Transcript: People that ruined the Internet – Amanda Chicago Lewis – DS485

Doug: so I stumbled upon this headline and man, it just grabbed me. I knew I had to dive into this article. You probably saw it out there. It was a bit of a beast, many thousands of words. So I made sure to sit down at my desk away from my phone and really get into it. And let me tell you, it was a ride.

I found myself laughing, smirking. Crying, not really crying, but I did get defensive at times overall, though, it was super entertaining and I know some folks glance at a long article and they just bail after a few paragraphs, but this one I have to tell you it was worth it. It felt more than just an article, you know, it was like going on a journey. Amanda Chicago Lewis started off with one view of SEO and ended up. Somewhere totally different. It wasn’t just a quick blog post hitting one note. It was complex, like watching a movie or a mini-series. And it really didn’t have a conclusion at the end.

So I thought I’ve got to talk to Amanda. So I shot her an email and we set up this interview. I wish we had more time to really dig in and get to some questions from other SEO pros, but hey, it was around the holidays and Amanda was super cool to actually make the time to do the interview.

Here’s another cool thing. I asked some of my SEO friends to weigh in on the article.

I’ll drop a link in the description and I’m doing a video roundup. So we’ll hear from Amanda. She’ll be able to fill in some of the details that weren’t actually included in the article. And then you’ll be able to hear what the SEOs thought about her. Huge article. so definitely give the article a read and throw in your two cents in the comments.

And even if this article is written for the general mainstream audience, there’s a lot in there for us marketing and SEO geeks.

Doug: Hey, what’s going on? Welcome to the Doug show. My name is Doug Cunnington. And today we have a different kind of an interview. So a while back, an article came out called, , the people who ruin the internet. And I thought it was amazing. There was a very mixed kind of response to the article.

But I thought, I could just reach out to Amanda Chicago Lewis and see what the deal was, because I was surprised at some of the response out there.

We’ll link to it so that you can go check it out. And generally it highlights the journey of various SEO professionals, exploring their tactics, the evolution of SEO and its consequences on the internet content quality.

The article also gets into the response from Google and how they’ve tried to deal with SEO and really just kind of the manipulation that us marketers do often. So Amanda, it’s a pleasure to talk to you. How’s it going today?

Amanda: It’s going really well. How are you doing?

Doug: Doing awesome. And yeah, I’m, I’m pumped to get into it.

I’m going to try to give a little intro and you’re a seasoned journalist renowned for your in depth magazine style reporting and documentary production work for networks like MTV and CNN. You. I think carved out a niche in the cannabis industry and you’ve published on Rolling Stone, BuzzFeed News, and several other places in that specific area.

Plus, uh, like GQ, the New York Times, Wired, and you’ve been on NPR and Viceland before. Is all that correct?

Amanda: Oh, that is correct. Yes.

Doug: Thank you. Thanks for carving out the time today. And I’m curious, I always like to get just a little bit of an intro of. Our guests personally, so is there anything else to add about your bio or what you’re into?

Do you have any specific hobbies or anything you want to add?

Amanda: Hmm. , I don’t think I have anything else to say. I was just like, I feel like my last several meals have been Mexican food. Like, I was like, that was the most

Doug: Love Mexican food. That’s great. That’s what I got for ya. Very good. Alright. So let’s get into the meat and potatoes here since we’re talking about food anyway. did you know anything about SEO beforehand and to set the context, I’m curious if you knew how maybe like sensitive of an area and the counterculture of like SEO and marketers is.

So did you know anything about SEO beforehand?

Amanda: I will say I knew a lot less than I knew a lot less than I know now. Um, I don’t even think I was really aware of the stereotype, which, you know, started getting explained to me very early on. Um, I’m not necessarily a tech beat journalist, though. A lot of the things I’ve covered have intersected with tech.

Um, so I think on the one hand, I’m like an average internet user. On the other hand, I’m like. Barely on social media and obviously use Google a lot to do research. And so I’m probably more

Maybe more advanced at doing research on the internet than most people since that’s part of what I do for a living I had sort of seen the stuff that I opened the article with which is kind of like The feelings in the ether that Google quality has gotten worse in the last couple years certainly, I like I mean, I think it would be difficult to exist and not have some kind of sense of of Google or to be interacting with Google products in some way or to be hearing people talking about Google.

And, and if you’re not using any of the products, like that’s almost kind of a stance. And so I think on the one hand, I’m an average person. And on the other hand, I may be pay more attention and do more research than the average person. And so, but no, I think I didn’t know a lot about SEO in this, in the way that I think tends to happen.

