Will the SEO Bubble Burst?
Being in the in the SEO industry for quite a while I have seen the industry speed up and grow extremely fast over the last five years and absolutely explode over just the last few years. Recently some are starting to understand that SEO is really a marketing approach and not a science project geared towards just achieving search engine rankings. It is good that some businesses are starting to realize that this is the right approach that everyone should be taking and shifting their focus, but many are still clueless, dumping hundreds of articles and press releases per month, taking spammy approaches just to fill in the search engine results. What happens to all those companies that have been taking a science project approach and only worrying about rankings when Google and Bing drop the hammer on the SEO bubble? Will it ever happen? Who knows, people used to laugh when they heard the real estate industry would implode. Who’s laughing now?
The search engines are clearly changing and I still see businesses everyday taking this horrendous approach to their SEO simply to achieve rankings. Google has come out and has clearly stated that personalized search will be making much more of an impact in the near future. When someone is logged into their Google account personalized search has already started taking shape. You can even read more about how personalized search works directly on Google’s official webmaster blog. I think the problem is that most people have a hard time changing and the search engine marketing industry is very fast changing and fast moving industry that can quickly leave people behind if they don’t pay attention to what is going on around them. SEO companies pop up over night with inexperienced individuals make shotty promises and performing subpar search engine marketing techniques just adding to that bubble. As this continues that bubble keeps building and eventually sites like Google are going to drop the hammer on the whole search engine optimization industry. I can see the similarities between the SEO industry and the real estate industry clearly. The greed and the money symbols in some people’s eyes are inflating this industry leading it to it’s demise. The worst part about it is that many of us professionals are left with a tarnished image from all the bad apples. Too many businesses out there have already been burned leaving it very difficult for the ones that do it right to really get the credibility they deserve and to pass on their experience and industry knowledge to their Clients. I guess with every tool comes abuse it is just unfortunate to see it have gotten to this point.
Eventually this bubble is going to pop, where will you be when it happens? Will you have changed your ways and your techniques to cushion the blow? Or are you going to be scrambling around and trying to find out how to adapt at the 11th hour? It will be too late at that point. Like everything in life, what comes up must come down sooner or later and the search engines are getting ready for a much needed clean up. This clean up will happen sooner than later piercing through the bubble and showering the industry with some upset individuals and firms. The problem stems from a lack of knowledge and not enough outside the box thinking. Outside the box thinking like how to put together a nice solid link bait campaign and not figuring out how to control the search results with a not so news worthy press release. Google is dropping a very large algorithm change towards the middle of 2010 which I strongly believe could be the first stages of not only speeding up the efficiency but eliminating the trash that makes its way into search results.
This could very well be the very first attempt to shifting people’s focus away from just rankings and shifting it over to simply marketing their business online the right way. The search engine industry is just getting started but it is growing very very quickly. Unfortunately there needs to be a shift in focus and I think we are starting to see that now. Customers don’t become customers by bumping into one of your hundred articles that you released in one day. They become customers by trusting online brands over time.
16 Responses to “Will the SEO Bubble Burst?”
The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Journal is Written by SEO Expert:
Nick Stamoulis
Tel - 781-999-1222
nick@brickmarketing.com
Brick Marketing - SEO Company
Surely the search industry is evloving and now search has a more wide connotation to search than just rankings. I personally think that the SEO bubble will not burst but rather grow with much more flavour added to it like the organic search being influenced by the social rank, the inbound links and also the content of the website available on the site in varied forms (Videos, Slideshows etc.)
SEO shall always remain as it is as the prime objective of the searcher will always remain the same i.e to know what products, services, companies, etc. are available locally and globally.For that the rankings will be important.
But, with social media ranks the searcher gets to know more about the company i.e the public opinion and the latest buzz about it.
I totally agree with you when you say:
Google is dropping a very large algorithm change towards the middle of 2010 which I strongly believe could be the first stages of not only speeding up the efficiency but eliminating the trash that makes its way into search results.
The changes are visible at times infact if the search results are observed minutely.
Both the searcher and search engines benefit from this. Hence, the SEO and the search industry cannot be left behind.
Hi Bharati,
Thanks for stopping by and for reading!
Hi Nick!
As Benjamin Franklin once said, “When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.”
I agree we must work to keep up with the evolution of SEO, Social Media, and Marketing; the challenge is exercise for our minds.
Another good article.
Thank you for sharing.
Take care.
