Google will never die and neither will SEO. People give up too easily in general. Unfortunately, hardly anyone uses Yahoo and Bing, so Google will always (at least, for now) be the SE king.

The changes they're making are to:

1. Protect their interest/business.
2. Make more money (and be smarter about it)

People tend to blame bad rankings on Google algorithms, when the actual reason is bad content ((on-page SEO) or not as good as your competitors') and poor linking structures (off-page SEO).

No it's far from dead, as long as people from around the world keep using it to search it will survive as the most popular search engine, and also majority of the webmasters depends solely on Google to drive traffic to their sites.

I do not believe Google is dead. What I do believe is that you cannot put all of your eggs in one basket with them. You have to have multiple avenues to generate traffic and focus on building them up.

Ohh ya, the title "Is Google Dead?" is really suck.
Google dead for someone doesn't mean dead for anyone at all

Not yet... but they are doing a lot of things to piss off the general surfers and Bing is trying hard to get more eyeballs.

Plus they favor their own networks (youtube, g+) as they take up the whole front page along with wikipedia (my hunch is they are trying to cripple them with hoards of traffic so they can get adsense on there...)

Still, all the traffic is on googz - things change, so who knows what will go down in the coming year.

Keep in mind that there are many, many, many more users who aren't webmasters.

That's nice, but it makes no difference to Google.

You seriously think Google hates paid advertisements? You really need to take a reality check. Paid ads are one of the major revenue sources for Google.

Google is a source of frustration for a lot of webmasters and Internet marketers, but most of the people using it aren't webmasters or Internet marketers. The average person doesn't know the first thing about SERPs. All they care about is being able to type something into the search box and get relevant results. For the most part, Google delivers on this and isn't going to die anytime soon.

What a ridiculous question!

I'd hardly call a company that had assets of over 72 billion dollars at the start of this year dead!

Alexa ranked Google's US site as the second most visited website on the Internet.

And a company that processes over 24 petabytes (that's 24 million terabytes) of user data EVERY DAY doesn't seem to be experiencing rigor mortis!

How can you even ask such a question? Do you honestly think that just because a handful of Internet Marketers have chosen not to focus their marketing efforts on Google traffic that the company is about to fold up and die?

Get real!

Bill

People who constantly hate on Google are living in the "affiliate bubble".

They think that they are relevant to Google and somehow their actions are going to negatively impact Google's bottom line.

AdWords (in spite of going after affiliates) grows in revenue quarter after quarter. Google owns the web's two largest search engines - Google.com and YouTube (yes, YouTube is 2nd).

Now Google is losing some search traffic to Bing/Yahoo but certainly not because some affiliates are whining on forums about algorithm updates. They're losing traffic to Bing/Yahoo because Bing is investing tens of millions of dollars in advertising to get people to use their search engine.

Lots of SEO techniques still work (tiered link building comes to mind) but don't bet on it working forever. I get a lot of traffic from Google but realize it's one algo change away from going away forever.

So I diversify my traffic and always drive it to my opt-in page to get people onto my list.

I think the SEO techniques I'm using will continue to work for quite some time into the future but it's still too risky to depend too much on just one source of traffic.

I tried searching on someone else's computer recently, where entering the term into the URL bar used Yahoo! instead of Google. Well, that showed me the top reason why Google is ahead of the others. The result I was looking for was nowhere to be seen. When I navigated to Google and searched, it was top.

Google's algorithms hurting you are probably because you're not providing something of value to Google's customers (and therefore Google), while someone else is. Try providing content that will engage the audience and not the SE and you'll find better results.

People is still fighting for SEO because prove that 94 percent of searcher prefer to click on organic result and only 6 percent of searcher will click on google adwords.
So if you give up and you only able to grab the 6% of the market. That is why people still struggle for SEO even it difficulties now.

Google vs IM

Funny fight here.

Google wants searchers to get the best possible results.

Internet Marketers want all their sites on top of Google.

This ended up putting shoddy sites on Google's top results.

I am an internet marketer but I love the updates.

Post top quality content and use other methods to get visitors to your site and you'll never have to worry about being on page 1 of Google.

I also advise you get a professional SEO or buy a product such as Mark Ling's Affiloblueprint 3. It has all you need to create expert sites that will never be affected by Google's stuff.

All the best.

I don't think Google is dead. IMers are finding it difficult to get rankings fast, that's true, but the search engine in itself is not dead. They still get a lot of traffic, and I'm pretty sure that's going to continue well into the future.

I'm not focusing on SEO at the moment, but I plan on including it in my marketing campaigns in the future. Don't focus on SEO alone; diversify your traffic as much as you can.