There were A couple of little things in previous articles that sort of touched on things that were related related to this. Um, I had known someone from another story who was very into affiliate marketing. So I had learned a lot about that. And then someone I wrote a story about a long time ago had had like a bit of a moment as an SEO earlier in their career, and I knew what type of person that person was.

So now it makes sense that that person did SEO. But at the time, I wouldn’t have necessarily said that was about SEO. I might have just been like, well, that was that guy.

Doug: And that makes sense. I mean, as Most people are casual users of the internet. They may use it a little more for their job, just like you.

They don’t know, like, the nuts and bolts. Even, you know, like, my, my family. I maybe have told them a little bit. But largely, they don’t give a shit, right? Like, they don’t want to hear all the details. And I realize No one wants to see how the sausage is made, but you got in there pretty deep. So I’m just curious, from your standpoint as a journalist and someone who does use Google for research often, what’s your impression over the, say, the last eight years of, like, the quality of the results or the ease of finding more information for a story?

Amanda: I think it’s hard for me to even answer that as, like, My unvarnished experience, and I think it would have been the same a year ago, and I think that kind of gets at the bigger sense of like, when I’m seeing something on the Internet. Or even when I’m seeing something in the real world, how am I supposed to know the difference between what I’m seeing because it’s me and the people I know and the people in my, you know, silo of the internet?

Or whether that’s something that is a genuine phenomenon that is sort of, you know, reverberating across everyone’s experience Even understanding, just for example, E E A T, like, that’s something that, when it was explained to me and I started reading about it, it was like, suddenly I, not like I saw the Matrix, but a little bit of, oh, something I had been getting feelings of.

In terms of my experience, but also what other people were talking about and the ways they were talking about things in terms of inter information online and the sort of like, oh yeah, they’re like censoring right-wing opinions and, and sort of this stuff that people were, uh, saying. It was like all of a sudden, rather than it being a jumble.

Of confusing, unrelated bits of information that didn’t really have any meaning. Suddenly I was like, oh, there was this initiative. This thing happened. It changed the way results were appearing about certain topics. And it’s a real thing. It’s not a conspiracy. And, um, you know, it’s measurable. And it’s something people have been paying close attention to.

There’s so much specialized conversation among people who are like in the industry who maybe speak in any industry who speak to each other in jargon and know what’s going on and follow it in a lot of detail and then there’s kind of like the ignorant masses who just any level of like the depth of what’s really going on is never going to make it to them.

It’s really hard to get it You know, to have any big understanding and also there’s like this intense truth decay where like no one trusts anything anymore. And so I think, I guess all that to say, what I was noticing is less about what I was noticing and more about I learned things in the last, whatever, eight months that I was working on the story that, , made clear things that affirmed what I was noticing, not only about my own Google experience, but how other people are talking about theirs.

Doug: Going back to the original question, like, do you think the results are a little better, a little worse? And it sounds like you’re saying it kind of depends. It totally depends

Amanda: on what you’re looking for because, look, the story is super long and some of the, like, more nuanced main points you might not get until the end, which is, intentional but, you know, I will say, like, when I’m talking to, like, a friend’s parents who are kind of like not going to read the story maybe and just want to know like well wait So should we not trust Google anymore?

Like they want the main point I will just sort of say it has changed the way that I Google things I will say if you are looking for the best if you’re looking if you’re shopping if you’re looking for a service if you’re looking for a product Google is not going to bring you the best products and services at the top of the first page.

Like all of that stuff has been manipulated by people who are trying to sell their shit. So like, it’s not like, Oh my God, where’s, you know, the best accountant or contractor, the like good. And so that’s, you know, that’s not even, it’s just what lots of people who really know a lot more about this told me.

And so it’s like, okay, change that. If you have a health problem and you’re looking it up, You know, I’ll say like the knowledge is going to be more institutional and conservative, , as in not like politically conservative, but , less risk taking or less, , homeopathic than it might’ve been seven or eight years ago.

So if you’re looking for like a, even a, , low intervention, non intensive, it’s not like experimental surgery, but if you’re looking for like a more, something less like liability oriented, you might need to get down to the bottom of the results. Don’t just read the top two. Um, I think those are some of the takeaways that have changed.

My thing, how I use Google and what I’ve told other people to. Are the big takeaways for me.

Doug: Yeah. Great point about the affiliate marketing area, which is where I got started and published, uh, probably a lot of garbage articles. I’ll be honest, you know, back in the day, I didn’t know any better. And that’s what we did.

