Loading ...When people talk about the future of search, they often include factors such as mobile, social, real-time, and other buzz-type words. But it is not very often that they offer an explanation as to how these elements will impact search moving forward. However, in this interview with WebProNews, search veteran Bruce Clay tells that side of the story.
In the early days, Clay says SEO was easy. He goes on to say that it was somewhat defined even 5 years ago, but social, mobile, and local are not defined at all. Now, SEO is more difficult and targeted and will get even harder over time. He calls the top 3 search results the new first page.
“You can’t be good at SEO, you have to be great,” says Clay.
In the next 18 months, he believes the hottest topics in SEO circles will be local, social media, conversions, and somewhat surprisingly, only some discussion about mobile. The reason for this lack of mobile discussion is because people do not like the mobile browser.
Clay thinks the mobile device will become an operating system with the ability to connect apps directly to the Web, which would eliminate the need for a browser. Although he believes a “find” app will be dominant over a search app, he doesn’t believe that mobile will replace search.
In regards to Google’s recent MayDay update, Clay says he saw nothing but good results for sites that optimized for the long tail. While sites that had casual long tail results lost some traffic, he pointed out that it didn’t impact their conversions.
Google Caffeine is another update that has been receiving a lot of attention of late and Clay had a lot to share about it as well. Last year, Google said that it was rolling Caffeine out to one data center and would slowly roll it out to the others. After having a conversation with Google’s Matt Cutts, Clay believes Caffeine is completely rolled out now but just not in 100 percent of the queries.
He goes on to say that advantages of Caffeine are the near real-time page index updates and increased spam filters. In addition, he says there are several behind-the-scenes factors that make it even more interesting. Although Google has not officially announced it, users can now buy Unicode characters in urls and the search engine supports it.
He also brings up a point about how Google recently said that it has 200 variables in the algorithm. As a result, search results were slower and behavioral search was penalized. Moving forward, Clay believes that multiple disjointed queries will determine search results but says it can’t be done without a faster index.
One of the big details that Google has emphasized about Caffeine is its faster index. According to Clay, if behavioral search works, PPC ads will be better and more targeted, which means that ROI will increase. As the ROI increases, the bid will also increase, which would ultimately generate more revenue for Google. All that said, the searchers would win as well since they would be getting better results.
Clay has given us a lot to think about. How do you feel about his projections?
As what I’d say still a newbie SEO my thought is that Google Caffine
will help some of us as much as it will hurt those who are sadly not paying attention to these kinds of updates. They’ll notice a drop in certain KPI’s that
they were using before like some Alexa junkies I know. I do agree with the
statement about the lack of interest in mobile search. From my own circle
I notice most mobile search is random and very sporadic which would keep it
from being a primary thought for some SEOs.
Bruce well articulated the future of search as well provided an in depth background of what Google is really doing now thats not broadly known.
I’ve noticed immediate results of Google Caffeine.
For example one of my sites has been flutuating between first and second pages for a few months for it’s keywords. Since the May Day update, the site now ranks at position 5 with most of the sites who were above me gone – where have they gone? I assume that these sites were not pleasing to Google and this resulted with them losing their top positions.
I also noticed this about one of the UK’s top SEO company. They had ranked in the top three results for ‘SEO’ now to have disappeared.
I think that as long as us SEO’s maintain white hat methods we will see more success in the long term.
I am gaining an enormous amount of respect for Bruce Clay with these insights of his. This may be one of the most important videos I’ve seen lately. So much food for thought. Great video.
I wish there was a “Bruce Clay” for real estate. That always seems to fall into a different category than anything else. It doesn’t follow the same SEO rules…
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Why does the download link for this video NOT work.
I have clients who are stuck with costly satellite internet on Pacific Islands, who would love to see this video. I want to download it and take it with me next week.
The download link above takes me to a page with plenty of WebProNews Videos — all for “watching only”…. What the…?
Yes, I have tried many different cache viewers and video downloaders…nothing.
One thing is for sure the websites that are creating fresh, quality on-going content, on a normal basis will have an advantage in the SERPs (search engine results pages).
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Excellent update video Bruce, seeing many changes across traffic and keywords from Caffeine and Mayday updates.
Great video, Guys!
However, it brings up a BIG question. The silo structure pictured at the 12:30 mark of the video is different than what I’ve seen taught in the past. Did that picture come from Bruce Clay Inc or did you get it from a different source? If so, I’d be interested in knowing who it is.
This is why I’m asking. That structure shows the link from the last article in a category linking back to the first article in the SAME category, thus forming a “loop”.
The traditional silo models I’ve seen have the link coming from the last article in the category, but it links to the first page of the NEXT category, not the SAME category.
Did that make sense?
In other words, it’s not a loop as shown in the video.
I’d like to know which model is recommended and why?
Can you please shed some light on this for me?
Thanks,
Joe
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Folks, if you have not watched / read Bruce Clay’s commentary it would be well worth your time to do so. He’s a strategic thinker and shares valuable insights wrt mobile, unicode text, caffeine and more.
Bruce, I hope you read these comments and respond cause i took particular note of your comments about “find” versus “search” and unicode text. I’m a firm believer that in the next 18 months website owners targeting the mobile population are going to need to become bi-lingual, catering to our rapidly growing Hispanic population. So I’d recommend, if you are an “interactive media company” (as Bruce labeled his company), and you’re considering expanding into mobile, you’d be wise to target “bilingual mobile” and “kill two birds with one stone” so to speak.
Thanks WebProNews for being there and asking the right questions.
Donna
Never watched Bruce Clay before, but I quite liked this video interview. Think though that (while I agree with him about Mobile search – bit harder to handle with a phone) I think that Mobile in terms of the iPad for example will open up a lot more doors online (and I think of this as a mobile device more than anything else).
Interesting times online this year regardless – Google’s ‘May-Day Bomb’, Caffeine, then Google Instant… crazy to keep on top of changes!!!
Thanks for the video guys!
Been watching Bruce Clay for years. His updates are always welcome, thankfully we only had one website effected by this update.
which would ultimately generate more revenue for Google. All that said, the searchers would win as well since they would be getting better results.
This is actually very interesting, thanks for discussing it. You should also check out our web site. We’re a corporation which offers Seo services, Website Development, Custom made Program Development and IT solutions in Philadelphia.
Fluid is and will definitely be the word of the day from here on out with SEO. There have been so many local, social media, citation, conversion, and mobile related changes that I think that it has become a little overwhelming for the average business owner that feels a little left behind.
I am still amazed after all of this time to see businesses that have no web site at all? Especially with 80+ million or so smart phones and all of the mobile devices.
Success comes with the adaption of change for sure!