As Google continues to roll out new updates that neutralize tactics that have been used to quickly gain better search rankings, some have made the claim that “SEO is Dead.”
The truth is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has changed dramatically in recent years.
Black hat SEO is dead. Once upon a time, unscrupulous SEOs manipulated rankings by stuffing keywords on pages, hiding keywords in parts of the page nobody could see, and other deceptive techniques. Google quickly learned to detect these tactics and penalize sites using them.
Link buying is dead. Back when good rankings were determined by the number of links on sites with a high PageRank, some people increased rankings by buying links on high quality sites. Google banned the tactic and started penalizing sites with links on sites known for selling links.
Link farms are dead. Another common practice was to create low-quality directories that nobody used. First Google stopped giving any value to links on low-quality sites. Then they took it one step further and began penalizing sites for links in “bad neighborhoods.”
Link spamming is dead. Another tactic used to build links has been using software or cheap labor in third world country to post links on blogs, forums and article syndication websites. Google took aim at these tactics when it introduced the Penguin algorithm.
Poor content is dead. After Google had killed off most of the questionable tactics used to improve search rankings, that pretty much left content marketing as the last way to improve search rankings. But it takes time and thus money to create quality content, so some people began using automated content creation tools or low paid overseas workers. Google went after these techniques when it introduced its Panda update.
As you can see Google has done a pretty good job of combating most of the techniques people have come up with to try to quickly gain better rankings.
So does that mean SEO is dead?
Nope.
It means SEO has become what it should have been all along – legitimate strategies for making your website the best option for people searching for what you offer.
In other words, instead of trying to trick Google into thinking your site should be #1 for certain phrases, real SEO is actually making your website #1 for certain phrases and helping search engines to understand that.
What do you think? Is SEO dead or has it just changed?
4 Comments
Great article Paul. I agree with you. Big G is keen on all of the old ways of ranking websites and other properties. It's now all about traffic, social signals, great content (such as your article) and great on page SEO. One thing for sure, as you pointed out, SEO is NOT dead. It never will be as long as it's done correctly.
Thanks for the article,
Melvin
Great post you are shared.
SEO is not dead but it is not for amateurs now. You have to be careful and work on every aspect rather than just getting links from sites. You should have good content, technically sound and user friendly website. All these also plays an important role in SEO.
SEO is not dead. It became competitive now a days. If you really want to rank higher then you competitors then you need to build backlinks that pass high amount of link juice to your site.