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A Brief SEO History -- and Where We Might Be Heading Next
“But frankly, most of our industry does not know what it’s doing right now.” When that quote smacked us upside the head, we had to learn more. Here’s what we know:
Mike King, known as “one of the most respected minds in SEO,” made that comment a couple of months ago in an interview with Search Engine Land. Much of the discussion was about how website stats as traditionally measured have been spiraling downward. Impressions, views, clicks – they’re all dwindling, and clients, obviously, are not happy.
King was talking specifically to other people in the SEO industry, but this topic is important to everyone who uses the internet for their business or organization. Today’s rapid changes in SEO may be catching a lot of folks off guard, but it’s a logical progression if we take a quick look at search’s history.
Search in the 1990s
Some of us remember getting a CD-ROM to install the dial-up AOL web browser. We occasionally allowed our children to use the family desktop computer for homework assignments, but occasionally, a website that promised to show rocks and minerals of North America turned out to be, shall we say, unsuitable for schoolchildren. Search back then relied more on the label than the content, and nefarious websites often pretended to be something they weren’t.
Search in the 2000s
Google’s search engine was only launched in 1998, so these were the wild west years of trying all the tricks to be first on the search results page. Keyword stuffing was a big deal, and few bothered to craft actual paragraphs of worthwhile text around them. Instead, websites just posted lists of keywords and geographic locations, frequently in a white font on a white background so search engines would see them, but not humans.
Search in the 2010s
“Black Hat” optimization tricks were getting penalized even more severely as “User Experience” took center stage. Search engines worked hard to weed out deceptive search terms and low-quality content while rewarding valuable content from authoritative sources. Backlink quality was one of the elements used to help define the more trustworthy websites.
Search in the 2020s
To personalize the User Experience more than ever, Artificial Intelligence tools are now used to index, rank, and serve up web content in answer to very narrow parameters, including search-by-voice, conversational questions, and long-tail queries.
The AI search tools, however, are not necessarily displaying those search results as websites. You are no doubt familiar with Google’s AI Overview, Knowledge Panels, and snippets. With these, users get the answer they are looking for, drawn from website content. But since they are not visiting the website itself, visitor traffic is not recorded.
It’s no wonder search engine optimizers are being called on the carpet by their clients!
So, what are experts like Mike King suggesting for SEO today? First off, King advises getting knowledgeable about the changes in analytic reports and resetting expectations for both SEOs and clients. The way we used to measure is now obsolete.
Second, remember that the goal of search engines has always been to give users the best answer to the question they are asking. The goal of a business or organization, as always, is to be that best answer.
More than ever, brand presence is vital, taking care to highlight the brand’s underlying E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). Quality content contributes to E-E-A-T, along with well-researched search terms. Properly structured website data is also essential for communicating with search engines’ AI.
The rules of SEO have changed a little, but the game is still winnable. If your website hasn’t had any attention for a while, it’s overdue for an update to stay competitive. Call today to learn more or to get a free SEO audit report for your site.
Photo by Pixabay
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Kate Gingold
I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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