SEO Dies Slow and Painfully!
February 28, 2007 |
Could SEO be a waste of time and money in Web 2.0? According to Anthony Fallon, CEO of Warrington Web Works, the use of RSS, content provided for Website visitors and Google's improvements may have ended the chase for the top ten search positions. Fallon asks: "Is this the end of the SEO industry?"
An article by Fallon, inspired by a meeting with a client, illustrated a quote to this client of $29,000 for a guaranteed place in the top ten at Google for 3 years! Fallon points out that even Google cannot guarantee such a broad and far reaching placement. Essentially Fallon is trying to illustrate that the SEO industry has all the statistics they need to "bluff" the money out of businesses.
Fallon tries to prove what a waste of time and money SEO is in his article "SEO Mind Crime". Fallon posted his article on Wednesday afternoon and told his readers to test his theory by searching for "SEO Mind Crime" on Google over the coming days. According to this press release, they did not have to wait long. By late the next day, the post appeared in positions 3, 4 and 6 of Google's first page. Out of 826,000 indexed pages, the article made it nearly to the top in 24 hours! Fallon says this is definitive proof that SEO is no longer necessary in Web 2.0!
"Web 2.0 it's all about your visitor", Anthony added. "The new distribution technologies like RSS will get your message out there without any magic or manipulation of search results. The quality of Google's search technology is really coming on in leaps and bounds. If businesses can get in front of their customers without stuffing their content with keywords, it has to be a good thing. As for the SEO industry, good riddance I say."
Anthony Fallon is the author of SEO Fools – The Link is Mightier Than The Keyword. He publishes and promotes Authority Websites through his Warrington Web Works website. Wow! I like this guy already! I am not too sure we can shake the icky SEO mud from our boots just yet, but the author does make an impact, doesn't he? SEO by definition is destined to lead to unscrupulous and sneaky tactics in order to transform the mediocre in to the visible. Search engine optimization simply means making your web site more visible to Web 2.0, but what is king of the Internet, content right? Google's flawed page raking system has spawned a whole new breed of mathematical circumventions in search of the hapless entertainer's bullion. Large companies utilize SEO in order to save money by outsourcing, and in this way contribute to the overall nasty taste we have for SEO practices. What Mr. Fallon says is true for the future of Web 2.0, but not necessarily true for the moment. It could be, if people would pay SEO to just make them better, but the quick buck is still ruling the SEO mentality.
A simple search for a specific article will certainly produce essentially that article, so Fallon really over simplified the situation. I don't think he was trying to hype anything, but was attempting to illustrate how plain text can provide direct results. For my own little test I just typed in Profy. I display the results in a screenshot below which illustrates a couple of things.
First, I did not write anything specifically designed to infiltrate the web, other than to interest a few readers. The result in position one was our blog at Profy, followed by several other Profy examples including one of mine about Google via Techmeme and another via Technorati. So, very specific searches will almost always produce very specific results. Mr. Fallen has made it clear that SEO is not necessary in its present form. I would like to see more web site optimizations myself. If hakia and some of the others we have mentioned keep progressing, then SEO mathematicians will have to learn to write something other than keywords and provide more than direct linking or link relevancy.
I will never stop saying it: Google and/or one or more of these other search engine companies need to collaborate. Web 2.0 users have to do their part to force SEO out of the picture. I can suggest one really effective way, and that is to try out engines like hakia (and no they are not paying me) or some of the other innovative ones we have mentioned. What we need is a search engine that forces just this, companies to revert to improving value for viewers, period!