There are hordes of methods out there: Forums, blog commenting, social media, video marketing etc, and people do get a lot of traffic from these methods. Have SEO only as one of your traffic methods, and I'm sure you'll not even notice if you lose your rankings.

Google is tied to big business - it's little to do with content.
How do sites like Microsoft rank so high when they have little content on the site?
There's not much room now for the little guy.
There's plenty of traction to be had from Yahoo and Bing.
Some run their business solely on Bing Ads.

Hi,
All webmasters are frustated from google algorithm updates, even though the algorithm is being updated it is effected only in few regions. The yahoo and bing are good search engines compare to google these are not more user friendly what i felt was. PPC Gives more traffic compare to organic.

google cares about the end user, not webmasters, hence why it won't die and hence why we have to accommodate ourselves to their changes, they're the boss of us i'm afraid.

Absolutely not dead. The objective of Google algorithm is to make great people experience when using Google search. However, Google use ROBOT not human. So, sometime the Great quality website are not easy to judge by ROBOT. So, sometime our website has been hit, some site is going up......

However, if we step back as a User (not IM). When I search something to do research, I always see the GOOGLE bring the great site at the TOP of the First page.

So, Google is not dead but it is more difficult to IM to make money with GOOGLE organic SERP.

Google will survive. However, article marketing will soon be gone. I got today a message. Hey, it was from a "Porfessional Writing Sorvice" what ever that is. He promises a mega rankings increase. Love those promises. What can we say on the owner. Probably this one works in a 7-11 for the minimum wage.

He should at least do a spell check on his copy. However, that will not save him as he is an expert in Widows 2000 and NT sewer.

Google is certainly not dead but SEO is largely dead - unless of course you make a significant portion of your money from SEO in which case you'll continue to defend it to the death.

The truth is that if you want good rankings you have to put in the work and produce quality content which you keep up-to-date. That takes time of course and the longer your business has been around the better your chances of ranking.

Google does not like 'small' website owners and the secret to success these days lies in diversifying your business so that your dependence on Google is minimal. Google might still be a big player but they are not the only game in town.

If Google dies, where would we go??
No doubt Google brings something new and frustrates SEO's frequently, but I believe this is the challenge we can take up to improve our SEO.

Google's not dead but sometimes, when they change their rules, I wish they were

Good point and not to forget about google places and video results and many others i am afraid time will come when our sites will be buried under 2nd pages and all the top 10 spots will be all about google and it's products.

SEO is not dead nor will it ever be! It just evolving like everything else,either you learn to adopt with this new changes or quit this business for good.

[DELETED]

Google is not dead, but if other people are getting the junk results I've been seeing lately then their shareholders are in for a shocking '13. Remember that Google have done very little that's profitable. Take out search and AdSense, and there isn't much left on the bone.

All those spammy HubPages and niche sites may have been junk, but if my recent searches for business mailboxes and VPN services are the best Google can return then I'll eat my hat.

Google's most lucrative business is wide open for Apple or Facebook to take off of them in '13.

1: Google is not dead and will never be dead.

2: There is absolutely NOTHING confusing about its algorithms.

What pisses me off is that i had lots of old sites with unique content, niche/targeted that were showing up on first page for YEARS that were wiped away just like that ?

And i don't even know what the hell for ?

Google is dead for Black hat people

Google doesn't care about you. Google doesn't care about merchants at all. What Google cares about are it's customers and users of their search engine. Google is far from dead. They just could care less about you and are doing what benefits them.

If you want Google to work for you then play by their rules and you won't have problems. If you don't want to play by their rules, go somewhere else for traffic.

Google also does not hate paid advertisements AS LONG as you pay them to advertise your stuff.

It just surpassed Facebook again in terms of traffic. It is now the website with the most traffic in the world.

No way to say Google is dead, nor is white hat SEO.

Diversify your link building and marketing campaigns and you'll be fine.

Google is still the number one search engine in the world so no it's not dead. It's just harder to get ranked on it.

I still use Google everyday just like billions of other people. Google is not going anywhere. You just need to make sure that your websites provide quality to their visitors.

Dan C: Not sure if you are quoting people just for fun... but you are very welcome, glad it made you giggle

And for advertisers audience is important. Audience who knows that its search results are the most accurate. In a way Google is an IM business like any other. Not that different from a small blog that tries to give good content in order to get Adsense clicks or Clickbank sales. And just as this small blog removes spam comments, so does Google... whence the infamous updates that where merely intended to improve search results by removing the spam sites.

Okay, I'll bite.

Google is far from dead and these financials prove it:



Bear in mind that the SEO world / market / whatever you want to call it is a drop in the proverbial Google bucket. There are tons of businesses and marketers that do not dabble in any SEO techniques. Many of them buy advertising through Google and it's not just PPC (they have mobile, tv, etc. ads).

