Comments on: False Prophecy: Onsite SEO Will Be History

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:49:51 +0000

I have to agree that Onsite SEO isn’t going anywhere. Agreed however that the form may change, it might not be as we know it. But the same rules will pretty much always apply, just the medium may change.

By: Henry Adaso

Henry Adaso — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:04:58 +0000

I have to agree with Richard, onsite SEO is not going anywhere.

By: Richard Burckhardt

Richard Burckhardt — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:40:49 +0000

Oops! You’re right. It WAS Sherman Potter. Senior moment, folks! My bad!

By: RickDink

RickDink — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:30:06 +0000

Damon

The other flaw is you over estimate the ability of the searchers. The technology is already hitting up against an issue where what the Internet “can” do versus how it is being used by “most” humans is somewhat complex.
I do presentations to colleges – both undergraduate and graduate and it is amazing to me that outside the tech group that most others do not have a basic understanding of how to use the current search engines and I think it will be sometime before us humans all catch up to the technology. Don’t want to sound like like an old fuddy duddy (odd word – where did that come from) but the technology and the human use of it needs to coincide and I contend it is happening slower than technology allows – for the majority of users.

By: Erik Dafforn

Erik Dafforn — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:01:39 +0000

The major, MAJOR flaw in this post is the use of “Colonel Harry Potter.” It was Sherman Potter, played by Harry Morgan. ;-)

By: Damon Abramson

Damon Abramson — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:20:24 +0000

Rick,

I think that’s correct, but there lies a fundamental difference between current coding languages and subsequent SEO techniques and what the semantic web will engender.

Up until now, the web has focused on presenting information to be processed by Humans (reading/interacting, etc.). The big change with RDF and the semantic web is that now web pages will be coded to allow for information processing by both Humans and Machines/computers. This is the great leap forward that this represents.

So now a computer can quite literally “Read” a web page, get information from it and react to it. Natural language questions that we ask each other all the time become enabled by the CPU’s capability to process all the “responses” it gets back from all the pages in its database. You may get answers back that string quotes from 10 different websites together to exactly match your question, including the intent in which you asked the question.

Try using simple keyword-based SEO for that! :)

By: RickDink

RickDink — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:52:22 +0000

As long as there is some database, computer, machine determining relevancy and as long as “people” are determining how they search and what is relevant – there will always be a need for SEO.
Will it change – when has it stopped changing.
As I tell those at my seminars – it is still the wild wild west and perhaps that is not so bad – just relax – enjoy the ride, just figure out along the way where your horse is going. As we all know on the Internet the users are in charge and we will continue to try and make our “stuff” relevant at the point of search.

By: Zoobie Joy

Zoobie Joy — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:42:46 +0000

Nice post..^^ I agree also that SEO won’t be history..it will always be here..as long as there are search engines and sites..^^

By: Damon Abramson

Damon Abramson — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:20:29 +0000

Yes, it will be, but not as we know it now. And Pierre, I concur with your point regarding SEO writing content and links. On-page won’t necessarily die; it will morph significantly.

By: Richard Burckhardt

Richard Burckhardt — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:36:47 +0000

So, in RDF the coding on the page is what the search engines will read? Sounds like onsite optimization to me!

;-)