At the EuroIA 2009 Marianne Sweeney was the closing keynote. She presented the current and future practices of search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. During this presentation she made an interesting remark: “SEO is becoming a dying specialization”. Her main argument was that search engines are becoming too smart to fool. She indicated several new search engine practices that will increase the difficulty to manipulate the search results:
Upcoming search engine functionality?
- Behavioural and social targeting: Search results based on your prior interests (personalised search) or the interest of your peers;
- (Latent) Semantic indexing: The page and back links shouldn’t be targeted on a single keyword, but also on related keywords. Search engines will present their results in categories based on semantic meaning or they will appoint the user to the most likely context;
- Orion search algorithm: This algorithm not only presents the information you are searching for, but also presents related information that you didn’t specifically set out to find;
- Real time indexing: Search engines will index the pages on websites instantly when changes
Credit: Danard Vincente for the use of the image
So, what will happen to the SEO specialist?
These developments are interesting and will certainly change the landscape and activities of a SEO specialist, but will it cause SEO to disappear? I am not convinced that this will happen. It’s true that search engines will become smarter and it will become harder to trick search engines with morally questionable (black hat) techniques like redirects, keyword optimization without interesting content, invisible text and fake articles/news. I would like to argue that optimization based on improving the structure and quality of your content (white hat) will actually become more important. Having correct tags, referrals and keywords usage will be mandatory if you want to stand any chance against your competitors.
In this complicated environment organisations will want to know how to connect with their target audience. This will require advice on the inner workings of the new search engines algorithms. The SEO specialists will have to develop their skills and understanding based on the developments of the search engines. This will require a multidisciplinary approach like the knowledge of copywriting, structure (IA) and user needs.
One thing is certain there will be a stronger focus on high quality content and social interaction around the content. The main question that arises from this discussion is: How will the power balance be in the new SEO environment? Large organisations might be able to mobilize bigger social groups and hire better copywriters. Smaller organisations might be more flexible and make more use of the real time indexing behaviour of search engines. Will these developments force the smaller players into an even more niche position than they already are or will great content be a weapon to drop some of the Goliaths of the web?