The Steve Rubel Lifestream

I do not believe that google can extinguish the SEO someday. Perhaps to push to improve the contents.

Very interesting post Steve.

Nice post... and it is a good thing Google is changing rankingfactors daily. However... sometimes it seems it has no real effect at all and spam is growing like weed in it's engine. I thus think they will not be able to create the perfect engine.

I definitely think SEO as we know it will be extinct. That has always been the case.

For example the Meta keywords tag was an important part of SEO one day, but that day is long gone.

I see SEO - or Search (Engine) Marketing for that matter - as the act of optimize your findability at places where people seek information. At this moment that'll be Google. But we need to watch other spaces where people ask question as well, for example in social media.

So keep up with the changes, both major and minor.

Haven't 'they' been proclaiming SEO's death since its inception?

I think SEO in its purest form, i.e. good content etc will always be necessary

Am I about to become an SEO dinosaur?

SEO, like everything else, will evolve. Mayer even uses the word evolve with Google's attention to their interface and ranking algorithm.

Some fundamental SEO techniques and ideals will always need adjustment and change. Others will not as often. People are changing how they search, no surprise. As engines refine their methodology and become more sophisticated at understanding how people search, we will see newer trends, like longer word queries, appear.

In response to Cooke's comment, I say that you will become an SEO dinosaur only if you let yourself become one. The foundation is constantly shifting; you can either build a house on cement or build a house that moves on wheels.

Long tail keywords are becoming more difficult to mine. As my keyword guru said recently, it's like panning for gold. The challenge is to segregate the tiny gold nuggets from the dirt, rocks and sand by continuously swirling your pan of materials.

The need to hire a true "SEO", will diminish over time, especially as more "digital natives" enter the workforce. That said (and I really need to write a blog post about this), I don't think as an industry, we should reference SEO as a job function or title any longer. The general rules of Internet marketing will always apply, even if the tools and tactics change. I prefer to call it all Internet marketing with tactics like SEO, Social Media, PPC, etc. becoming tools under that general umbrella.

I think we need to spend less time worrying about the all-mighty algorithm, and more time on building community and creating exceptional, relevant, and targeted content. If you do that, search rankings, (and traffic), will come in time.

It seems to me the need for SEO experts is no longer needed. The information you can find out there anymore or products gives you enough to be an expert in seo yourself within a few days.

@BlazingArticles and Colin: What you're saying is true; however, some companies, CEOs and account managers are just too busy attending to the customer side of their company. They don't have time, or they think they don't have time, to study SEO.

Why trawl for information on SEO when you can outsource it to a company that has been doing this for years?

SEO is part of the Google culture. I do not see it vanishing soon. I am sorry. It will evolve, like everything.