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In regards to "Gaming the system," I do not think popularity begets SEO spam. SEO spam is a specific game to rank high in google search so that you get ad revenue from visits. If you have genuinely valuable content and get popular from Stumbleupon that doesn't create an incentive to implement SEO spam. Ads maybe - but not publishing garbage to rank high on google search because you already solved the discoverability problem.

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It's not the successful website that turns to seo spam, it's seo spammers that spam the StumbleUpon api with bots "liking" their spam.

> SEO spam is a specific game to rank high in google search

The same SEO mindset/paradigm is used to make sure someone's spam surfaces on any variety of platforms, not just Google Search. We can argue about the specific semantics of "SEO" (Search Engine Optimization) not being the right word to use for gaming TikTok, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat algorithms. Perhaps a different word is needed.

But the above poster's sentiment is not flawed, even if you think it's overreaching within a specific meaning of "SEO".

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