One of the first things I do with my corporate clients is have them devise a marketing plan that has Google at only 10% of their overall traffic. One of the fastest ways I've seen new marketers (not newbies, an important distinction) build their businesses is through paid advertising. Google only has 2 to 5% of the overall advertising inventory (some advertising execs put it at 1%, but hey, I'm trying to be somewhat objective here).

SEO is very much alive and well today. SEO is far from dead, it's merely changing. I see people crushing it using SEO techiques because they know how to adapt and give Google what they want (fresh, useful content).

Google is far from dead. Annoying at times? Yes, but far from dead. They are very much alive.

RoD

I believe bing is working hard to bring all of us over.... but i also think that if google is used right it still works.... I always want more than one bullet in the gun When I go hunting...lol

I say this all the time. Who cares what Google says or does? I know I don't. Google is not the internet, they are just one means to get traffic. 90% of my traffic for all my sites does NOT come from Google...and I'm not talking about Yahoo or Bing either.

Move away from your reliance on trying to game the search engines and focus on getting traffic from elsewhere to build a much healthier business. If all your traffic comes from Google and you suddenly get slapped you're business is dead.

There are tons of ways to get traffic, banner ads, PPC, email list, forums, WSOs, social media, video sites, document sharing sites, Q&A, articles etc etc etc. Why do so many people just focus on Google? SEO is temperamental and unpredictable at the best of times let alone in the current climate.

Google isn't dead but it's as good as dead TO ME.

We are all guilty in some way. We all want Google to have competition yet we all keep using Google search.

LMAO,ROFL - That's the single funniest title of a post I've seen in all my time at the Warrior Forum

Whichever way you look at it, a search engine (be it Google or/and others) is needed because it is they who principally sort out the world's information. Without Google and other search engines indexing content we would go back to a world where information would be dominated by big media companies. To use one example, we could have missed out on a lot of great news stories that were first reported to the world by individuals rather than big media. It is Google that provides peoples opinions to be heard, especially that in written form. Google has given even the smallest guy the chance to be of relevance on the world stage.

So whether its Google or some other search engine, we need content indexed. And Google does this better than anyone else. I applaud Google in fighting spam because they (spam manufacturers) should not be able to take shortcuts at the expense of genuine people. Unfortunately, n fighting spam, sometimes a few genuine people will get hurt.

No, your SEO only sucks to Google now.

Don't fool yourself. Google is only going to get bigger and more popular.

Hey look, I found this weeks "Is Google Dead" thread!

The thing is Google is been used from newbies or despearte ppl, ppl who click the first result they see (the google adds) so in this time, optimizing your website for Google will be an stupid idea, the new era is Bing, and yahoo in my humble opinion.

I agree that Google is annoying a lot of people and we have to put up with them for the moment, but it will reach a tipping point where other search engines will start to gain market share and cause less fustration to hard working webmasters

Google is not going to die in the near future.But it is good news that bing is catching up slowly.

Google isn't dead for millions of people, it's still alive and kicking.

You have a point there when you say its not working that good.

But we can't deny the fact that Google has been helpful most of the time.

Well, we have the freedom to use it or not.

Just use the most convenient one for yourself.

The question "Is Google dead?" is very similar to "Is Facebook dead?", which I've read many times already...and the answer to that is simply "NO".

Google has a long life ahead if it. If you do well in Yahoo and Bing, Google takes notice and will raise you in their rankings and the game continues. A lot of people get dinged by Google which I don't think is fair but it is the game. If you want to win on Google play the game hard.

I was talking to someone the other day, and they seemed to think that Google was going to become a "marketplace". Interesting never thought that search would evolve that way....

No, it's not dead yet, but if the Maya are right, it will be on December 21st, 2012

Actually, that's exactly what google wants. They detest webmasters trying
to shmooze their results and especially feeling like they are entitled to
ANY google listing.

Google would love it if the lot of you went your merry ways...

Can't wait for the

is apple dead
is MS dead
is FB dead

threads.

Paul

Google isn't dead, obviously. I don't know what the official figure is, but I imagine that about 70% of all searches are through Google.

Also Google does not hate paid advertising as the OP stated - they are primarily an advertising company that offers a free online search function.

However, Google might be considered by some as being dead as a traffic generation method. I put myself in that category. I was an SEO guy, concentrating all my efforts on getting traffic from Google. My sites were white hat and had pretty good content. But they had exact match domains. Guess what happened at the end of September? Literally overnight my rankings fell like a hot potato, traffic dropped by 80 - 90% and income dropped by more than 50%. There is a moral in there somewhere...

Over the following weeks I re-imagined my business as if Google doesn't exist. It has given me more focus as well as a broader vision. I'm now building traffic from non-search engine sources. It's back to basics and the ground floor for me now.