I Hate To Say, "I Told You So," But...

Ken's Blog

Way back in Oct, 2005, I shared The Tao of CTPM with the LED Digest mailing list, a list that I subscribe to and still enjoy.  I elaborated in that post about why I thought Search Engine Optimization (SEO) was doomed.

Sure enough, as I predicted in that post, it set off some wailing as it spread to the SEO community.  Some of the more strident members of the community jumped all over that post.  Naturally, since they were too invested in their "position" to think logically, the level of discussion was disappointing...

No discussion on the merits.  No debate about the underlying logic. And why not?

Because it was really not debatable.  Read the book for yourself...  Download it by right-clicking here and saving to your desktop.  See if you find fault  with the logic. 

So what's happened since then?

Sure enough, Google has become a whole lot smarter, which means much less manipulatable.  All the predictions are happening and will continue to intensify.   

A trickle of support has grown into a torrent of consensus that SEO is indeed on its last legs.   The term "SEO" is being redefined away from "the almighty algorithm" and SEOers are either...

• understanding the sea change that is indeed happening
• sticking to their SEO guns (their days are numbered)
• pretending that they always knew "content was king" all along
• redefining themselves as "SEM" ("Search Engine Marketing").

The term "Search Engine Optimization" is self-defining.  It means doing something on-or-off your Web page/site to actively cause higher rankings for certain keywords.  The C T P M /"SEO is dead" approach is visitor-focused, not engine-focused. In other words...

"Keep it real, create good content, and good rankings happen -- you don't actively try to make them happen."  The smarter Google gets, the more accurate that statement becomes.

And results happen from the bottom up... first the long-tail of keywords generates traffic, then progressively more competitive terms passively start ranking well.  Finally, the most competitive keywords rank well... naturally.  It's almost mystical (which is why I called the book "The Tao").  But the logic, and the repeated success of thousands and thousands of SBIers, is simply irrefutable.

The bottom line is that between Google constantly getting smarter, the increasing complexity of off-page criteria, personalization, Google Universal and upcoming true semantic search and Artificial Intelligence, SEO is quite simply doomed.  Unless.... unless?

Unless you redefine "SEO" as meaning, "Keep it real and write to please humans." 

SEO is simply... moribund. 

All the best,

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Comments

[Tony Thomas]

Dugg and blogged about. So good to know we're on the right path to success.

[Dwight Stickler]

Hi Ken,

SEO as a scientific discipline has yet to be born IMO. Of course business management and marketing management have long been studied and used to grow business.
I have been a distant fan of your system just because you have emphasized creating sites for visitors in addition to recognizing that search traffic is a necessary component of effective monetization.
At the heart of any decent SEO program there must be necessary conversions once the traffic arrives. A site that does not cater to and meet the needs of the visitors who have found them in a Search, is only half a site.
SBI builds whole sites and so they succeed. It is good that you are not intimidated or concerned with the people who naysay without a basic knowledge of the facts.
When I meet prospective clients who are more interested in doing it them self, I invariably send them along to your site.

[Toni]

Well I have been on line only since 1/07 and it has been a nightmare! I put a lot of money in my web site and google and I am not even close to getting noticed. I really need customers! How do you do it? I don't have a lot of money left so how does a peon get customers?
HELP!
www.ourpersonalsafetyproducts.com

[Dave Uyemura]

Toni,

Not a bad site. Have you registered your site with Google and other search engines? You can do this yourself you know although it is a bit time consuming. Here is Google's link: http://www.google.com/addurl/. As far as your website, not bad. I think your images need to be a bit crisper looking. When you click on an image it appears clear but the smaller images look like they were resized. I think those need to be rescanned at the size you wish to display them at on the page. Also, when you have the time I think you should create and use a company logo. There are sites that do this for 2-300 dollars. I am a database developer and not really a web developer so I am still learning this front end stuff too. Hope this helps.

Good luck,

Dave Uyemura

[Jonathan]

All I can say is I am glad. Frankly I have always found the concept of search engine optimization (manipulation) to be a little disheartening. As far as I am concerned, the smarter the search engines get, the better for all of us, content creators and surfers alike.