PLANO, Texas — Despite indications that the site was presenting itself as containing relevant information, sources say that a Google search result for local man George Horbin’s question returned a webpage which didn’t know the answer to his question either.
“In preparation to start Pokémon Scarlet, I was researching differences between the two versions to find out what starter I should pick in my save,” said Horbin. “With such a simple and answerable question, I never suspected it would be difficult to find a relevant search result, but the first link I clicked was just 5,000 words about the game’s plotline with my question repeated at the bottom and no clear answer.”
Horbin became surprised after discovering the same issue with many of the other articles returned on the first page of his search results.
“The second article went on at length about the history of Pokémon and how the designs have grown more stylized with each generation,” Horbin continued. “After another 5,000 words or so I finally reached the explanatory section of the article I was so desperate for, but to my surprise the final paragraph merely stated there was no confirmation yet about what each game’s version-exclusive Pokémon were. The writers stalled for 5,000 words and they didn’t even know! In fact, they asked readers to inform them in the comments section. The absolute nerve!”
An editor of one of the high-SEO websites issued a statement defending their tactics for deceptively engaging readers.
“It came to our attention that our readers have misunderstood the title of our recent article, ‘There Are Definitely Differences Between Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’, which is obviously implied to have a question mark at the end,” said Sam Johnson, Editor of findanswershere.com. “We apologize for the confusion resulting from this misunderstanding. In response, we’ve reprimanded the AI that writes all of our content. The bot’s machine learning model has since been adjusted to begin each article with a few paragraphs about how it feels like a worthless failure, which we think will lead to even further increased engagement from our readers.”
At press time, findanswershere.com had reportedly published its hundredth fake film trailer made from spliced-together MCU footage.
