This article is based on a recent discussion I participated in on the LowEndSpirit forum. The original thread was posted in the “off-topic” section – meaning it’s not visible to non-registered users, won’t be indexed by search engines and will soon be nearly impossible to find (since Vanilla forum search function is, well… lacking – sigh).
It would be a shame for the ideas exchanged there to vanish, so I decided to summarise and expand on the key points here.
I’ll leave the other comments and participants anonymous to respect their privacy and originality.
Special thanks to @Vyas for permission to include and build upon his contributions in the thread.
In a separate article, I discussed on this topic:
Is AI theft?
1. SEO tools – worth the price?
The original question was:
Are SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and SimilarWeb worth paying for?
My answer: it depends on your goals.
If your website is making money…
Then yes – SEO tools can help you scale and optimise visibility.
They won’t magically make your site profitable, but they can support a strategy if you are already treating your website as a business.
You will still rely on Google Search Console and Analytics for basics, but tools like Ahrefs let you visualise, dig deeper, and compare data at scale.
They also scrape and aggregate data from the web – and while they do not exactly advertise that, it is reasonable to assume they make good use of the information collected (that can be used by your competition – at least that’s my opinion).
Still, they can help you:
- Find content gaps.
- Track backlinks.
- Research keywords.
- Monitor competitor activity.
Screaming Frog also deserves a mention (it was noted by a member in the discussion). My thoughts:
Outrageously expensive and deliberately limited to the point of useless in the free version. For example:
The 500 page free tier crawl limit gets easily exhausted by the software browsing every “wp-content/uploads/” jpg page directory, /litespeed/ temp cache subdirectory etc.
No way to set excludes in the free version.
No way to save a finished crawl.
So, basically a useless showcase of an expensive product.
Now I remember why I never used it. LOL.
For pro agencies – I suppose it’s a good tool. It is well-known.
SEO pros do praise it a lot. They also usually charge a lot for their services. 🙂
If your site is focused on education or knowledge sharing…
Then no – it is probably a waste of time and money.
You are playing a rigged game.
Sites like AnandTech, and even my own BikeGremlin website, often end up buried under pages of mass-produced, SEO-perfect but low-quality “content”.
Effort, testing, and originality are no longer enough.
Case in point:
SEO today is about industrial “content production,” not individual excellence.
2. Enter LLMs – Goodbye craft, hello “content” flood
LLMs (Large Language Models) changed the game.
With a few prompts and light edits, anyone can now generate half-decent articles at zero cost.
I also wrote about the impacts of the “AI” (or LLMs at this time) here:
Zeitgeist and “AI” (a cycling industry related article), and played a bit with the ChatGPT Absolute mode (“go cold”). ).
I also ran a short test, see: My LLM/AI experiment.
This caused an explosion of mass-produced “content”.
Not necessarily good content – but structured, keyword-stuffed, and often good enough to rank.
The difference between articles/videos, and “content” is that the latter is made for ranking/sales/clicks/”engagement” – junk basically.
@Vyas shared a great example from his own project:
He’s updating about 150 posts, merging and redirecting some, refreshing others. Instead of using expensive SEO tools, he’s doing most of it with an LLM. According to him, basic LLM tools now cover over half the work those old SaaS tools were used for.
What can an LLM do?
- Suggest titles and meta descriptions.
- Format headings and subheadings.
- Insert relevant keywords.
- Rewrite text in a consistent tone.
- Add FAQs, summaries, and internal links.
In short: all the SEO polish, without the original thought.
It’s efficient. It’s cheap. And “it works.”
But it also means the Internet is being filled with generic, AI-assisted stuff – often “written” by people who don’t even understand the topic.
And once again, the people who do things properly – write, test, revise, share real knowledge – get buried under the noise.
Quantity is up. Quality is down.
And the web got noisier, not smarter.
3. Google’s reaction – and the collateral damage
Faced with the flood of AI-generated “content,” Google had to respond. They did two main things:
- Started building and integrating their own LLMs (under the “AI” label).
- Doubled down on boosting what they consider “trusted” sources – Reddit, Quora (I got banned on Quora, and my answers there have been deleted), YouTube, corporate blogs, and big-name media outlets (shady Reddit and Forbes deals).
So what happened?
- Snippets and summaries started showing up directly in search results.
- Fewer people clicked through to actual websites.
- Independent sites, forums, and niche blogs got buried.
- Mass-produced “content” started ranking better than in-depth articles.
Google still says they want “helpful content.”
But what they actually promote is engagement-friendly, shareable stuff – even if it’s shallow or recycled.
If you’re not part of the “inner circle,” your chances of ranking are slim, no matter how useful or well-written your article is.
The only exception – for now, in my opinion – are online stores.
They still seem to have a fighting chance, especially if their technical SEO is solid and they serve a specific niche.
(Though even that might change once Google ramps up their own shopping integration.)
And the sad part?
Even if you do everything right:
- Research
- Testing
- Writing clearly
- Structuring well
- Optimising responsibly
…you still get outranked by a Reddit thread or an AI-polished listicle.
