| sjr4x4 : Administrator 2nd January 2013 11:52 AM |
“Personally I think most so called SEO consultants were no more wiser to Googles updates than the website owners themselves....copy and paste that web page and put a link on their own sites, then start to comment and profess to know what they are talking about.”
As a non SEO consultant
but someone who is fascinated by the subject, I think a lot of the updates are obvious and common sense. As you say, in most industries you can see changes coming, which I think is exactly the same in the SEO/SMM world.Google rules the roost currently, and has a pretty good set of guidelines. If people read them, absorb them and follow them, then you have very little to worry about. I've banged on about it for years, steer a straight line. It may take longer to get results, it can be frustrating to see people gaming the system and get away with it, but eventually, if you are in it for the long haul, the straight line approach wins.
As for future predictions, this is easy, look where the current system gaming is, and you can expect that this will be closed down in the future. If you're short cutting the system, expect to pay a price at some point.
I said I can't wait for the social networks to start penalising fake likes, +1's etc, and it's starting to happen, I suspect targeting rogue social signals will increase sharply in 2013.
Google wise, I can see them really ramping up with targeting and penalising fake reviews. This has been a long time coming and review sites (us included) have had plenty of time to get our houses in order. Those that ignore it will no doubt be shouting and crying on various forums how unfair it all is etc.
I only hope though that while most of the algorithm changes make sense and the primary reason is fair, that the quality of some of the implementations increases, removing some of the collateral damage. Sometimes you get the feeling a change is rushed out without been fully tested or thought through.
No doubt 2013 will be no different and we will have some major upsets as Google causes a few friendly fire incidents
