Is SEO on its way out?

change doesnt mean disappearance – i agree. I checked back and he still seems adamant that its going… going… gone. But like it was stated earlier in the thread – these black hats are somewhat sly. perhaps its just to get people worried so he can sneak on in even more?

SEO will last as long as SE results are generated by algorithm/programatic means. Both on-page and off-page optimization strategies will be developed to try to game the new algorithms.

If I write an article on ‘loading dice’ and dom writes a very similar, but unique article, the SEs need to make a decision as to which is better. What ever Dom and I do/try, one will rank better. What the SEO strategies, tactics will be, whether on page or offpage moves make the difference, etc is unclear and pretty much unpredictable.

Change doesn’t mean disappearance.

@Dominique 163429 wrote:

what holds true today will be changed tomorrow.

quoted for truth. every google algo change, for example means that webmasters need to have a look at new top results to try to gauge the likely new weightings for some of the ranking factors.

Once you suss these out you can climb the rankings easily imo if you can get links from the most optimal places.

Reminds me of the joke “just when I knew all the answers they changed all of the questions”

Backlinks will likely always be ONE of the many criteria google uses. Google will never tell what all the criteria are. All we know is that it’s in excess of 99 different ones.

Also, Google is getting smarter and smarter about locating link exchanges and paid links, and it is a primary focus. Google likes NATURAL links, and they mean to sort this.

I also agree with Simmo, google will look more and more at visitor behavior. I guess instead of spending time and money on links people will then try to game google by obtaining people to visit in certain patterns.

Search is really in it’s infancy, we will witness many changes as we go. There is no such thing as sure fire SEO, what holds true today will be changed tomorrow.

Come on people, zillions of sites can get original content up there. If 2 sites have great original content and one has more quality backlinks than naturally that site will always rank better. Backlinks is how you are connected to others on the net. This is your sites reach. How can quality backlinks ever go out of importance. I can write hundreds of pages on my favorite subject but if other sites dont give it any importance then why would search engines ever do.

That would make sense, but that is not what google says in it’s definition.

I hope they just didn’t express themselves clearly…

“Bounce rate” means “back to the original place” – i.e. Google if you arrived at your page via Google. Bounce involves the “back” button on the browser.

“Exit rate” would be when they leave that page and go off-site (not back button)

So the theory is that when they arrive at your page some activity should / is likely to occur. For instance: the land on your Club USA page, and click “download” or “visit this site” targeted page, but some action takes place.

Anyway, that’s how I’d run my search engine

Your tool is amazing, maybe you should design your own search engine next:wink-wink

Google says:

Bounce Rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page). Bounce Rate is a measure of visit quality and a high Bounce Rate generally indicates that site entrance (landing) pages aren’t relevant to your visitors. You can minimize Bounce Rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy.

Ok, if this only counts from the index page…

But if a person arrives at a deep page directly, sees what they want and leaves, that would be a high bounce rate?

:tooconfus

@Dominique 163331 wrote:

Re. bounce rate:

This makes no sense to me.

If the visitor arrives on a very targeted page, s/he will read and leave.

When the page is semi targeted, s/he will drill deeper and stay.

Bounce rate seems to punish the most relevant content.

Not sure yours and mine definition of “bounce rate” in this context are quite the same Dom. What I mean is: a user searches for “Microgaming Slots”, finds your “Microgaming Slots” page in SERPS, and doesnt return to Google. Thats a good sign your site had what they wanted, even if they drilled down on your site. If they came back and refined their search to “Microgaming Slots Thunderstruck”, that doesn’t necessarily mean your site didn’t match the needs of the original the search, just that they decided the results were to broad. If they don’t refine the search, and just click another listing in the original SERPS, then that’s what i mean by “bounce rate” in this context.

Anyway, that’s how I’d run my search engine ” title=”” class=”bbcode_smiley” />