles and such. I'm not proud of it, and I'm not sure that not just a product of aging (I have limited time left in this world and I don't want to waste it!) What we have now is a poor substitute.
Elise! Hi! Speaking of CompuServe and TRUE connections! Remember that bb reader we used to use? I can't remember the name... I'm thinking Kermit?
Let's face it: there are a lot of articles out there these days that are designed more for SEO than for humans, and there's nothing to be gained by NOT skimming. And you're right: they aren't worth our time.
But what if... what if the AIs summarize those for us and those types of things stop ranking? What if the beautifully written, actually useful and connection driven writing begins to grow in power?
Hey, you've known me long enough to know I can be a hopeless optimist!
As always, Lisa, you give us such great information!
!
Thanks, Sally - always a joy!
Great information!
Thanks, Denise!
Good article. Thanks!