This has arguably been the most difficult and game changing year in the history of search engine optimization. Google through its Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird updates has sounded the death knell of the traditional SEO industry and at least in India has turned it on its head.
Every article I have read agrees that SEO has changed including this one and this one. Numerous 'SEO is dead' articles have cropped up everywhere and SEO specialists who have been in this business for years have suddenly upped and quit the industry. What is going on? The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.
Gone are the days of the thumb rule. Do this, this and this and you will get a good rank. Nowadays SEO experts need not only a higher IQ but also a higher EQ to deal with all the crap Google is doing. For old-fashioned SEO firms with armies of submission monkeys, its game over. It's the time of the sophisticated high learning curve Search Engine expert.
The old SEO stood for someone manipulating the search results to showcase their site. Their domain was google and a network of sites. Now it's no longer simple. SEO has stretched to embrace the ever-increasing social media sites, well crafted PR strategies, viral marketing efforts and a dozen other such ancillary avenues of online marketing.
One size fits all strategy no longer applies. Each client must be approached differently. Each strategy must be carefully crafted. Factory like work is no longer useful. Instead each project must be played like a violin concerto. There is no holy grail and no standard solution anymore. Most commonly used avenues are closed to SEOs.
During the early updates many SEOs held on to their beliefs and prayed that Google will change back. But Google has continued to evolve and is doing so continuously. The story is far from over and the next chapter is being written even now somewhere in the Googleplex.
We all wait and wonder, what will the mighty Google do next?
Cheers,
Ron
