I'm thrilled to have spent some time here at Pubcon. While it's the least commercial/business focused of the conferences I've recently attended, the level of discussion is incredibly high. The knowledge levels of the average participant far exceeds that of an SES, Ad:Tech or other private conference that I've seen, which makes for some great professional sharing.
Today I spoke on the topic of linkbaiting (you can see the presentation online here), and had a fun time doing it. My co-panelist Lawrence spoke eloquently and engagingly on widgets and his site, Sexy Widget, is certainly worth a read. The link potentials in that sphere are phenomenal.
I thought that since I've gotten a lot of fascinating information during my time here, I'd try to document some of it and share some predictions (guesses in some cases) about what will happen over the next 6 months:
- Google's Webmaster Central will offer full link information about your site (like the old link command before they broke it)
- Yahoo! will open a Webmaster Central type portal
- MSN will try something similar, possibly including some additional tools to help them get more attention from webmasters
- Digg will reach its height of publicity and begin to wane as other verticals in the space take off
- SearchEngineLand will become the definitive source for search-related content; most in the industry foresee SEW becoming irrelevant very quickly
- Linkbaiting will continue to grow in opportunity and popularity - many more firms will begin to offer services in that sector
- The best SEOs will continue to work for themselves. Honestly, the most eye-opening part of this conference has been meeting people far more capable than I at exploiting gaps in the engines to gain rankings - their wealth and capablities astonish me at times.
- A few SEO-backed projects will become big brands in the online world. I think the next Zillow or MySpace or YouTube will have its seeds in this industry - so many capable people are hard at work on fascinating projects.
- Google will continue to make it more worth spammers' while to take white-hat routes as they close off link spam opportunities and make authority sites impossible to resist.
- Blogs will find more creative ways to finance their growth - and while blog number growth may slow down a bit, web traffic to them will continue to skyrocket.
What trends do you see? Think I'm crazy or on the money?
p.s. Many thanks to both YPN and MSN for hosting us at their parties in the Palms. The Hugh Hefner suite and Kingpin suite were both incredibly impressive. Barry has some nice photos on Flickr.
Beards will become the new white belts?
Great to see you on the blog, Bob... I'm not sure about that, though. Lots of bearded black hats around... :)
The funny thing is I really meant white belts, as in the in fashion forward SEO's wearing white belts. I think they will switch to beards very soon. You see it's my opinion that search enthusiast fashion is exactly one and a half years behind myspace enthusiast fashion, thus good bye white belts, hello beards.
P.S. Good lookin' out on the Neil intro, I'm thinking about using his team on a project very soon.
Mobile devices will dominate people’s lives. Just as many people with a cell phone no longer have a regular “Land Line”, sales of personal computers will drop as much of the functionality will be available in new mobile devices & Home entertainment systems.
5 years from now… We will all be watching the Super Bowl, but everyone will see completely different TV commercials that are based on a combination of past viewing history and geographic location.
These ads will be served to your IP enabled HDTV which will double as a personal computer by Google as CPM, auction based media. Conversions will be tracked based on number of views per order.
Google or Yahoo or Murdoch will begin acquistion talks with Digg
Your presentation at PubCon rocked! Thanks.
- Ken
SearchEngineLand will become the definitive source for search-related content; most in the industry foresee SEW becoming irrelevant very quickly
The SEW forums have been beat for almost a month now. Danny has already sucked the life out (unintentionally of course).
Rand,
It was good to finally meet you in person; although we only spoke very briefly on nofollows and iframes.
-Raffi
Damnit!
By the way, I'm not sure what to think about this one. You have a "This is such a chore" look on your face.
* Google's Webmaster Central will offer full link information about your site (like the old link command before they broke it)
Yeah, I agree with that. It's the next logical step, and will be a great aid given how they fiddle with link results (either that or they just don't check links as much as Yahoo! or MSN, which would be weired given that links are the basis of how they started...)
* Yahoo! will open a Webmaster Central type portal
Obvious. I'll bet it's in beta at the moment, and I reckon we'll see it in mid Jan to late Feb.
* MSN will try something similar, possibly including some additional tools to help them get more attention from webmasters
And what are the odds it'll miss the point completely? :p Seriously though, I think this could become the best. As long as they look at what Google and Yahoo! do, and actually listen to what people say, what they like and don't like, this could be "The Daddy". As for whether they will or not remains to be seen.
On a side note, re. new tools - will they be like Zune's transfer wireless thing (cool but useless for whatever reasons...) or will they actually be tools you want? What do you reckon?
* Digg will reach its height of publicity and begin to wane as other verticals in the space take off
I'm not so sure. Will YouTube reach a point, and then wane whilst others start to take it's place? Has anything managed to do it with MySpace, HotorNot, NeoPets or other similar things? I think Digg will stay big, but that others will join it, and maybe get a big slice of the pie too, but I don't think it'll backslide.
