Industry analysts are calling it “the most beautifully circular implosion since the 2008 derivatives crash”: the Search Engine Optimisation sector has now become a self-consuming paradox so absurd that economists are debating a new category of market failure.
Today, the SEO industry has devolved into selling SEO services to other SEO agencies and trading clients instead of actually optimising websites.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, gather ’round. What we’re witnessing isn’t just an industry collapse—it’s something far more poetic, far more ridiculous, far more perfectly emblematic of our late-stage digital capitalism nightmare:
The SEO industry has become a snake that exclusively eats its own tail and somehow convinced itself this is a sustainable diet.
Let me paint you the picture, because this masterpiece of economic theater deserves the full treatment.
THE SETUP: When Knowing Became Not Knowing
Once upon a time—let’s call it 2008, back when “viral” still primarily referred to diseases and “influencer” meant your drunk uncle at Thanksgiving—SEO was supposed to be simple.
You had a plumbing business? Someone who understood Google would help plumbers be found by people with leaking pipes. Clean transaction. Service rendered. Value exchanged. But somewhere between then and now, something extraordinary happened.
The very professionals who were supposed to know how to market their own services—marketing agencies, brand consultants, digital strategists, growth hackers (god help us with that term)—these supposed maestros of visibility discovered they couldn’t actually get clients.
So what did they do? Did they examine their service offerings? Question their expertise? Have a moment of professional introspection?
ABSOLUTELY NOT.
Instead, they discovered something far more lucrative: selling SEO services to other people trying to sell SEO services to other people trying to sell SEO services.
THE CON: Marketing Inception Goes Seventeen Levels Deep
Here’s where it gets truly sublime in its stupidity.
Walk into any “SEO agency” today—and I use that term loosely, like calling a cardboard box a “residence”—and you’ll find a remarkable specimen: a company that claims to be experts at making OTHER companies visible online, but whose entire client roster consists of… other companies claiming to be experts at making companies visible online.
It’s digital marketing agencies selling to brand consultants selling to growth agencies selling to SEO specialists selling to content marketing firms selling to social media strategists, all the way down until you reach the heat death of the internet.
Nobody is selling to the actual businesses anymore.
The plumber? The restaurant? The boutique law firm? The independent bookstore? You know, the ACTUAL BUSINESSES WITH ACTUAL PRODUCTS AND ACTUAL CUSTOMERS?
They’ve been priced out, confused out, jargoned out, and generally abandoned by an industry that discovered it’s much easier to sell “SEO packages” to people who already speak the language than to actually deliver measurable results to real businesses with real stakes.
THE HUSTLE: How We Got Here
The evolution was insidious. It went something like this:
- PHASE ONE: Actual SEO work is hard. It requires understanding search algorithms, user intent, content strategy, technical implementation, and—crucially—you have to actually deliver results or clients leave.
- PHASE TWO: Some bright spark realises: “Hey, what if instead of doing the hard work of actually ranking clients, we just teach OTHER people how to theoretically do SEO? We can sell courses! Workshops! Certification programs!”
- PHASE THREE: Those workshop attendees realise they can’t get real clients either, so they… start selling SEO services to each other. And to other workshop attendees. It’s like a pyramid scheme, except instead of leggings or essential oils, everyone’s selling the idea of visibility.
- PHASE FOUR: The entire industry becomes a closed loop of people with “Senior Digital Strategist” in their LinkedIn headlines, all attending the same webinars, reading the same “10 SEO Trends for 2024” articles (all written by other SEO agencies), and occasionally buying services from each other.
THE PUNCHLINE: The Professionals Who Can’t Market Themselves
Here’s what slays me—and I mean slays me with the force of a thousand ironic deaths:
These are MARKETING PROFESSIONALS. Their entire value proposition is “We know how to make YOU visible to YOUR customers.”
And yet, somehow, mysteriously, inexplicably, they can’t get customers themselves without selling to… other marketing professionals.
If a heart surgeon couldn’t heal their own heart condition, we’d find that concerning. If a financial advisor was personally bankrupt, we’d have questions. But an entire industry of marketing experts who can’t market their own services?
THAT’S JUST TUESDAY IN SEO-LAND.
THE VICTIMS: Everyone Except The Grifters
Who loses in this scenario? Literally everyone with something legitimate to offer:
- Actual businesses can’t get affordable, effective SEO help because the entire industry is too busy selling to itself.
- Consumers can’t find good local businesses because those businesses can’t afford $5,000/month SEO retainers.
- Junior marketers get scammed into believing they need seventeen certifications and three “growth hacking” courses to be employable.
- The concept of expertise itself gets devalued when everyone’s an expert at everything and no one can prove results
Who wins? The top 2% of LinkedIn influencers posting “SEO in 2025” carousel posts that get 40,000 likes from other SEO agencies who are definitely, totally, absolutely not buying engagement.
THE ABSURDITY: When The Meta Becomes The Message
We’ve reached peak absurdity when:
- SEO agencies spend more on their own SEO than their clients do
- The phrase “I help businesses with their digital presence” has become code for “I will attend your webinar if you attend mine”
- Conference speaker lineups are 90% people whose primary business is speaking at conferences about how to market your business
- Blog posts about “SEO best practices” are written exclusively for other people writing blog posts about SEO best practices
- The actual search engines have become so clogged with SEO agencies’ content about SEO that finding actual useful information requires… more advanced SEO
IT’S THE MARKETING SINGULARITY. THE EVENT HORIZON OF SELF-PROMOTION.
THE RECKONING: What Happens Next
Here’s the thing about ouroboros economics: eventually, you run out of tail.
When an entire industry exists solely to service itself, when the “market” is just practitioners selling to other practitioners, when there’s no actual value being created for end users—that’s not a market. That’s a very expensive game of musical chairs, and somebody’s about to realise the music stopped three years ago.
The small business owner in Toledo still needs help getting found on Google. The boutique coffee roaster in Portland still needs content strategy. The family law practice in Atlanta still needs local search optimization.
But they can’t get it, because everyone who claims to offer it is too busy selling “white label SEO solutions” to other agencies who will rebrand them and sell them to other agencies in an infinite regress of completely meaningless transactions.
THE VERDICT: An Industry That Forgot Its Purpose
This is what happens when an industry becomes so enamored with its own processes, its own terminology, its own ecosystem of thought leaders and influencers and frameworks and “best practices” that it completely forgets why it existed in the first place.
SEO was supposed to help businesses be found by customers.
Instead, it became a business of helping SEO agencies be found by other SEO agencies, who need to be found by other SEO agencies, who need to be found by… you get the idea.
It’s the most perfect encapsulation of our current moment: an entire professional class that exists to service itself, speaking a language only they understand, solving problems only they have, and wondering why everyone outside their bubble thinks they’re full of shit.
EPILOGUE: If you’re reading this and thinking “Wait, should I hire an SEO agency?”—the fact that you’re asking that question means you’re probably the exact person they’re NOT interested in serving.
But hey, if you want to start your own SEO agency and sell services to other SEO agencies, brother, business is booming.
The SEO industry has shifted from its original purpose of enhancing website performance to a cycle of selling services to other agencies and trading clients, ultimately prioritising the appearance of optimisation over performing “Actual SEO”
The snake’s got plenty of tail left to eat.
For now.
