SEO won't die, but it will change, as it always has. Google and the other search engines are in the business of providing real human users with the results they want when they do searches.

As Google continues to get better at this, it will make SEO (in the way most people here talk about it) less relevant.

Savvy marketers will catch on to the fact that to rank well in Google isn't really as hard as many people want to make it out to be.

I was going to write an eBook on how to have long term success in ranking for Google, but instead I'll write it out here. Get ready, this is deep...

Step 1:
Make a great site filled with content that helps human visitors with a problem, answers a question or provides them something that they want.

Step 2:
Profit

That's about it. SEO's tend to over complicate things by trying to rank their sites fast rather than trying to rank them well.

Hope that helps.

Michael

seo will not go extinct but now there are things like google authorship that need to be taken care of

This is spam not SEO. And anyway this is the nature of the industry, SEO isn't going nowhere, it's simply evolving.

I tried writing original content with good on page but was only able to rank for long tails n not competitive keywords. Link build still matters n apart from press release n paid business listing, it's near impossible or not economical to not spam links

I don't know from where you are getting these Information, but the Future of the SEO is bright. Don't worry about SEO, you should worry about your Websites & blogs.

Yes, SEO won't die! And the article is giving importance to social sites.... which is not enough, social sites just give social signal and it is just one factor among several 200 other factors of Google SEO...

Sites are ranking without social signals too...

I think social media marketing is the future. Not to say that SEO will disappear, it won't, but social media marketing is a growing space and there is lots of growth there.

Well actually it depends on how you appreciate SEO. to some they are already dead but for some including me.. it doesn't.. search engine has gone too many changes so as SEO Practitioners..

Link Building never dead and will never die as Algoz based on it...
However you need to be smarter its time to make own blog network or own web 2.0 blog network and then tiered links to the,.... like that instead of hitting main site with 1000s of links directly...

As long as there are machines sending humans to sites based on search terms... there will be SEO. Because those machines have to decide what the right sites are in every case based on something and SEO is just trying to figure what it is.

Another thing is that I have discovered that to make money it is just easier and faster to just buy the right traffic and leave the search rankings for those that care and have the time it takes.

[DELETED]

This garbage article is over a year old, the things that bother me the most are the following

1) It was written by someone who thinks wordpress is web development. Real developers need to use SEO hence not making Flash and Javascript websites, and formating the website so google can read it, it does not mean to "Game the System"

2) The guy who they quoted, even after being quoted by Forbes in this article, and a year passing, has a 1,500,000 ranking on Alexa and is PR2..(with only 10 links exiting the homepage to bleed his Linkjuice away)... Current Domain Moz rank of 25.. So, what the hell did he ever know about SEO in the first place, and what kind of idiot would name him a Guru?

According to Alexa, only 5.9% of his visitors come from search engines ! LOL Just so you know 60% is the going average.

Here is his open site explorer: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/comp...torkildson.com
Not shockingly he uses a wordpress website, so probably knows nothing about developing, or programming and can not understand what an algorithm is in the first place, hence can not even Imagine what SEO is really all about.

SEO will disappear when web development and search engines disappear. The black hat tactics and web spam may go sooner, but more than likely spammers will just move to the social media channels...even more so than they do today, which I think is already much worse than the search engines are.

The properly formatted keyword named images, Keyword filled titles and the use of H1 tags and other such things in this keyword rich article full of backlinks makes me wonder WTF this guy is on? What a Moron, or Genius BS artist He is. Either way, not the type of person most people tend to like very much, and also someone nobody should be listening to.

At times people are saying for SEO and Rock 'n Roll -"it's dying".

@Earl Gray - Not in the U.S.A!

The basic rules of SEO always will sustain specially the on page issues.There were numerous turmoil and there will be lot of turmoil surrounding the off page issues.According to Google they are trying to make the web spam free and yes all those panda and penguin updates forced a lot of website owners and seo'ers to leave their business/profession.The technique working today become useless in the next algorithmic update.

Yes SEO is dead.

Please report to nearest McDonald's for orientation.

Google is no longer available on the internet...

[DELETED]

Hi guys, to qualify this is what i think. The number of forums, social book marks, social network blog comments r finite and before long the below will happen:
1. Websites not maintained by web masters allowing a free for all will be spammed to death n the database or bandwidth will max out or the domain not renewed
2. Even if re captcha can be beaten By OCR software 100% all sites that allow user accounts to post links will stop doing so or implement no follow for links posted
3. This leaves us with the option of paying for high quality press releases n business listing which in my opinion isn't cost effective
4. Only source of links then will be ur own blog network then


Pls attack my opinion fierciously as I would like to think otherwise too. My rice bowl depends on seo. For the above I reckon it can happen in the next 3-5 yrs

Years ago some people said linkbuilding is dead. Now they say SEO is dead.
what I say
Linkbuilding still alive
so,
SEO will be.

No IMO, SEO is still alive and will not die in future, Yeah I agree with you that changes will be there in SEO accordingly to modern marketing.

Another "Death of SEO" post? Yawn...

Your own private blognetwork is what works really well right now. When it ceases to, we'll just adapt, like always....

Hmm i have to check this whole private blog network thing. Everybody is recommending it.

Hello friend i also agree with you, if we make our own blog that can give us more benefits, we can create a link wheel with three or four blogs, that can give us more and more long term benefits.

If it wasn't for SEO, Google would have no business model - it goes both ways.

Without SEO, Google wouldn't know how to rank pages. Think about it. What happens when you search a term that no one is trying to optimize and rank on? You get results like Wikipedia, lame directory sites, and basically garbage that Google is "guessing" you might be looking for. But when you search an optimized term? You get results, every time, and generally speaking one of them is exactly what you're looking for. If it wasn't for webmasters and SEO's designing sites and using tags and links in a manner that favors Google's structure, Google's algo would be worthless.

SEO isn't going anywhere, all that's changing is the nature of it - and that's nothing new. It used to be purely link driven, then it was mostly link and some content, then content played a greater role, now they're mixing in social. And like everything else, social influence can be purchased. Heck, if social plays a greater role then it actually makes it easier to rank pages.

SEO has been a consistently evolving concept throughout its history. As time goes on, Google will get better at determining a sites worth. If you want to survive SEO changes, concentrate on building quality instead of gaming the system.