Just search for – “SEO is Dead” in Google & you shall get around 10,000 odd results. These posts on the death of SEO usually come about when Google makes any significant modification in their algo.
Case in point is the latest algo change, with regards to Branding. Aaron as usual has an analysis here; http://www.seobook.com/google-branding
So, it took the big G, ten years to deduce that for the search query ‘airlines’, Continental, US Airways & United should be on top:) . Well, since politics has been in highlight for this year so far, Google has come out with this ‘politically correct algo change’! No one can argue that it’s incorrect to have these brands on top of SERPS, right?
So, why the “SEO is Dead” rant? It comes from webmasters who have been affected by any recent change in algo, OR are no longer able to make ‘easy money’, OR are not able to please their clients, etc, etc.
A ‘politically correct’ answer is: Till the time, search engines are operational, SEO will be alive too!
Hey, Google even has an official Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide now.
A more realistic answer to the “SEO is Dead” rant, is that things have just begun to get complex:) We have SMO – Social Media Optimization & within SMO, we are just beginning to see the following;
FBO => FaceBook Optimization [sic],
TWO/TTO/TMO [wtf] => Twitter Optimization…LOL.,
LIO is underway => LinkedIn Optimization,
SLO however, did not take off, or still exists..=> SecondLife Optimization!!
So, which ‘O’, do you want to specialize in?
More on the recent ‘Branding algo change’, next week, hopefully.
BTW, i felt like writing this post because, i read this article in Economic Times, Pune edition of 20th February 2009. Sorry for the poor quality scan.