And I, I learned a lot of stuff from it, but recently,

Amanda: no shade there’s everyone has money and like affiliate marketing props up a lot of like. better things in the world. So

Doug: yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, some of the response to the article, people were really defensive and I think they just read the headline, which we’ll come back to, but there was a, one of the recent updates here in the fall of 2023 from Google pushed a lot of Reddit.

Right, just threads up very high. Right. And I was looking for it was like a supplement to help me sleep. Right. So I was looking for more information. And I ended up on a Reddit thread where there’s a bunch of morons like arguing back and forth. And I’m like, this is way less helpful than if someone was just like, trying to push a specific product that At least like I could kind of trust them because maybe they tested it out or it looks like they have a picture of the product, but on Reddit, it’s just kind of nonsense.

So what do you think, what do you think of Reddit results? Like some people are in, right? They’re like, I dig it.

Amanda: Right. Well, I think, I mean, that is in response to, you know, criticism and I think is almost a. I wouldn’t say an overcorrection, but it’s part of this kind of, like, pendulum that’s been happening between, like, Oh, we’re trying to, like, de-emphasize the opinions of, like, a random, nonaccredited, non-institutional individual, but at the same time, people want advice from real people.

And so then it’s like, Oh, well then we like reemphasize Reddit and we reemphasize individual people with their like travel blogs and their recipe blogs. And so I think it’s the kind of thing where it’s never going to be perfect because it’s so. on the subject, on the person. And like, it’s really hard to just write, I mean, a set of algorithms that like bring you back the best information.

And like, it’s just going to keep swinging between these, poles of, One random crank, and the overly conservative, , in opinion, and , institutional, careful, super vetted such that you’re barely saying anything. opinion. And it’s like, those are maybe two extremes and trying to account for every single, , nuances is, not the easiest job.

I’m glad that’s not my job.

Doug: Right. Yeah. My wife asked, I told her I was going to interview you and she said, who’s Amanda first. And then I said, she wrote this article . It’ll be super interesting, my wife said, well, how, how should they do it? And I’m like, I don’t know. It sounds like a really tough problem.

I don’t know how Google should rank this stuff. But

Amanda: I can tell a person like, well, in a lot of situations, talk to like a trusted friend or expert, like just Google’s not the right way to get that information. And it’s, it’s too bad because I think there was a moment where for a lot of things, Google did bring up really reliable, interesting results for a long time that at the very least were, you know, way like bringing information to people in this like crowdsourced way that was sort of, it was like kind of, you never would have gotten that kind of information 30 years ago and so that was very cool and revolutionary for a while, but like, yeah, You’re never going to dial that in to be perfect because as soon as you set up a system, people are going to try and game it.

Doug: So I think you mentioned that you worked about eight months on this article. Is that right?

Amanda: Or it’s just been eight months or maybe it’s been eight months since I first started working on it.

That was also a, okay, so let’s see. It’s December now. I started working on it for real, maybe in like March or April. so. Devin, you do that math.

Doug: So a few months and how much work goes into it? And you could describe that however you want. So I’m, you know. I have websites and some of my friends have websites and now we just get chat GPT to write everything for us.

Right? So it takes like three minutes. So your article, which was, it was long and I loved it. I literally emailed you right after I read it to hook up this interview. I’m just curious what it takes to actually research an article and publish something like that.

Amanda: I would say most stories like. I will try and talk to 20 to 30 people who are, who like really know what they’re talking about, who have like a variety of perspectives.

Um, I will read. Like, you know, thousands of thousands of pages of all kinds of things from like news articles to like research papers to, you know, whatever is relevant to the subject. I mean, I think sometimes I’ll just sort of like go off in a, in a direction because something’s interesting. I mean, I, what we were talking about before with the sort of crowdsourcing thing, I’ve read a bunch of things around.

I’m not even sure I mentioned this in the story in the end, but do you remember that book, The Wisdom of Crowds? This is James Surowiecki, like, um, business journalist, uh, book in maybe like 2006 or something that was kind of Sort of related to the like, ask the audience element of, um, who wants to be a millionaire that was kind of like if you just, you know, poll everybody, like you’re probably going to get the correct answer, which was sort of, it was like a moment when a lot of people really thought that was True.

And then I think I sort of, it’s like, I went down, so I guess what I’m saying is like, I’ll read a bunch of random books, like I, you know, read a lot of that book and then I also read a lot of, you know, the book that that was referencing, which was from like the 19th century, which is called like maybe the, the like madness of crowds or like the chaos and madness of crowds or something.

