While perusing the search engine forums, I came across an interesting thread about being disillusioned with SEO, particularly in the area of SERP relevancy. The concern is that sites with poor content are using optimizing “tricks” to receive top search engine rankings, which damage the relevancy of search engine results.
Have SERPs Become Over SEO’d?
Discuss the good and bad of SEO at WebProWorld.
The subject was kick started in earnest by BungleBob. He posted his concerns on the HighRankings.com forum, and had a list of complaints about the end results that come from the SEO efforts:
“A quick search in Google or any other major engine for a competitive travel phrase will leave you deluged with results – some good, some bad but all apparently relevant.
To the “expert”, many of the results have absolutely no right to be there – the only thing they have in common is the hard work of an SEO consultant. Terrible designs, poor accessibility, slow loads, pop-ups or scant information count for nothing.
If you’ve understood the difference between PR and public relations, arrived armed with a WordTracker account and have a ripping inbound link campaign, you’ve probably hit the top. Well done!”
This is quite an interesting take on the SEO industry. Has the Internet become over-optimized? Another point was made about a client who relied more on PPC campaigns than organic listings. According to Bob, “[The PPC campaign] produces a quantifiable return and, in their niche, doesn’t cost a whole lot. The reason for this decision? His market is over-SEO’d – maybe this was Google and Yahoo’s masterplan all along.”
This leads to a quandary. With basic SEO information being readily available, even sites that have poor content related to the keywords they are optimizing for are receiving high rankings. Unfortunately, Bob was not the only one to be discouraged by SEO. A thread on WebmasterWorld asked whether or not organic SEO is dying. This plays on the point Bob’s client made about preferring PPC campaigns to organic listings.
Chanda7, a new poster on WMW, posed these questions that go hand in hand with Bob’s concerns, “how long do you think organic SEO is going to be possible? Is everything going to go to PPC and advertising?” Robert Charlton answered Chanda’s question, by saying, “[organic SEO] will continue to be viable in the nonprofit areas long after people are jumping off of bridges in the commercial areas.”
It seems that competitive keyword areas, like those associated with the buying and selling of goods, have diluted the effectiveness of good SEO. Because backlinks are becoming easier to obtain (through exchanges or purchases), Bob’s fears seem to have some validity. However, not all shared this outlook concerning SEO.
Jill Whalen, moderator of HighRankings and SEO supreme being :), offered this perspective:
“If one thinks of SEO as essentially “spam” and trying to place your site in the top position at all costs, then yes, I agree with BungleBob that it will eventually be a dying art (or science). Which is really not much different than I’ve been saying for many years. (At least since I’ve been writing about SEO!)
The good news is that those of us who’ve been learning about and practicing website marketing as a whole will be going strong for a long while. It’s true that it’s not a method for guaranteeing #1 placement for any phrase, but that’s not necessary for most sites.”
However, with Bob’s statement, “there’s a huge number of terrible sites that do well,” some fears still rings true. If you are optimizing just to gain a number one search position, then the quality of the site can suffer. But, if you are optimizing to offer potential customers a complete package (quality layout, content, and products), then SEO is quite a worthwhile endeavor.
Webanimal provides some insight concerning the different purposes for optimizing your site:
“I really don’t see relevance in the first few search engine results pages, unless you look at it from a commercial perspective. Relevance is relative. The person who optimizes to offer a service or product uses the heading tags because he or she knows the search engines give credibility to these tags in a web page The person who optimizes for free information uses the heading tag because this is the plain text format that is used in many of the information web pages that are listed at the top of the SERPs”
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for murdok. Visit murdok for the latest search news.
