Ability to predict the future of SEO?
-
I just finished watching a documentary on Ray Kurzweil, Transcedent, and began to familiarize myself with his book, The Singularity is Near. During Ray's explanation of prediction through data gathering and extrapolation, he predicts that by 2029 AI and humans will have merged. We can debate this at another time, but I was wondering if any of the statistics/data is used by SEO professionals to predict where SEO may be going in the next 12-48 months.
It has been my experience that SEO is very reactionary, and very few put their neck out on a limb to predict where it is going.
I was just hoping that some of you may share your thoughts on what you are focusing on and where you are steering your clients in order to be ahead of the curve without hurting current placement.
Anyone care to share?
-
Speculating about the next couple years of SEO is one thing. The further out you go, the more variables you introduce and the less relevant the ideas become.
A few years ago most people could not predict the impact twitter and facebook would have on SEO. Many still don't understand and need to be awoken with clear visual charts.
I am not willing to speculate further then what I have, but I will watch your question and hope it spurs other ideas.
-
Hi Ryan, So what do you think the best future content and interaction with search engines will take us? Ray Kurzweil spoke about the fact that he uses his models to predict the future of technology before we have the ability to create it.
While some might see this as a pointless exercise, it has kept him on the cutting edge of tech, and allowed him to hit the ground running as our technology advances. Social Media and Web 2.0 are ones that seem to be currently at the forefront but may not be 100% utilized by everyone. This seems apparent to me, and I wouldn't consider it "chasing" Google by implementing the use in an SEO or marketing strategy.
This is also not predicting, but simply following a logical game plan of what should be done based on Matt Cutts comments and testing. I personally see the use of optimized video as playing a major role in the future, and many people who have been utilizing it for years already are just ahead of their time.
I am wondering what impact the "Semantic Web" or Web 3.0 will be playing, and how to prepare appropriately, and possibly in advance.
-
Matt Cutts talked about this subject.
The summary was, don't try to chase where Google is going. Try to focus on providing web users with the best possible online experience. That is what Google is chasing.
I think that idea is perfectly valid. People will always need a way to obtain information quickly. Google will seek to offer that information. How can we help?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Onsite SEO vs Offsite SEO
Hey I know the importance of both onsite & offsite, primarily with regard to outreach/content/social. One thing I am trying to determine at the moment, is how much do I invest in offsite. My current focus is to improve our onpage content on product pages, which is taking some time as we have a small team. But I also know our backlinks need to improve. I'm just struggling on where to spend my time. Finish the onsite stuff by section first, or try to do a bit of both onsite/offsite at the same time?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
SEO advice with having a blog on sub domain.
Righto, so: I've been working on our company website www.nursesfornurses.com.au which is built on .asp which is a real pain because the site is built so messy and on a very dated CMS which means I have to go back to the dev every time I want to make a change. We've made the decision to move the site over to Wordpress in stages. So, (and I hope logically), i've started by making them a proper blog with better architecture to start targeting industry related keywords. I had to put it on a sub domain as the current hosting does not support Wordpress http://news.nursesfornurses.com.au/Nursing-news/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 9868john
The previous blog is here: http://www.nursesfornurses.com.au/blog Its not live yet, so I'm just looking for SEO advice or issues I might encounter by having the blog on a sub domain. In terms of user experience, I realise that there needs a clearer link back to the main website, I'm just trying to work out the best way to do it... Any advice / criticism is greatly welcomed. Thanks0 -
Local SEO Best Practices
Hello Everyone, I'm new to SEOmoz, I'm looking to use this as a tool to really help me, and evenually I can help others. I am an Web Developer with some online marketing experience. I did Local SEO a Few Years ago, and things have really changed since then. I know this Panda and Penguin update really is putting a hurting on the directory submission. Google no longer has 'Citations" on their places page, and many other changes. With that being said, what are some best practices for Local SEO? I am a propeller head by nature, but am also very creative when I need to be. I have potental sites to market, anywhere from Holistic Medical Doctors, Plastic Surgeons Community Blogs, and Auto Repair Shops, Law firms (to give you some perspectic) I also read Danny Dover's Book, to learn some more about SEO, the one thing that is unclear is how to acquire quality links I would really appreciate any perspective on this, every little thing helps Zach Russell
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ZacharyRussell0 -
What are best practices for multi-language seo?
