Everyone loves to dunk on the self-serving “best” list. Fine. Remove it. Now what actually fills the vacuum? What replaces the listicle? I keep coming back to second-order effects. Bias does not disappear. It just moves. Anyone who can rank for a “best” query has incentives. Vendors have incentives. Affiliates have incentives. Marketplaces have incentives. Directories have incentives. Forums have social incentives. Word-of-mouth has relationship incentives. Discovery has always been messy. So the real question is not “how do we remove bias?” It is “which bias is visible and which bias is hidden?” Transparent bias beats hidden bias. A self-serving list that clearly shows who created it, why it exists, and how decisions were made may be more honest than a supposedly neutral source quietly shaped by commissions, sponsorships, or reputation dynamics. If we remove the self-serving listicle, what replaces it? • Affiliate “best” lists with opaque incentives • Pay-to-play marketplaces and directories • Community threads shaped by social proof and loud voices • Expert content with its own commercial gravity Some sources do a (slightly) better job exposing methodology and incentives: • Evidence-driven testing: Consumer Reports, RTINGS • Structured review ecosystems: G2, Gartner Peer Insights • Community signal in the right context: Stack Overflow, high-quality niche forums • Data-driven comparisons and benchmarks where inputs are visible The pattern is simple. Trust increases when: • incentives are clear • evaluation criteria are explicit • comparisons are reproducible • monetization is separated from ranking This is not a defense of bad listicles. Many are lazy, manipulative, and built for extraction. But replacing them with hidden influence does not improve discovery. It just changes who controls the narrative. A strong counterpoint exists. Some will argue that self-serving rankings manufacture authority and distort markets even when transparent. That discovery should move toward distributed reputation and verifiable performance rather than creator-controlled lists. I take that seriously. Still, I have seen plenty of situations where a transparent, even slightly subversive listicle was more useful than the alternatives pretending to be neutral. (I had fun making one last summer for iPullRank) I am open to being convinced otherwise. Which platforms actually expose incentives and methodology well enough to replace the listicle? And when has a “best” result genuinely helped you make a better decision rather than just shaping perception?
This is the first argument I've heard that almost changes my mind. Great post, Garrett Sussman. So, I've written dozens of listicles because they've always done so well. However, I get what Google is trying to do here. It sounds like they want us to change the way we deliver self promotional content? For example, instead of a listicle with your own product or services, why not just write a full article on why you think your product is better for your audience? This way, you can promote your products and services without adding other competitors for kw and visibility purposes. It also removes any hidden bias. I think this whole thing is an example of "why we can't have nice things". Too many ppl game the system, so how is Google supposed to combat that? I think the only way is to come down hard on any self promotional listicle. I know a lot of ppl are posting they're still working really well, and that's great. But how long until Google comes down on them? To me it seems like they're doomed in Google's eyes. Obviously time will tell if I'm wrong.
Garrett Sussman - This is an excellent post and serves up the right questions to be asking. No one else has articulated this as well as you’ve done here. ☝️ I’m not a fan of programmatic garbage listicles. Websites getting hit have multiplied these pages like a breed of cockroaches. It’s become an infestation that should be fumigated. I’ve also thought about “the alternatives to listicle” dilemma. What could brands do instead? All roads inevitably lead back to: 1. Be forced to pay for clicks via Google Ads. 2. Be forced to give money to PC Mag and other affiliates for parasite SEO (e.g. just rank on someone else’s list). 3. Test ads on OpenAI? 4. Create “X Best Software” videos on YouTube and rank that way. 5. Build solutions and features pages. Try to compete with landing pages. 6. Create demand via other means of long term organic marketing which has no attribution.
The cacophony of people who want to keep saying how things haven't changed and then complain about what people are doing without offering viable alternatives and also using the cop out of "well no one knows what they are doing right now" is so boring. I feel so fortunate to have other things to occupy my time with right now.
I don't have a problem with it personally. As long as the listicles are relevant, and clearly identifies who the author was in addition to qualifying why. Like the one you wrote last year. Clearly, it's subjective but you also made a case for why iPullRank should be on the list. Can't really argue with that. A bigger problem I've noticed, is that a lot of people land on a page from Google and don't actually read before reaching out so that's where some might feel "deceived".
With you on this all the way
Garrett Sussman in a word "trust" it's the one thing at this point that is worth scaling.
I keep wondering if this is where AI agents start to make a difference. Can an AI agent (on Google's side, or otherwise) go to a directory site, and by going through the process determine if a site is pay to play or not, and send that feedback to an algorithm to decide if their lists contain value (ie. are less biased).
People are so used to feeling deceived that when they see someone being transparent/aggressively honest, but in a self-serving way, they see it as refreshing and truthful. But if 80% of SEOs want to pretend like listicles with self-promotion magically stopped working last week, that's great for the rest of us still winning with them.
Agree that I thought the attack against self-serving listicles was missing this kind of nuance. We forget these days that most of them are getting created through AirOps or some other programmatic automation, and that makes sense. But like you say, being transparent, showing your resources, showing your thought process... all this adds to the value of the page. Thanks for framing it this way
This is such a complex topic. 1. Do SEOs have a fiduciary duty to drive fast results using tactics that work NOW — potentially at the expense of long-term results? 2. Or do SEOs have a fiduciary duty to drive results that will last, skipping short-term wins for long-term value? 3. Does morality play a role? Should SEOs sell something that works today knowing it probably won’t next year? Did the client get what they paid for? 4. Agreed that there is bias in all listicles. Even those that claim to be objective put their thumbs on the scale if one affiliate parter juices up the kickback. 5. Sell-serving listicles though, IMO, are the worst example. That’s because they rarely include “the best” alternative options. Instead, they usually include “the worst” alternatives so their brand stands out as the clear winner. There are exceptions of course. But mostly, research is thin and incorrect, there’s no real-world experience with the product, and there is no consideration for what’s actually best for users. —— Where do we go from here? I believe personalization in generative search will save the day. It will understand what users need, and find the “best X” for them