Are
you looking for a site that deployed every SEO tip and trick to game their way
to the top of the list? Or a site that has relevant, reliable, authoritative
content?
Most
likely it is the latter, and it seems Google may want that too. If it happens
to represent the antithesis of the results of good SEO, that's just fine with
Google. They don't make a nickel on your optimized site and they are worried
that users may become underwhelmed with their search results if the only links
appearing above the fold are those not with the best content but with those
deploying the most effective examples of chicanery we know as "SEO."
When
Google in 2013 stopped providing data about keyword popularity, this must have
served as a shot across the bow of SEO. It signaled that Google wanted to put a
damper on SEO because they had determined it was skewing the results in a way
unhelpful to its users.
In
the "old" days, SEO was a matter of stuffing your metatags with top
keywords; then it became more complicated as Google continued to refine its
search algorithm. The current state of SEO, in rather sober fashion, calls for
"quality content," no keyword stuffing, longevity of the domain, lack
of duplicate content, a well-ordered site-map and other items more esoteric.
Really, it's become more about just building a great site with great (and
focused) content. Phony inbound links are not supposed to cut it anymore,
although sometimes this can slip by undetected.
SEO
is a big industry. According to a site called State
of Digital, 863 million websites mention SEO globally and every second 105
people search for SEO links on Google. Most of them seem to be looking for
"services" or "companies," which explains how there came to
be so many SEO companies.
SEO
is also an industry full of promises. Despite evidence to the contrary, many
SEO mavens continue to insist they can fool the Google algorithm into getting
your site - no matter what it is - higher in the rankings. That it is easy to
see whether it works when you search for your own company makes it an appealing
payoff. But the waters of SEO remain murky and it's difficult to measure
success of SEO in any meaningful way (in other words, even if you got to the
top, did it improve your business or did you just accumulate a very high bounce
rate?).
Now
SEO may be going the way of Megalodon, a 100-foot shark rumored to exist but
mostly accepted to have gone extinct a million years ago. If it isn't
functionally dead, it's certainly in the sick-house. Google does not especially
want the SEO industry playing games with its rankings, and what Google wants,
especially in a case like this, Google gets.
Customers
still ask for "top keyword" reports as if they have not read the news
about the unavailability of it - perhaps because they believe that if you wish
hard enough for a pony on Christmas, one will eventually find its way under the
tree.
It
isn't going to happen.
Certain
SEO principles should not be ignored, simply as a matter of site-hygiene. A
well-organized, content-rich site is a good thing to have. But most other SEO
tricks and tips have just a little bit (if not a lot) of snake-oil in the
recipe. It sounds like a great proposition to a site owner: Drink a bottle of
SEO and your site will zoom vigorously to the top of the heap. But too often,
and partly because Google does not seem to want it to, it doesn't work as
advertised.
There
is no good reason for Google to stop trying to stamp out SEO, because in
effect, SEO damps the quality of search results for the user. Google is
interested in the user - and, as you might have guessed already, it reduces the
value of a paid AdWord link. Because Google AdWords is a form of SEO, which
really is SEM (search engine marketing); in other words, you optimize your
site's Google performance by bidding on Google keywords whereby Google makes
pretty much all of its money.
SEO
is not going to get easier. It's going to get harder and eventually will most
likely be next to impossible - because Google's algorithms are always a step
ahead of the marketers trying to game them. And with no keyword reporting, a
major support system for SEO has been, quite simply, taken away.
If
you want to rank high on Google, build a good site and market it the best you
know how. Just don't expect SEO to be the answer to your traffic-related
prayers because, increasingly, it won't be.
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