Shock: the Google boys actually believe in things.

They believe that when people search for something, the site which best meets their needs should be at the top of the list. Usually that means information, not sales hype.

And they believe that “best meets their needs” should be judged by users.

Google’s ability to deliver this vision has been limited. Google ranks are calculated via a complex, secret algorithm that is constantly updated. The algorithm can’t measure user satisfaction directly, so it measures assumed indicators of good sites.

The historical role of SEO has been to work out the (secret) algorithm and do things that please it.Some of these things are helpful to the search engines, for example clear navigation.

Some are more like what Google calls “gaming” – attempting to trick the search engine into thinking your site is better than it is.

The Google algorithm is changed frequently simply to upset what gamers have learned, as well as for upgrades. Over the last year it has become much better at eliminating gaming effects and a lot of traditional SEO trickery has become useless.

Increasingly, real SEO is about ensuring site users get the best possible experience – and that search engines know where to find that experience.

Because, at heart, Google believe that the value of a site to users (the information, entertainment and other values it provides) should determine its search ranking – not trickery.

Real change: Caffeine and Panda

In 2010 and 2011 Google stepped up the rate of change with its Caffeine and Panda revisions to its basic search engines. These made really big changes, still filtering through.

•    Video and other interactive content became far more important. Multi channel connections are powerful.

•    “Fresh” became very important, for the first time. Before this, once you had the best information you could smile and sit back; now Google downgrades the value of information according to how long it has been up.

•    Uniquely valuable. Information and images that appear elsewhere are now downgraded. Information and images that are unique your site deliver the best results.

•    Social media counts. Not much yet, but increasingly the search engines are waiting how socially connected your website is and weighting your connections for their social clout.

•    Fast. Reliable. Easy.  More emphasis has been placed on load speed, broken links are now more damaging. Navigation ease is more critical.

•    Low-grade links downgraded. Google hates low grade (especially farmed) links, but they used to work as an SEO tool. Now a link to a site Google doesn’t think much of can actually degrade your SEO outcome.

•    Low grade sites are actively downgraded. If a site has low content or mostly sales fluff content, it’s going to do worse in the future than it has in the past.

•    Nothing succeeds like success and bigger is better. Google rewards high traffic sites with more traffic and it rates bigger sites (sites with more relevant, unique information) higher.
All of these changes are focused around improving the user experience: built a website that better gives consumers what they want, tat is constantly updated to their needs, and Google will reward you.

The end of SEO

Yes, we see a day when SEO will disappear as a separate discipline – or perhaps the term will survive, but it will mean something quite different  It might mean (or even be called) customer engagement optimisation. Part of it will deal with optimizing the website experience and a very small part of that will be settings to assist search engines in assessing the site. Customer experience will drive rankings: a site that delivers what customers want and engages them through multiple channels will naturally rank highly.

See also The True Believers at Google.