We are looking for best practices for multi-language seo. We are interested in any books, message boards or blogs that you can recommend. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FareCompare0 -
Migrating online store to subdomain using shopify and effects on seo and energy down the road for seo
I'm looking for some clarity... Looking at using Shopify for an existing online store that we have to migrate. Setting up the store with shopify means we will be using a subdomain such as shop.mywebsite.com instead of mywebsite.com/shop. The following are points to consider when responding The client currently has an online store, however it's a proprietary shopping store and CMS that has since gone defunct and they need to migrate to an alternative in order to survive online against new CMS systems that allow the site and its content to be better optimized. There is a lot of existing SEO done on the current site that we don't want to loose PR on. There is roughly 2000 products Client has a fixed budget, dealing with checkout issues, custom work and various other "bugs" seems to be easier controlled with Shopify...thus budget can be used more on content/strategy and migration We want to run the main site in Wordpress and are wanting to use Shopify since it supports a gateway, has great features and seems like it would allow us to get more bang for the buck and can focus more on the main site and content strategy and drive traffic to the subdomain store if needed Or main concern is the effort of migrating 2000+ products to shopify and the traffic and PR it gives the current site will have a negative effect on the main domain itself. Should we really be considering this path? The domain is diveidc.com One main benefit to the subdomain is the ability to clearly segment products from the service portion of the site in the analytics and focus 2 clear strategies and track it in a very defined manner. We're really on the fence with this...any thoughts are welcome.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MAGNUMCreative0 -
Website Restructure - Good or Bad for SEO?
Due to the fact that we aren't in the #1 position, (dropped from #5 to page 2 - You have to love Devs and IT), our heads have hired a SEO Audit/Consultant company to review everything we are doing. I would like to post some of the things they are telling us to do, in which I don't 100% agree with and would like some other professional feedback. Especially since their site isn't marketed very well. http://www.trupanionpetinsurance.com Disclaimer: (this site was a complete nightmare when I started a year and a half ago. Yes, there are many issues that still need to be addressed.) Website Restructure I agree we totally need to restructure our website. I have no idea what the previous SEO guy was thinking. The new SEO company is telling us that the structure is a big part of SEO. I don't believe so, but besides a little loss in 301 juice, is there any other downfalls? Are there any real benefits? Similar question asked the other day (and answered by me): http://www.seomoz.org/q/don-t-want-to-lose-page-rank-what-s-the-best-way-to-restructure-a-url-other-than-a-301-redirect
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Trupanion1 -
Breadcrumb Trail for SEO?
Due to the fact that we aren't in the #1 position, (dropped from #5 to page 2 - You have to love Devs and IT), our heads have hired a SEO Audit/Consultant company to review everything we are doing. I would like to post some of the things they are telling us to do, in which I don't 100% agree with and would like some other professional feedback. Especially since their site isn't marketed very well. http://www.trupanionpetinsurance.com Disclaimer: (this site was a complete nightmare when I started a year and a half ago. Yes, there are many issues that still need to be addressed.) Breadcrumb Trail They have asked us to implement a Breadcrumb trail on every page, where the final page is the only H1 Tag. Are breadcrumb trials important for SEO? (I know they are helpful for Users, but SEO) Are they important for Search Engines to track back for structure. Any thoughts about them? Similar question asked in February : http://www.seomoz.org/q/how-important-are-breadcrumbs
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Trupanion1 -
Does capitalization matter for SEO?
Two places capitalization comes into play: (1) on-page use (title, h1, body text, img alt text, etc) (2) external anchor text I didn't think it mattered from Google's point of view for on-page usage (is this correct?) but I notice that OpenSiteExplorer' s 'anchor text distribution' tab shows different counts for the same keyword if it's capitalized in different ways (eg seomoz.org is listed separate from SEOmoz.org). Is that just OSE or does Google treat the keyword/phrase different based on its capitalization, too? And if so, then should I be creating external links to my site with the 'regular' and 'Capitalized' versions of my key phrases?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | scanlin1