this is in the blackhat lounge, not the money making section: so please dont read further if that is all you are interested in. Before watching this clip,I have no idea who Bruce Clay is, but he says these changes will take place early in the 2009. i strongly suggest people watch it.
Bruce Clay: Ranking Is Dead!
In the Top-Shelf Organic SEO session at PubCon 2008, Bruce Clay made some very significant predictions regarding SEO. As we all know, SEO has advanced in many areas over the past several years. Compare your current searches to that of just 2 years ago.
Quite a bit of difference in the results, huh?
In the above WPN video, Bruce Clay predicts even greater changes in the coming year. Personalized search, behavior-based search, intent-based search, and universal search allow for direct and specific searches. With so many ways to search now, it?s quite obvious that search results are getting better, which is exactly what Google wants.
While this is all good news for searchers and Googlers, SEO?s have a bit of a challenge on their hands. Bruce states that ?ranking is dead? since people can have different results even when using the same search query. He uses the example that the search query ?Java? can bring results for code, coffee, or the Caribbean.
Instead of focusing on ranking, Bruce recommends SEO?s to look at analytics and measure traffic, bounce rate, and action closely. Also, among his advice is the idea to embrace these implementations such as video, images, audio, maps, etc. Not only will this help to engage your customer, but also Google.
Code:
http://videos.webpronews.com/2008/11/17/pubcon-bruce-clay-ranking-is-dead/