3.1. Why Reddit ranks so well
Apart from the above-mentioned shady deal with Google, Reddit’s design prioritises consumption over connection. Tiny usernames, collapsing comment trees, and infinite scrolling make it easy to read – but hard to build any lasting identity, memory, or trust.
It’s like a fast-food joint for attention: quick hits, no names, no context – just “engagement.”
That’s part of why Reddit content now dominates Google results. It’s:
- Bite-sized.
- Emotion-driven.
- Constantly refreshed.
…even when it’s shallow or outright wrong. But it’s “engaging” – and that’s what Google’s algorithms now reward.
4. The open web is dying
The open web used to be a strange and wonderful place. You could stumble across detailed blog posts, obscure forum threads, or niche websites written by people who really knew their stuff – and wanted to share it.
It wasn’t always polished.
It wasn’t always fast.
But it was real. And if you were willing to dig, you could find gold.
That’s changing. Or more precisely: it’s already changed. Today’s web is being overtaken by:
- Corporate platforms (Reddit, YouTube, Quora, LinkedIn…).
- AI summarised answers that remove the need to click.
- SEO-optimised “content” that speaks a lot without really saying anything.
Independent voices? Harder to find.
Niche blogs? Buried.
Helpful forum posts? Invisible unless they go viral.
Even worse – when we do write, test, explain, and publish useful stuff… it often just ends up training the LLMs that will summarise it into a bland answer for someone else.
We’re feeding the machine. And in return, we’re made harder to find.
The knowledge doesn’t vanish – it just becomes background noise in someone else’s AI snippet. And the people who created it get none of the credit, traffic, or recognition.
This is what I mean when I say the open web is dying. We didn’t lose it in a dramatic way. It just quietly got swallowed up. Part human greed. Part the system designed to encourage greed and shortsightedness. Part plain stupidity and laziness. But the results and the trends seem certain and irreversible.
5. So… what now?
If you’re running a profitable business, then yes – SEO tools, AI, and ads make sense. Play the game. Optimise for reach. Funnel people into clicks and conversions. It works.
But what if your goal is to share knowledge, teach, document, or build a community? Then you’re in for a rough ride.
Search engines no longer reward effort, honesty, or depth. Social networks are designed to scatter and erase conversations over time. And the more you write, the more you’re training the same machines that will eventually replace your visibility with their paraphrased versions.
Still… giving up isn’t an option. So here’s what I do – and why:
I moved all my replies to the BikeGremlin forum.
That way, answers stay searchable, aren’t deleted by someone else’s algorithm, and can grow into a long-term knowledge base.
- It’s not about engagement.
- It’s not about traffic spikes or conversions.
- It’s about helping someone now and helping someone else years from now.
This approach isn’t perfect, but it gives me:
- A searchable archive.
- A sense of continuity.
- A space I can control.
Yes, it’s more effort.
Yes, it turns some (many, most?) people away.
But I believe it’s the only sustainable way to preserve and share knowledge in an increasingly hostile web environment.
6. Bonus – irony in action
Recently, a commenter on my YouTube channel accused me of using AI to reply to questions – because the canned response I wrote to copy/paste was apparently too structured, too polite, and too clear.
In reality, I had spent a lot of time carefully writing and polishing that “canned” reply to explain why I answer questions only through the forum.
The perception?
“This looks too organised – must be AI.”
The truth?
It was 100% human effort (Gox and me together, no less!).
That’s where we are today:
- Sloppy, random, emotional noise looks “human.”
- Clear, respectful, structured communication looks “robotic.”
Another sign that the open web is changing – and not for the better!
The full discussion is saved in this BikeGremlin forum thread: 🙂
https://www.bikegremlin.net/threads/when-human-replies-look-like-ai-real-youtube-exchange.506/
Conclusion?
This article won’t change the direction the web is heading. But if it helps even a few people understand what’s going on – and think twice before trusting the loudest voice or the highest-ranking result – then it was worth writing.
In truth – I’m doing it for sponsored pigeon food by LES members! 🙂
I’ll keep doing my thing, quietly, stubbornly, and with the hope that real knowledge still has a place online. On that note:
How to make a good website.
Written by a human (Relja), with the help of another human (Vyas) and an LLM assistant – because even honest articles about the death of the open web aren’t safe from the irony of modern times.
For a broader reflection on how this all fits into the bigger picture and what it means for the future, see:
What killed the open Internet?
Appendix: Notes from the SEO Frontlines (Social Media Edition)
To illustrate how some professionals are adapting to the changing SEO landscape, here are a few recent posts from Twitter that I came across:
The death of traditional SEO tools?
@Ldnbox on Twitter:
“I cancelled my Ahrefs subscription after paying for it for almost 5 years.
Can’t justify this expense any more.
I’m now pivoting to Reddit marketing for clients and paywalled sites that get traffic with social media.
SEO is an afterthought.“
Alternative traffic funnels in the LLM era
@BowTiedBiest:
Why paywalled plus social media? Isn’t that like hard bounces mostly?
@Ldnbox:
No, because that’s not how it works.
Social media → free content → email signup → paid offer.
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