This study deals with how audience metrics associated with SEO practices impact production routines in journalism. In the context of plataformization, journalism is increasingly dependent on metrics and rules that are defined, structured, monitored, and checked by large data processing and technology companies. Thus, this research sought to understand the concepts of metric and audience in digital journalism to explain the processes imposed on production routines so that news can be means of promoting audience growth results. Additionally, on SEO, the concept and practices were worked on so that content ranking rules could be analyzed along with the consequences these rules impose on production routines in journalism. This thesis has Political Economy of Communication as a research subfield and, therefore, we examine the social relations that make up journalistic practices related to audience metrics in the context of capitalism. The main theoretical references of this research are MARX (1983, 2013), BOLANO (2000, 2002, 2004, 2014), DUFFY (2020), GILLESPIE (2018), HEINRICH (2011), MEIJER (2019, 2021), PETRE (2015, 2021), TANDOC JR. (2014, 2017, 2019), and ZUBOFF (2020). For analysis, 68 exploratory interviews were conducted, followed by six in-depth interviews. As conclusive indications, this thesis advocates for the regulation of the data industry on news market operations and also proposes the discussion of Google s algorithm ethics.