* SearchEngineLand will become the definitive source for search-related content; most in the industry foresee SEW becoming irrelevant very quickly
Agreed
* Linkbaiting will continue to grow in opportunity and popularity - many more firms will begin to offer services in that sector
Most definitely. Aside from anything else, it's a great reputation builder (if not for drawing customers). It's classic eBay style marketing - get the customer to come and be interested, and worry about selling to them later. Just get them to come first...
* The best SEOs will continue to work for themselves. Honestly, the most eye-opening part of this conference has been meeting people far more capable than I at exploiting gaps in the engines to gain rankings - their wealth and capablities astonish me at times.
Hmm. Yes and no. I think the people who can do it will obviously have projects they work on, because if you get traffic to a good site with a solid product and sound pitch, you'll make money. Which is nice.
However, I think agencies (like SEOMoz etc...) will continue to thrive, because people will pay good money for you to work for them, and the agency model is an easier one to outsource from than contractors (said from the point of view of someone who's worked as an SEO contractor, and now works for an agency).
And there'll be a third group doing what I do at the moment - working within an agency, with a couple of pet projects on the side.
Now, which of those will make the most money? I'd reckon the first, then third, then second. But I think some people will choose to work in the agency environment, by dint of preferring that kind of environment.
* A few SEO-backed projects will become big brands in the online world. I think the next Zillow or MySpace or YouTube will have its seeds in this industry - so many capable people are hard at work on fascinating projects.
Definately. But then it's kind of an obvious one as well (at least to me).
* Google will continue to make it more worth spammers while to take white-hat routes as they close off link spam opportunities and make authority sites impossible to resist.
And good on them. The better their search results are, the more people will use them. And that means that they want to return the best results possible, which is going to force people to work with them, rather than cheating them.
Aside from anything else, black hat to get rankings isn't worth the risks. I can't see bad practice lasting more than 3 years more, before people stop trying to cheat, and just accept that good rankings take time. And that actually that's a good thing, because it ensures that when you DO get to the top, you're seen as an authoritative source, based on experience, not based on SERP rankings.
* Blogs will find more creative ways to finance their growth - and while blog number growth may slow down a bit, web traffic to them will continue to skyrocket.
This again seems a bit of a given to me. People come online to look for information (mainly) in whatever form. And as YouTube has proven nicely, people don't simply associate big brand names with authority; they associate it with people who's views they trust and respect. Thus blogs will naturally continue to grow in every way, as people turn more and more towards them as sources of reliable information.
The obvious conclusion of this is increased traffic, and where you get traffic, you want to monetize. Things like ReviewMe, PayPerPost and just good old fashioned AdSense and selling advertising space are all good, but people will constantly be looking for newer, higher converting, higher paying ways to turn over visitors. People will innovate, invent and implement (and use cheesy alliteration) new ways to generate money. Those that work will thrive, and those that don't will never be heard of again. But you can bet your bottom dollar that it'll happen.
Anyway, I've waxed lyrical for some time now... I'm gonna go make some coffee!
Pete I'm going to disagree with one point. Black hat will never go away. For every system that's been put in place there have been people who have tried to game that system. You and I may prefer to practice white hat and work within the system, but for many the challenge and the enjoyment is in working to find the holes in the system.
If you build a 50 foot high wall around your property it will keep out many people who previously wanted in. It will also attract people who had no interest in getting in when there was no wall. Defeating the wall is their only interest and what's on the other side is irrelevant.
There is an aspect black hat that is not about the potential for money, but simply for the intellectual challenge of defeating the system.
Fair point. However, unlike your analogy, there's only so many points the search engines rank by, and so there's only so many ways (in theory) that they can be spammed. As with computer program evolution (referencing new scientist from a while ago), the search engines will evolve to become more and more complex in their workings, but become simpler and simpler in terms of what they actually do, to closer emulate human interaction.
Whilst that offers more spammable points, it lowers the effect those will have, to a point where it won't do anything. Kinda like if you add a grain of sand to a beach, it's not going to affect things much. There's so many other grains, that that one that you've plonked in won't affect the others enough to change a tide.
Anyway, I'm sounding slightly flowery, so I'm gonna scooch now...
Funny to see Shawn Hogan on the photos - he may be banned and DigitalPoint censored on WMW, but I guess his ticket money is good enough for Brett. :)
SEO will become more about building compliant sites.
Social Bookmarking will be devalued as a form of spam.
ReviewMe will become the new textlinkads.
Yahoo will get in bed with spammers and become less relevant to ordinary "Mom and pops".
Many SEOs will get tired of SEO and look for other less annoying fields to play in (Internet Marketing).
The value of incoming links will be replaced with trust and intent in Google because of paid blogging and other stealthy link baiting.
Those who do not have trust in Google will see little success in Google.
The Google link information thing sounds good. You know any more about it?