Google is a friend. Google helped me pass through college, helped me do some pretty great analyst magic, and made many consider me to be smart (I actually am, but we shall keep it a secret, shall we?).

But Google these days needs more TLC, it seems.

No, stop. Stop rambling, stop this literary pretension shebang, and just stick to the story, can we? Thanks.

So….

So I was helping this ops manager out with creating some BU-wide metrics. The mandate this manager had was to create some truly relevant metrics, and not the plain vanilla platitude-esque ‘percentage-uptime-99.5%-up-arrow-who-gives-a-damn’ metric. The mandate was to create something quantifiable and measurable (which the current metrics already were), simple (which it could be made into), and relevant (which it sure was not).

So in trying to provide some guidance to this guy on a certain metric area, I reached out to my old friend Google.

And it took me about 2-and-a-half pages i.e. trawling through about 30 or so results, before I could reach an article where there was some decent metrics and guidance. Before that, all that the previous 30 had were what they call ‘SEO-rich content’.

God knows I hate that phrase! Vapid, nebulous articles which consist of words and words and phrases and phrases, without saying a single damn thing!

And Google likes these guys! Oh how my world has changed while I was not looking…

Whatever happened to the first rule of SEO (as they told me), ‘create great content’?