Almost every day now I read an article or blog telling me that SEO is dead. Although they did in fact cause quite a stir in the SEO community, the combined effect of Google\u2019s Panda, Penguin, and Exact Match Domain (EMD) updates is actually a good thing. It now allows SEO professionals like us that commit to Google\u2019s best practices to shine and those that don\u2019t to fail.<\/p>\n
So, as you would expect, Google\u2019s ranking algorithm is and has been for most of 2012 the focus of an enormous amount of banter, debate, research, and testing. Look, until 2012, most SEO practices revolved around keywords, backlinks, and domain names. There were just four basic rules as per\u00a0FireRock Marketing<\/a> that internet marketers followed in promoting a web site:<\/p>\n Life was good then, SEO was easy\u2026 But now, if you compare those four rules to the changes introduced by Panda, Penguin, and EMD, you\u2019ll begin to see why the updates were so important. Not only did Google deliberately target the quick, easy (and often automated) path to search engine domination, but they drew a line under \u201cold style\u201d ranking and set off in a distinctly different direction.<\/p>\n With three swift strokes, Google\u00a0prioritized\u00a0high quality, informative content hosted on sites with recognized authority in their subject. You go, Google!<\/p>\n As I said, when they were first released, each of the three algorithm updates caused a crisis not only in the Internet marketing world, but among website owners in general. The old methods stopped working. Site owners could no longer follow a simple formula and get listed at the top of Google\u2019s results. SEO stopped being as simple as \u201cone and one makes two.\u201d And alas, the cries of \u201cSEO is Dead!\u201d could be heard wwworld wwwide!<\/p>\n But is SEO dead? No, it isn\u2019t. It\u2019s more challenging, it\u2019s more creative, and it\u2019s actually more fun. It certainly isn\u2019t dead. The truth is that as long as there are search engines, SEO will exist. It\u2019s just forever changed. Local SEO Atlanta proves it by developing innovative internet marketing strategies.<\/p>\n Looking back at the three algorithm changes, it\u2019s more interesting to consider the underlying psychological goal than to look at the technical details. Each of these updates attempts to turn webmasters away from the idea that SEO is a measurable science with easy step-by-step procedures. Google now encourages publishers to consider their site\u2019s ranking as a measure of actual relevance rather than as the result of clever technical manipulation.<\/p>\n So what does that mean for you as a publisher? Does it mean you can just concentrate on producing high-quality content and let the search engine ranking handle itself?<\/p>\n In many ways, yes\u2014there is a definite movement at Google towards the idea that \u201cthe best SEO is no SEO.\u201d But that\u2019s a little basic. In more realistic terms, the best websites are those which are written for human readers, not machines or ranking algorithms, and Google wants to prioritise those sites in their results. And isn\u2019t that just what we\u2019re looking for when we search?<\/p>\n\n
The Ramifications of the Updates<\/h3>\n