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Paper short abstract

What is the role of loopholes in the management of platforms? Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with the search engine optimization (SEO) industry, this paper explores the parasitic politics of loopholes in the development of Google Search.

Paper long abstract

This paper explores the parasitic politics of loopholes in the search engine optimization (SEO) industry—a shadow industry of marketing professionals that helps businesses, activists, and individuals to rank (or not) for certain terms on search engine results pages and, more recently, in chatbots. As uninvited guests who, in Serres' (2007: 54) terms, "interrupt the feast," SEO consultants have played a crucial role in both maintaining and subverting platforms like Google Search. The idea of "loopholes" has been particularly salient in this regard, offering a focal point for organizing these relationships. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with the industry, I am tracing various parasitic operations over time, including analysis, paralysis, and catalysis. Looking at the perforated margins of contemporary systems in this way promises to contribute to what Stephen Brown (2013: 97) called a "dark organizational theory" of platforms and expands our understanding of technoscientific practice in the shadow of an automated system.