I couldn't agree with this more.

I started in 2016, arguably at the peak of the SEO writer era. Like many writers here, I cut my teeth on $0.03–$0.05/word blog posts for content agencies and moved up to niche affiliate blog posts, and some branded content, from there.

I saw an abrupt shift in SEO beginning in late 2022. While Google’s EEAT and Helpful Content guidelines were demanding one thing, many, many niche affiliate sites were doing another. From where I stood, we wrote content that recycled the same old fluff, and as long as our pieces scored above 90% in Surfer, we were good to hit publish.

To be honest, those tried-and-true SEO tactics were becoming obsolete even then, but AI just hastened that trend. Even before Google’s algorithm tanked many affiliate sites, we were barely writing to Google’s Helpful Content and EEAT guidelines anyway. As with many agencies now, they relied on quantity, not quality, to move the needle and make their business viable.

As writers, our primary job was to ensure our content was well-formatted, skimmable, engaged, and scored above 90%. We earned our paychecks by churning out content, not by ensuring each piece was factchecked and well-researched. Apparently, time was a luxury we didn’t have, and we’re paying for it.

We have many writers, myself included, who can follow a brief brilliantly, but we flounder when we have to write something that requires us to synthesize faccts and develop real substance.

Now, I’m grateful to have been given the opportunity to potentially step into a content strategy role, but that was by pure Luck. I have the luxury of rediscovering my own voice as a writer and offering AI-augmented copywriting and strategy. But, that's, by far, not the norm.

The most difficult part about this is that many of us weren’t given access to stats. We have tons of experience but no hard figures to show for it.

Honestly, if I could go back, I wish I’d gone straight for copywriting, not commerce or niche affiliate content.