30 Years of SEO Bullshit

Slides from my talk at the 2025 Nottingham Digital Summit, where I spoke about the SEO industry's obsession with spam and quick wins since its inception, and how Google's disinformation and lies have contributed to the industry's conflicts.

Transcript

1. 30 Years of SEO Bullshit Barry Adams Nottingham Digital Summit 25 September 2025
2. Barry Adams ➢ Active in SEO since 1998 ➢ Specialist in SEO for News Publishers ➢ Newsletter: SEOforGoogleNews.com ➢ Co-founder of the News & Editorial SEO Summit
3. I’ve worked with…
5. 30 28 Years of SEO Bullshit Barry Adams Nottingham Digital Summit 25 September 2025
6. Why is there so much shit in the SEO industry?
7. To be clear… NOT these people And all the other speakers of course…
8. But… you know…
9. Or anyone who says ‘niche site’ unironically
10. It all started like this… How can we put as many keywords into a webpage as possible but without annoying users who read the page? I know, let’s make the text white on a white background! Genius! An SEO walks into a bar, pub, sportsbar, tavern, café, drinking establishment, irish pub, drinks, beer, alcohol, wine, spirits, whiskey…
11. It all started like this… How can we put as many keywords into a webpage as possible but without annoying users who read the page? I know, let’s make the text white on a white background! Genius! An SEO walks into a bar, pub, sportsbar, tavern, café, drinking establishment, irish pub, drinks, beer, alcohol, wine, spirits, whiskey…
12. Keyword Density
13. PageRank Sculpting
14. Information Retrieval Jargon
18. GEO
19. Why do we do this to ourselves?
20. Always chasing after the New Shiny Thing
21. Always looking for shortcuts
22. Hashtag Winning…
23. Hashtag Winning… Oops.
24. SEO is inherently adversarial
25. We’re all fighting Google…
26. … and one another.
27. Why can’t we all just hug it out?
28. Well…
29. Does Google use click data?
30. Google API Warehouse leak
32. Does Google favour fresh content?
34. Does Google manually whitelist sites?
36. Does linking out to quality sites help?
38. Sometimes it’s not an outright lie…
39. … it’s just deliberately misleading.
40. Are AI Overviews impacting traffic?
42. Plus, let’s not forget…
43. Plus, let’s not forget…
44. Plus, let’s not forget…
45. Google has always used us.
46. Google has always used us.
47. So of course we’re angry
48. But let’s stay focused
49. Don’t get caught up in the bullshit
50. Avoid the salesmen
51. Listen to the right people
52. Don’t trust Google
53. Don’t rely on tools
54. Keep learning and evolving
55. Test what works (and what doesn’t)
56. Don’t get distracted
57. Chase after people, not algorithms
58. Often you have to do things the hard way
59. If it was easy, we’d all be millionaires
60. Thank you