End of the metaphor?

I’m reading Jeff Jarvis’ book “What Would Google Do?” and have come to the part where he recommends that web content be put in a format that is easily identifiable by Google.

This has a subtle impact on written communication style. Just as speakers of global languages change to accommodate non-native speakers (using fewer idioms or slang, for example) so too are people changing the way they write in order to reach a wider online audience. This online change is very different from George Orwell’s rules on effective writing.

Jarvis recommends that dentists with an online presence not call themselves “smile doctors” or anything apart from dentist. In other words: remove the metaphors (whether they are elegant or not) in order to be indexed by Google. Orwell’s comparable rule was: “Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.” Orwell did not recommend against the use of metaphors, but rather recommended being inventive in their use. He never lived to see a search engine.

So now we have another potential point of change for global languages. The desire to optimize search engine results will remove some of the poetry from the everyday written language so that we may reach a wider audience.