Bruce Clay and Google- Ranking is Dead? My thoughts

Google reports plans for a shift that may or may not affect your rankings….

I just came across an interesting interview with Bruce Clay on the future of SEO and most notably where it may be headed.

Just to summarize, basically, the new algorythm will be more based on user surfing habits.  In other words, Google is going to attempt to figure out what the surfer is truly looking for and will list the results on a user to user basis.

Some of the highlights of the interview:

• trying to rank for a keyword is dead.  Since the search results will be different from person to person, there will not be a true, across the board ranking.
• backlink authority will be greatly diminished as they have added 90 other criteria into their algorithm.
• They use the word “java” as an example since “java” can mean a number of things and someone searching for it, might not be able to find what they are looking for.

There are some questions that I have though.

1. If ranking is dead, what is the beginning metric?  In other words, who gets the initial ranking spots and how do people move ahead of these rankings?  Page views? Time spent on a page?  Bounce rate?
2. If you have a new site, how do you go about getting ranked if backlinks will not play a part in the metric as much anymore?
3. Will popularity play a part in the rankings?  If so, then it will only be a case of the rich getting richer.

Some other problems in regards to user based search for webmasters:

• If you don’t rank, how will you ever become a part of a user’s search?
• What about one computer households and public computers?
• If search becomes a “vote” based system such as youtube, what kind of consequences will there be by black hats to game the system?

These are some of the problems I see when it comes to the upcoming algorithm change.

On a side note, it looks like the real reason why google is doing this is because they want people to see the quality content that is out there.  The big question is where this will lead search based marketing.

Here is a link to the interview for those who haven’t seen it yet…..

http://videos.webpronews.com/2008/11/17/pubcon-bruce-clay-ranking-is-dead/

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