Do You Think SEO Got Easier?

[msyaz]

Yes. Easier by far.

There is almost no challenge in it anymore, and it scares me to think that one day, it'll tighten up and become difficult, so I can no longer do it.

"Back in the day" you would just spam the keyword on-site, go off and spam a bunch of comments, social media posts (the only thing that was easier back then was Facebook), and it was boring. It was a game of "who could spam the most" whilst being passable enough to keep the visitor on the page. It was low.
The game got better and more interesting, but it's pretty bland now.

Are you doing blackhat, greyhat or whitehat stuff?

 

[rafark]

Do you think SEO got easier over the last 10 years?
The days of spun article submissions and directories are gone but there are plenty of opportunities to build links for free.
The great thing is that there's less competition now and I, personally, find it easier to rank now than like 5 years ago (yes, you need an aged site). Lots of good content (manually written and researched) + decent links will do the job. So many abandoned sites now so it's easy to outrank them.
What's your take?

PS: people who say SEO is expensive are full of shit... they just want to sell you links. Plenty of websites/blogs where you can post for free (OK, you need to provide content).

Not at all. Lately I’ve been watching closely some keywords for a product and the serps are dominated by big-name publications and the blog section of the big brands. And I’m not talking about exact match product name. I’m talking about “best product for” and “product review” keywords. Now add featured snippets to the mix and it’s pretty though for small and independent websites to rank these days...

 

[Piss]

Are you doing blackhat, greyhat or whitehat stuff?

Only whitehat, or I guess greyhat at most but accidentally.

No idea of how Blackhat is and I don't use any tools.

 

[rankjacker]

I'd say it has got simpler, now all you need to focus on, is to generate good, relevant content from anywhere on the web. You got to have strong basics, with regard to marketing. The ultimate aim is to convert traffic, which is the job of a good offer, great copywriting. You need multiple content topics (support Articles) to scrape your target audience on every step of a customer life cycle, aid your support articles further with targeted traffic from other sites/platforms (backlinks). run awareness campaigns to generate interest and qualify random visitors to funnel them in.

Reverse the whole steps, you might find a long term strategy to follow with your SEO. Every trick of the book will work until you're following the said path.

 

[hideath]

ofc it's not,
a couple of years back in time, you could easily rank by sending GSA links when indexing was just a piece of cake,
nowadays, even genuinely made websites are falling out of the google index for no reason (lack of traffic mainly),
you'll have to invest in better content, good old domain & better links which simply will cost you much more

 

[noellarkin]

Relatively new on the SEO/linkbuilding scene, so I have no idea what SEO was like before 2018. But even over the last 3 years..I used to follow the OMG method (build out thousands of social profiles), and this method has become more and more inefficient over time. Still works, but the hardest part is indexing the thousands of web 2.0s built. It still works for long tail keywords, but nothing significant.
Also, the search results are becoming more homogeneous, every search result has authority news sites, some important social sites (IG, FB, Pinterest, Reddit).
It seems to me Google is becoming more of a curation service than a search engine.

 

[FrostPepe]

Hell no, it got harder. U could make a blog with 500 word articles, keyword to hell then use buildmyrank servce with emd domains and get on first page. So easy back then

 

[HenryObi]

Do you think SEO got easier over the last 10 years?
The days of spun article submissions and directories are gone but there are plenty of opportunities to build links for free.
The great thing is that there's less competition now and I, personally, find it easier to rank now than like 5 years ago (yes, you need an aged site). Lots of good content (manually written and researched) + decent links will do the job. So many abandoned sites now so it's easy to outrank them.
What's your take?

PS: people who say SEO is expensive are full of shit... they just want to sell you links. Plenty of websites/blogs where you can post for free (OK, you need to provide content).

I would say you find it easier to rank a site today compared to 5 years ago because you're knowledge of SEO has improved, not necessarily because it got easier or because there's less competition. There are actually more competition especially from those with big SEO budgets.

 

[warriorsam53]

I think it’s easier now. Since you can’t just spin an article and fire up GSA to rank, there’s less competition.

Plus if you have money to spend, getting organic traffic is a joke. There’s a guy on YT who’s doing a journey. He spent 45K on content in 3 months or so and he’s already making 3K a month. Just hundreds of articles. No links.

Not everyone has 45K to spend of course. But being able to outspend the competition definitely makes it much easier than earlier.

 

[breakcode]

It's easier if you have a lot of money to spend.

 

[FrostPepe]

I think it’s easier now. Since you can’t just spin an article and fire up GSA to rank, there’s less competition.

Plus if you have money to spend, getting organic traffic is a joke. There’s a guy on YT who’s doing a journey. He spent 45K on content in 3 months or so and he’s already making 3K a month. Just hundreds of articles. No links.

Not everyone has 45K to spend of course. But being able to outspend the competition definitely makes it much easier than earlier.

That is a good point. High quality content is super expensive. You used to ne able to rank spun articles and a bunch of shit so easily

 

[adsn]

Yes but more bureaucratic and perceptively unethical by Google.

 

[warriorsam53]

That is a good point. High quality content is super expensive. You used to ne able to rank spun articles and a bunch of shit so easily

To be honest, duplicate and translated content is very easy to rank if you do it right. The only problem is monetizing it.

If you want to monetize content to make more than a few cents, it’s expensive. If you don’t directly pay for the content, you’ll pay with your time. Most people don’t agree but time is much more valuable than money.

Being able to spend money significantly increases the barriers to entry for the competition.

 

[Yoram]

I think it’s easier now. Since you can’t just spin an article and fire up GSA to rank, there’s less competition.

Plus if you have money to spend, getting organic traffic is a joke. There’s a guy on YT who’s doing a journey. He spent 45K on content in 3 months or so and he’s already making 3K a month. Just hundreds of articles. No links.

Not everyone has 45K to spend of course. But being able to outspend the competition definitely makes it much easier than earlier.

Who's the guy?

 

[Black Adam]

No. It is different and difficult than old age SEO. also it is now expensive.

but some blackhat seo still work to some ways. we do not much effort to do blackhat seo.

 

[adsn]

SEO is training SE algorithms not manipulating it.

 

[Mxty]

How can you say SEO is easier?

There are still things that you can do that are easy, of course there are. Back in the day though, you'd just need to get some spun content up, with the right keywords and spam some links - walla, top rankings.

For actual high search volume terms with difficulty, it takes months, even years and thousands of pounds of investment to get anywhere.

 

[adsn]

How can you say SEO is easier?

There are still things that you can do that are easy, of course there are. Back in the day though, you'd just need to get some spun content up, with the right keywords and spam some links - walla, top rankings.

For actual high search volume terms with difficulty, it takes months, even years and thousands of pounds of investment to get anywhere.

You can just buy a complete SEO package. Give me any niche and necessary funds and I will rank you in 14 days.

 

[Mxty]

You can just buy a complete SEO package. Give me any niche and necessary funds and I will rank you in 14 days.

Ha! Complete BS. I'm sure you've emailed me several times over the years.

"You can just buy a complete SEO package" - point me to a link package that does everything, so well that you can rank any keyword. I'll sit here and eat my words.

I'm currently trying to rank for a competitive keyword for the best part of two years. I've bought around £30k worth of links I'd say. Only just pipped the first page.

 

[adsn]

Ha! Complete BS. I'm sure you've emailed me several times over the years.

"You can just buy a complete SEO package" - point me to a link package that does everything, so well that you can rank any keyword. I'll sit here and eat my words.

I'm currently trying to rank for a competitive keyword for the best part of two years. I've bought around £30k worth of links I'd say. Only just pipped the first page.

There is first time for everything.