Search engine optimization has become one of the most controversial topics around during the past few months, especially because the last Google PageRank update occurred in February and the next one is nowhere to be seen. