My Definition Of SEO and How The Death Will Play Out

[Barefootsies]

A few days ago I wrote about how SEO has no future. There were a lot of people who agreed and then a lot of confused people. After writing the post I thought for a bit perhaps even I was confused about what exactly SEO is. So I decided to ask all the leading SEO experts what their definition of SEO is. Basically everyone is on the same page as me (or I as them) that SEO is the human interaction with a website that makes it rank than it naturally would have. Yes that is a huge broad definition? I know.

Lets take a step back. Back in the days of altavista and webcrawler it was pretty much a spamfest. Until one day this pretty badass search engine came out named Google.

Google?s mission has always been to ?organize the world?s information and make it universally accessible and useful?. Back in the early days Google claimed that there was no such thing as spam in their search engine index and if there ever was then its algorithm had failed. Then one day Google found itself very very deep in spam. Also legitimate mom and pops had no chance against the spammers who were back in action kicking Google?s butt just like they had done to every search engine before.

Google needed help. They needed a hero. It was now in their best business interest to let humans influence their search engine. Give them a bit of help on how they can better crawl their sites. Enter GoogleGuy. Google appointed a person dubbed GoogleGuy to police the forums and social sites like Slashdot and help the legitimate webmasters (in Google?s opinion) rank better in Google by the use of SEO. This worked pretty well and Google saw quite a business value in allowing humans to influence their algorithm. The only problem for Google was that this was not a long term solution.

Enter the Toolbar. This was (in my opinion) the single biggest thing that Google did to improve their search engine and they obviously saw value in it. They were paying people 1$ per install to keep track of what they were doing on the internet. Not to mention the half billion dollar deal with Firefox. With the toolbar they could tell exactly where users are going and there experiences with those websites. This mixed with Google Analytics (another awesome service) and they are getting much more valuable data about the websites.

The start of the death of SEO:

As Google started getting more and more data on sites the need for webmasters to help them greatly decreased. This Googleguy disappeared from forums but about the same time a engineer from Google named Matt Cutts appeared. His blog soon became the voice of the Google search team and instead of really giving tips and answering questions he laid down the law. In particular to paid links and paid reviews as well as other items which make Google look stupid.

The death of SEO is not going to happen overnight but it is close. I personally believe that Google will achieve their original goals and not allow humans to influence its algorithms. I know it sounds like SEO? well actually the definitions are the same thing. The difference between SEO and spam is what Google allows. There is no future in SEO and we will very soon all go back to being spammers. There is no black or white there is only SEO.

So what is the future on how sites will rank? I personally believe AdWords will be your entry point so that Google can get data on users experiences for key phrases then rank you organically accordingly. That seems to make sense.

http://www.shoemoney.com/2008/05/15/...-out/#comments

[Socks]

Yeah, if I only I could cleanse myself of "teen porn concepts" lolz

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by Socks

Yeah, if I only I could cleanse myself of "teen porn concepts" lolz

[notoldschool]

I hope you are wrong.

[Nicky]

There is no money in SEO every one know's it

[pr0]

What about seo spammers? ; )

[Angry Jew Cat - Banned for Life]

eveyrthing is dying, it's all dying, you're all going to die, your businesses will all die. it's doomed i say, fucking doomed. fear fear fear fear fear.......

[st0ned]

In my opinion SEO is not going anywhere. As with anything else, changes are made, and some people can adapt to those changes. Those who can't adapt will simply crumble when the changes take effect. Search engines are not going anywhere, so those who can adapt aren't going anywhere either.

[dissipate]

Shoemoney is a fucking tool.

[tony286]

Fuck should I even bother reading the seo bible I bought now. lol

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by dissipate

Shoemoney is a fucking tool.

[Nicky]

Originally Posted by pr0

What about seo spammers? ; )

Those will always be around

[kane]

Back in the day I loved altavista. You could submit a bunch of sites that were nothing but a few small pics and a ton of keywords and rank in the top 10 within a few days. It never lasted, but you just kept kicking out sites.

Google will always need human influence simply because they want to deliver a good product to their users. That product is quality serps. If they go to some kind of auto algorithm that doesn't take the SEO of a site into perspective it could hurt their serps. When people stop finding what they need or want they will go somewhere else. There have always been people who figure out the auto algorithms so when the secret gets out the spamming begins and the serps suffer. Users are fickle and will quickly leave for other sites.

I would imagine how they rank will continue to evolve. They have been saying that quality sites will rank higher than lower quality sites regardless of inbound links for a while. It is starting to happen. I just had site hit #1 for its keyword. I had been at #2 for about 3 months and in the top 5 for about 6 months and just hit #1 a few days ago and of all the top 5 sites I have the fewest inbound links. but I have good content and a very user friendly site.

