Is Traditional SEO Dead?
I was driving to work the other day and the (perhaps cliche) phrase “SEO is Dead” came to mind… why?
I was thinking about the basic tenets of search engine optimization set forth as I came up in the web development world during the 90s and early 00s. In that model, a SEO’s job is to make sure that:
- the website is structurally suited to receive search engine spider and real-world user traffic. In other words, just make sure the code and navigation isn’t mucked up.
- manipulate on-page ranking factors like your site’s domain name, META tags, the ratio of keywords to overall content (aka keyword density) and ALT tags. (also see SEOChat.com’s new article “Are Meta Tags Extinct?“)
- submit to the search engines
- check rankings and repeat the whole process again
Within the past year or so, the rules have been significantly changing as the search engines’ ranking algorithms adapt to the efforts of marketers to manipulate their listings. The days are mostly gone when sites full of filler text and carefully-calculated keyword densities rank well within the search engines - well, except for MSN, but that’s another story…
How have things changed? There are a few major points now focused upon by the search engines, particularly Google:
- ongoing content development
- site “authority” on a topic
- a linear, time-based view of site development
Yes, it’s still important to make sure your code is clean and crawlable by the spiders. Yes, it’s still important that you actually talk about the keywords you want to be found for as the “old” SEO rules would dictate. BUT… the sites gaining top spots in the search engine results pages (SERPs) go one step farther in that they have reached out to the world at large with useful information or utilities and, in turn, the number of citations and incoming links to a site grow, conferring “authority” upon that site. (In other words, if you have good content, people will link to it. If people are linking to it, it must be good content… right?)
The best search engines are also applying a timeline-based view of a site’s development and using that to gauge the confidence they have in a website. Fly by night, one shot SEO schemes just don’t work anymore… detailed profiles of a website are now maintained, recording the domain registration period, the growth rate of the site, the link popularity of the site over time and even the other activities of the website’s owner. So, basically, Google and others are watching to see how quickly your site “takes off”. Did it gain incoming links too quickly? If so, that’s a penalty. Is the site hosted in a “bad neighborhood” where adult or gaming sites are also hosted? Have there been lots of changes to the website ownership information in the past? All of these things come together to paint a picture that helps search engines not only map the site’s physical structure but it fills in the history of the site… its reputation. Notice the new language we’re using to describe SEO: authority, reputation and development.
Traditional SEO may be dead, but it has been replaced by more traditional marketing ideas like i) offering visitors quality content they can use; ii) building of brand reputation & authority; and iii) the importance of developing an ongoing relationship with site visitors.
Have a happy Memorial Day weekend… and take a moment to remember those who have served our country.
Relevant Resources
- Smart IT Consulting Article “SEO is Dead - Long Live SEO!“
- SEORoundtable Article “Is Textbook Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Really Dead?“
- ISEDB Article “SEO is Dead!“
- Cre8asite Forum “Is Textbook SEO Dead?“
Technorati Tags: SEO is Dead, web development, on-page ranking factors, keyword density, ranking algorithms, content development, site development, SEO rules, SERPs, incoming links, traditional marketing, brand reputation, SEO for law firms
