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Thursday, March 28, 2024

The Believer's sex-toy SEO second act got one thing wrong: The SEO. - Slate

Last updated Tuesday, May 17, 2022 13:20 ET , Source: NewsService

The Believer’s going home. The beloved literary magazine is returning to McSweeney’s, the publisher that started it in 2003. It’s a satisfying coda to a bizarre journey that saw it change hands from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to an obscure content marketing shop—one that had its fingers in, among other things, the sex-toy business.

This latest owner punted it back to McSweeney’s after an ill-fated attempt to turn it into a sexy clickbait repository. They might have sold at a loss, but when it comes to the Believer, it’s the first good move they’ve made so far.

I happen to be a person who a) writes meandering essays on the internet; and b) spends my day-job hours helping a fintech startup triple year-over-year leads from organic search. So the surreal attempted SEO-ification of the Believer felt lab-engineered specifically to raise my blood pressure. I am glad that, presumably, the Believer will return to its focus on the first of my interests. Because its recent owners were notably terrible at the second.

When the Believer died of financial insolvency last October, fans of slow journalism and literary nonfiction mourned, myself included. EIC misconduct aside, the magazine was laid to rest with fanfare: obits in the literary press, a white-petal flurry of elegiac tweets. This April, though, it slinked out of its digital grave. Its first piece post-resurrection: “25 Best Hookup Sites for Casual Dating.” To add to the sense of farce, the listicle’s body promised...



Read Full Story: https://slate.com/technology/2022/05/believer-seo-sex-toys-paradise-media.html

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