Is SEO Dying? You Bet!

lisa · #1 (**permalink**) 06-12-2007, 04:38 PM

Ken Evoy, President of SiteSell has been saying it forever and got blasted for his comments "SEO is dead" comments he made two years ago. As I'm sure most of you know, good search engine rankings are being defined more and more by your visitors and less by your on-page criteria.

Great read...

http://blog.sitesell.com/sitesell/20..._to_say_i.html

webdev · #2 (**permalink**) 06-12-2007, 06:54 PM

I totally agree. As i building my php site im only following the conventional seo rules like using meta tags and such...rest is all content.
I didn't even worry about using specific keywords...i just wrote without worrying to optimize for certain keywords. Google seems to list your new pages high in their index at first and waits for how visitors see your page, if they like your site and stay on it, google maintains your ranking else it drops.
I'm also noticing the same thing with my php site.
Seems like Alexa rankings also depended on how many visitors your get.

Shaun Connell · #3 (**permalink**) 06-12-2007, 07:14 PM

So considering this, I shouldn't have to worry about saying "gun control" repeatedly, and just let my visitors do the rest?

Also, how could google see how people like my page? I barely even know how to do that!

max · #4 (**permalink**) 06-12-2007, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shaun Connell

So considering this, I shouldn't have to worry about saying "gun control" repeatedly, and just let my visitors do the rest?

Also, how could google see how people like my page? I barely even know how to do that!

Exactly. You would write your pages like you talk. Obviously if your page is about gun control you're going to mention it more than other phrases but you wouldn't overdo it and mention it at the beginning of every sentence or to the point it sounds awkward or redundant. Of course use your meta tags and mention it once in all the important tags but the days of counting how many times you should use it and measuring keyword density are over.

Google can tell by 2 things...

1) How long people stay on your site for certain keywords. (This is after you are ranked of course)

2) How many other high-quality "gun control" related sites are linking to you.

lisa · #5 (**permalink**) 06-12-2007, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by webdev

Seems like Alexa rankings also depended on how many visitors your get.

Yep, you got it and Google doesn't really care about that number from what I've seen.

Max, you hit the nail on the head. The amount of time people spend on your site is so key and getting to be more and more important. So if someone types in "blue widgets" in Google and you are ranked #5 but people stay on your site for an average of 10 minutes vs. 3 minutes for the sites above you... pretty soon Google is going to move you up.

They can measure the amount of time someone clicks from their results onto your site and how long before the person exits and comes back to the Google results.

So having a very deep, thorough and useful site for your niche is very important. And of course get those inbound links from related sites. (Preferably reputable sites)

ppcFanatic · #6 (**permalink**) 06-12-2007, 08:23 PM

Just read the SiteSell blog...wow. Ken gets a lot of flack out here because he is very self promotional but he was spot on with that prediction. I was in a forum the other day where these SEOers were arguing about keyword density and number of links. Folks are still busy trying to figure out the magic algorithm that is soon to be non-existent.

Well, I take that back... the algorithm will always exist, but it will be based on the visitors say as others have already said. All I have to say is it's about time. I can't wait till all the worthless and MFA (made for Adsense) sites are gone for good.

Shaun Connell · #7 (**permalink**) 06-12-2007, 08:37 PM

Wow, that's pretty interesting. I sensed that /something/ was changing with Google because, as a researcher, I often will hit the "Google Cache" of pages while google searching, just to find the keywords in the long scholarly articles faster. I noticed that often there would be far fewer keywords in the first result (though the result would be much higher quality) than there would be in the lower results.

That explains it.

Hehe, he is self-promotional, but then again -- if you owned SBI! wouldn't you be too?

:P

HaroldP · #8 (**permalink**) 06-12-2007, 10:23 PM

I think this is good news for people who are really working hard to create useful sites but bad news for people looking to get rich quick with Adsense, etc.

webdev · #9 (**permalink**) 06-13-2007, 08:19 AM

Quote:

I was in a forum the other day where these SEOers were arguing about keyword density and number of links.

I don't even bother going to these forums anymore. Most of the people on these forums are just there in hopes that someone will give the magic formula to get site #1 in google.

Quote:

I sensed that /something/ was changing with Google

It makes sense that websites that are valuable to the visitors should be credited with higher ranks not the ones which use black-hat or white-hat techniques to fool the search engine.

ppcFanatic · #10 (**permalink**) 06-13-2007, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by webdev

I don't even bother going to these forums anymore. Most of the people on these forums are just there in hopes that someone will give the magic formula to get site #1 in google.

Yeah I try to warn these guys and they just keep flaming me saying I don't know what I'm talking about yet their sites continue to lose their ranks. I actually think it's rather amusing. They could be using that time to write articles for ezinearticles rather than trying to figure out keyword density, etc.

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