SEOWE’RE THE NEWSROOM SEO DESERVES (ITS PUNISHMENT)
The SEO Bits is a satirical SEO & digital-marketing publication that believes two things at once: this industry is genuinely ridiculous, and it is also genuinely knowable. We publish savage satire about the absurd parts, and rigorous data journalism about the real ones. You decide which is which. We won’t help.
Our Deal With You
Most SEO publications fall into one of two camps. Camp one is the hype machine: every update is a crisis, every tool is a miracle, and the answer to every question is a checkout page. Camp two is the cynic’s graveyard: nothing works, everyone’s lying, give up.
We are trying, stubbornly, to be a third thing. Savage about the nonsense, serious about the data. When we roast a core update, we also tell you what to actually do about it. When we publish a 12,000-word investigation, the methodology is real and the dataset exists.
We have been banned from three SEO conferences, blocked by two Google search liaisons, and called “unhelpful” by an algorithm whose entire job is determining helpfulness. We consider these our credentials.
The satire is fiction. The advice is not. If you ever can’t tell which column you’re reading — good. That tension is the entire point.
Editorial Standards (Such As They Are)
- If we publish a number, we can show you where it came from. If we can’t, it’s satire, and we’ll make it obviously stupid.
- We take exactly zero affiliate money from the tools we review. Our “BUY/RUN” verdicts are decided by editors who do not know what the commission is.
- No “listicle of 47 tools you’ll never use.” If we recommend something, a human here has used it for an actual client.
- When we’re wrong — and our predictions are wrong ~96% of the time, which is somehow above the industry average — we update the piece and leave the original take visible with a strike-through. Cowards delete.
- We do not accept guest posts. We do not sell links. We do not “do SEO” for clients. Our only revenue is the newsletter and our dignity (diminishing).
- If a source asks for anonymity because they’re afraid of retaliation from an employer or platform, we grant it. If they ask because they just want to talk trash, we make them put their name on it.
✍ THE MASTHEAD
A staff of four. All disavowed. All yours.Disavowed by more link networks than anyone on staff. Writes about core updates the way most people write about grief. 4% prediction accuracy.
Spent 11 years in agencies and left with stories, gray hair, and a permanent flinch at the word “synergy.” Files from the trenches.
Covering Google the way war correspondents cover fronts. Has read every Search Central documentation page. Has understood roughly half.
Runs the 10,000-keyword tracker and the coffee machine. Believes correlation is not causation but is, occasionally, a very loud hint. Methodology purist.
GOT A TIP? OR A SCREENSHOT YOU WANT TO SHOW THE WORLD?
Leaked algorithm docs. A client brief so bad it’s art. A ranking graph that defies physics. We read everything. We publish almost nothing. We protect sources — even the ones who are clearly going to get caught.
tips@theseobits.exampleFor the truly paranoid: our SecureDrop-style tip line details are available on request. No, we will not put them on a public page. We do read your emails.