I would imagine this trend will continue. Google didn't get to be #1 by not understanding what their users want and figuring out the best way to give them that. The internet is an interactive medium so they need us just as much as we need them.

[woj]

As long there is $$ to be made (which will always be the case), there will always be seo...

strategies may change, amateurs may get kicked out of the game, perhaps new players may emerge, but there will always be people making bank from seoing sites...

[pr0]

Originally Posted by woj

As long there is $$ to be made (which will always be the case), there will always be seo...

strategies may change, amateurs may get kicked out of the game, perhaps new players may emerge, but there will always be people making bank from seoing sites...

no please....continue allowing them to think its all dying ; )

then i can keep buying up pr3 & 4's at $35 a pop

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by pr0

no please....continue allowing them to think its all dying ; )

then i can keep buying up pr3 & 4's at $35 a pop

[pr0]

but yea to be honest i think the old school seo people are going out of business

thank god I'm new sk00L

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by pr0

but yea to be honest i think the old school seo people are going out of business

thank god I'm new sk00L

I hear ya. I find the SEO debate an entertaining read, and good link bait for SB. SEO is a crap shoot. I have sites I haven't touched in years still on front page(s). As well as sites I have done no active back linking and getting good SERPS for their terms. Even with only PR 2 & 3.

I remember thinking some of the same things ShoeBitch, and you are saying about the old skool SEO people... Especially last year when web guerrilla (Greg Boser) got a new job, and some of the other SEO from WMR (WM radio) started taking gigs working for others, or moving into other markets.

Maybe they forgot to evolve or die.

[mynameisjim]

Are you saying the Google algos will get so good they will be able to filter out SEO'd sites?

Didn't they just fix the www non www issue and it's still a crapshoot and now suddenly they are going to be like HAL from 2001 Space Odyssey? The Goolge algos aren't that smart, they fuck up all the time. Algorithms, machine learning, AI, it's all light years behind every other technology.

Even idiots will be able to outsmart anything Google does in the near future unless they start hand reviewing every single site.

[PenisFace]

Originally Posted by pr0

What about seo spammers? ; )

Don't you make like $20,000 and bang all kinds of perfect 10 bitches because you do 60 hours of work and then sit back like a pimp? I'm a giant fanboy and you're my object of effection.

But about what you said above... Did all that cash and sexin' of bitches come from spamming or was it legit? I will still bow to your feet either way, just saying.

[qxm]

We better start learning SEO Wicca ......... or Search Engine witchcraft ... astrology and such...

[xentech]

Originally Posted by ismokeblunts

eveyrthing is dying, it's all dying, you're all going to die, your businesses will all die. it's doomed i say, fucking doomed. fear fear fear fear fear.......

rofl so true

[Rochard]

There is no money to be made in porn. The sky is falling.

[LaoTzu]

Your post gives way too much credit to 90% of websites and site owners out there. OPTIMIZING, or the O in SEO is about copywriting and keyword research. Two things that most sites don't consider - making it very difficult for the spiders to have a clue what a site is about. You've seen it a million times. Midget Twink Porn sites without the words midget, twink or porn anywhere in the body or meta. This is a HUGE boon for any SEOs willing to do the pretty labor-intensive work of getting it right -- and it is a science.

Death of this mass link-building paradigm? Maybe
Death of SEO? No.

[Insert the -O- Face pic here]

[LaoTzu]

Wait... I mean...

There's no money in porn or seo.

Thank you.

[Shoplifter]

I got a sweatshop with 400 Sri Lankan's browsing my sites with the toolbar.

[fluffygrrl]

Lmao google is so wide fucking open to a whole bunch of ridiculously brutish "manipulations" let's call them...

If search relevance were a quart bottle, and the object of the game was filling the bottles with piss, I'd say google is yet at that stage in the game where it needs to figure out a way to get it's willy out.

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by mynameisjim

Are you saying the Google algos will get so good they will be able to filter out SEO'd sites?

_I_ am not saying anything toots. Shoebitch is. hence the link to his blog.

[ScriptWorkz]

SEO is already dead, there is no money to be made, and there is nothing left to look at here, please move along everyone

[poto]

Originally Posted by dissipate

Shoemoney is a fucking tool.

quoted for truth...

[GAMEFINEST]

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

[Supz]

is it silly to say, as long as there is some kind of algorithm, there will be someone smart enough to manipulate it?

[Mister E]

Originally Posted by Angry Jew Cat

eveyrthing is dying, it's all dying, you're all going to die, your businesses will all die. it's doomed i say, fucking doomed. fear fear fear fear fear.......

I love this cat...very fuuny

[sniperwolf]

Oh yeah, there's no money on SEO!