Sort of like, Yeah. Asking a big question, but exploring it from different angles. Um, so I guess what I’m saying is, I do like way more, I do way more research than I probably should if I wanted to be like the most economically efficient version of myself. But also if I didn’t do that much research, maybe the stories wouldn’t be as good.

Question mark?

Doug: No, I think, I think you have a good process. Yeah. It seems fine. Um

Amanda: You can say that.

Doug: Did you, so after you publish something like this, do you read the comments and or Twitter conversations that happen out there?

Amanda: A little bit. Um, but usually it’s like the thing is coming out and I’ll spend a little bit of time, you know, pushing it on like my newsletter or my Instagram, but it’s like still very limited and I don’t spend that much time on.

And then I’m like, I’m working on something else. So I don’t have that much time to devote to following it. Bye. I will, you know, like my editor and my, um, fact checker who I’ve worked with a bunch, um, that I worked with for this story will like send screenshots of things as they come in, like people will, you know, update me.

But I’m not like digging into it too much or then suddenly it’s like one in the morning and I’m like reading, um, people’s responses. I would say like Nilai, who is editor in chief of The Verge, got very, uh, into this one and was sort of like on social media, like top bat and in the comments, like in the comments, like arguing with people.

And that made me very happy. And it is like, temperamentally, I’m just like, not, I’m just not a poster like that. So, so yeah, so I read a lot of it, but rarely engage. Well,

Doug: I was going to say internet commenters are. bananas. So you’re doing the right thing. I don’t really do too much of that. I did take a look at a couple just to see, like I said, some of the response.

And I think, you know, some other, other podcasts, some of my peers out there, they sort of took it personally. And I think that was the thing that surprised me is like, people did take it personally. Even though it really wasn’t about them, they just felt defensive. But I think they also didn’t read the full article.

So you summarized it well earlier when you gave the thesis, but, , When I was reading and putting together the notes for this interview, it’s called the people who ruined the internet, which one could take it to be themselves, right? Or it could be like those other people at Google ruined it.

And like, if you read the whole article, which I encourage people to do, or at least put it into like chat GPT to give you a summary, it’s pretty long, but you could read it two different ways. And I’m curious. Did you have, did you title this specific article or did an editor change it or how does that work?

Amanda: my editor came up with the headline and it was in reference to something that was in like the first like paragraph or two. , and So I think it, the headline accurately represents the, like, provocative stance of the first section of the story, which I understand that, like, a provocative first section and a provocative headline are going to upset people.

Um, you know. Like you said, the story is super long. You might not understand that, like, the headline is supposed to have multiple meanings until you get to the end of the story. And then it’s like, well, who ruined the internet? Like, is it SEOs? Or is it, you know, the audience? Or is it Google? Is it all of us?

This is just how people are. And this is sort of, like, inevitable. This is not like, oh, there are evil people in the world and they are SEOs. Which is certainly not what I think. But I think that the You know, the opening section was like intentionally supposed to be capturing everyone else’s mood, like kind of the mood online, and particularly among, um, maybe like tech journalists or people who think a lot about tech, and, and was like a little bit my opinion, but it was mostly like, uh, everybody’s really mad about this thing.

Like these, these are the people that are to blame. It was like, what’s wrong with these people? And then it’s like, well, okay, let’s like now bring you into the conversation in a much more nuanced and like loving way. Some of the things, some of the things about the stereotype are a little correct. Some of the things are not, but I think the other thing is like when I end up doing these like ambitious.

pieces where it’s like, Oh, I’m going to like paint an entire industry in a story that is both really long and really short, like really in depth, but also like just scratching the surface of a lot of the more complicated, deeper things. I’m not talking about like the technical elements of SEO. There were certainly a lot of things that I learned that it was like, this is too dense or dry or boring to even attempt to explain to a mainstream audience and it’s ultimately not relevant.

So you don’t have to, you know, it kind of ends up in this situation where people maybe want. article, which is fair and is, is summarizing, an industry when in fact, uh, you know, it’s like. This is a, like, fun rollercoaster ride, like an educational rollercoaster ride that will teach you about something and get you to think about certain complicated issues, and explore, you know, An area of Epcot, but it’s not ultimately the same as like going to France, you know, yeah, well, it’s sort of like, yeah, no, like when I’m like, it’s like, this is what SEO is.

As soon as you start saying something like that, there’s like going to be 300 people who are like, but you didn’t mention this thing. You didn’t mention this thing. You didn’t talk about this thing. Like, why aren’t you acknowledging this thing? Like, where’s this? And it’s like, Well, it’s not a Wikipedia article.