Hi Ken,
Thanks for reading and the quote to Benjamin Franklin…the challenge of staying current with SEO, Social Media, etc is certainly exercise for all of our minds! Thanks for the comment
Interesting article! It’s something I completely agree on and am committed to not focusing on keyword rankings. That was 2002, this is 2010. There are so many other channels available to us, creating a universal search environment that feeds in video, images, social media, local listings, news, products etc.
Where the difficulty will lie is in convincing business owners that they need to increase budgets in order to afford the time needed to succeed across multiple channels. SEO as we know it might plateau in years to come, but digital marketing is very much in its infancy.
Alex
Hey Nick.
Thanks for another fantastic article. I personally will enjoy seeing google hone its algorithm to eliminate the trash although I would imagine this would scare the poo out of some people. When you refer to sending out 100 articles in one day as being spammy, is that just because 100 articles in a day is overkill? I was always under the impression articles were a good source of backlinks.
Speaking as someone who worked in the news business for a very long time, I’d say the majority of press releases are not really newsworthy. Now, if an algorithm could get sophisticated enough to weed out non-news news, that would be somewhat of a miracle IMHO.
Lorraine
Hey Lorraine,
Thanks for the comment and for reading…
To answer your question, I would consider 100 articles in a day as being spammy because where are they being distributed? Also, the quality is very important…my thought is write 5 or 10 good quality articles in a month and distribute them to a few good quality places and even write for other industry websites/blogs. This helps build relevant links and establishes credibility with an audience over time.
Hi Nick, thanks for putting this article together and sharing your thoughts with us. This is in fact the most important issue I address, when I do marketing projects together with my clients. I hate these “quick win fast ranking schemes”, because filling the web with crap is not doing anybody any good.I firmly believe content is king, and I full agree that writing 5 to 10 good articles a month will have a better effect in the long run than just rewriting what someone else has rewritten from someone else. I really hope that the next Google algoritm change will support serious marketing efforts and let the rest drop into the dark dungeons of the internet.
Even
Hi Nick,
Good, timely information as always. As a journalist/sole proprietor who has built an editorially-driven online brand over the last six years your comments both delight and frighten me.
I’m delighted that Google will weed out the spammers who use key words and titles to lure visitors to non-relevent pages. Simultaneously, I’m frightened because I get most of my traffic from search engines and not because I send our spammy releases but because I post fresh, original, quality content. It frightens me to think that good SEO paired with quality content might soon not be enough. Small businesses like mine cannot always “increase budgets” to have the videos, slide shows, pod casts and social media campaigns needed to spread the word through other channels. I fear for the legitimate “little guy.”
Hi Even,
Thanks for reading and your comment…Yeah I agree with you, I too hope Google will drop the useless folks into the “dark dungeons” of the web
Hi Anne,
Thanks for being a loyal reader!
Yeah, I do agree with you about fear for the little guy, but at the same time that is what has made marketing and building a business from the search engines and the web such a great thing…being the little guy can help you compete with the big guys. I guess time will really tell if eventually the smaller businesses will get pushed out…
Hi Nick – some very interesting points you raise. By it’s very nature the SEO industry is maturing and the ‘goldrush’ mentality of individuals who’d simply read a book on SEO and professed expansive knowledge of the rudimentary techniques is still there to be seen.
At the same time, the industry is continually evolving, led by Google’s algo changes and the nature by which people search the net. Business’ are becoming more savvy to the importance of SEO within their entire campaign framework. Greater importance placed on SEO, greater importance is placed on the results. This, in turn, I feel will separate the wheat from the chaff as poor performing SEO practitioners will be simply cast aside… probably going back to their original day jobs!
Rather than a ‘bubble bursting’ we’ll simply see market consolidation as the ‘smarter’ agencies become bigger and internal SEO Managers see their roles developing with greater importance.
Great post.
Ian
Hi Ian,
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!
Great point that it is less about SEO bubble and a market consolidation…I wonder when this will happen? Hopefully soon
This is a very good point. Of course the search engines will get better. I work on my articles on my website, but can’t imagine to be linked from hundreds of others sites, articles and blogs, whereby all have more or less the same content. But there are hundredthousands who do that.
Hi Christa,
Thanks for reading and your comment!
I talked to an SEO last week who said that the corporation he works for gives an ad agency a PPC budget and simply rewards them with continued business because they used the budget. The ad agency is likely spamming the sponsored results and seeing high bounce rates. That type of approach towards SEO is what I see needing to be given the SEO liposuction treatment. The same principle applies with worthless content laced with links.
Hi Richard,
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!
This does indeed sound like a case of SEO liposuction is needed!
Thanks & Take Care,
Nick