Like, that’s not what we were going for. It’s, it’s exploring the, you know, the anger and the resentment that people feel about why results, like, have seemed

Doug: Okay. Well, I know we’re coming up towards the end of time and I want to respect your afternoon here. So a couple of quick questions to follow up.

So you did mention some of the stereotypes of SEO. Some seem to be correct. Some maybe are a little bit off. Can you give us one that is correct and one that is off?

Amanda: Yeah, let me try. Okay. So, I was sort of told again and again that like, People who do SEO tend to be the kind of people who enjoy maybe like beating a system, like beating a bigger, larger entity and being like, Oh, I beat Google, you know, which there was a little bit of that attitude and a lot of the people that I talked to, which is, yeah, I mean, of course, it’s like, that’s what you’re doing.

That’s the definition of the thing you’re going to attract people who are like that, you know, just in the same way that, you know, you said I’ve like written a lot about cannabis, like people who started working in cannabis. Especially like before it was legal, but while it was like transitioning, are people who take risks, you know, like there are people who like I drive with them.

Like maybe they’re not wearing a seatbelt. Like, it’s just kind of like, because the definition of the thing is you’re a risk taker. That’s what the industry involves. Stereotype that was not true. I think that, and I think this is something I’ve thought a lot about in my work.

People tend to blame other people for things that are a little bit within their, you know, decision making power, but more likely are created by, are like decisions they’re making because of incentives in a system that is way old. And so I feel like the stereotype that is not true is just any stereotype as like an SEO is a bad person, you know, like an SEO is like a person standing at a, at a, um, you know, at a vending cart, like selling me fruit, like it’s a business, like, that’s just like what it is.

And, you know, I feel like all of us. Make decisions every day and do things that are like very slightly fucking over other people in small ways, whether it’s like ordering something from Amazon or like, what have you, you know, you’re making a decision in the moment that works for you, that like, maybe along the line somewhere else, someone else’s is like seeing a very annoying, you know, blog post about which, um, you know, Bluetooth keyboard to buy because of like the, the shit you did to make money and it’s like, there’s no, I have no judgment for that as a suit, but I think that The stereotype that’s unfair is like, uh, you’re a bad person because of that.

Doug: This question may go nowhere, but if there was like a version or two

Amanda: I don’t want your personality and my answer is Mexican food because that would be

Doug: fun. Mexican food. Yep, the answer is Mexican food. I’m

Amanda: gonna throw out that all night.

Doug: Do you, um So if there was, uh, another article in this Area and SEO and marketing area.

Do you have any idea what it might cover if they, you know, if the verge came to you and said, Hey, we want to do something else here. Did you see something where you’re like, I want to pull on that thread?

Amanda: Yeah. I mean, I don’t often go back to the same subjects and, uh, look at them over and over again. I mean, I guess, except for the cannabis thing, things tend to be related.

But when I do something that’s like, this is the big SEO story. It’s not like I’m, I’m usually like, all right, I’ve finished. That’s what I think about that. But I will say, um, because affiliate marketing is like technically a different. Is like a different but related thing. , I was not able to get into it in very much detail.

And I think it’s something that is, you know, like E E A T, happening behind the scenes of the internet, of the internet that everyone is interacting with, without most people necessarily understanding it. yeah, I think I would love to see like better reporting about affiliate marketing, but I am probably not going to be the person to do it.

Doug: Okay. I mean, this has been amazing and thanks a lot for joining me today. Where should people find you? I’ll link up to everything so it’s easy, but where should we send people if they want to check out more of your work or follow along with you somewhere? You know,

Amanda: on my, uh, website. Which is AmandaChicagoLewis.com. There’s like a newsletter where it’s literally just like maybe twice a year I send out an email when I publish a story. , and I don’t even do it for every story. So, uh, it’s, but it’s also on tiny letter, which I guess is closing. So I need to move that. But if you want to be on that list, that’s like probably the most consistent and least.

I mean, I don’t really do any like, I’m on Instagram all day. So that’s kind of the only, you know, what, like my parents do, like get a Google alert for my name.

Doug: Yep. That makes sense. Okay. Well, I’ll link up to your website. I’m on your, um, I signed up for your newsletter. I haven’t gotten anything yet, so I’ll keep, I’ll keep an eye out.

Amanda: Do not expect more than two emails a year, like for real

Doug: That’s perfect. All right, Amanda. Thanks a lot. And yeah, um, I’ll follow you around and hopefully I’ll see some more articles out there from you.

Amanda: Amazing. Thank you so much, Doug.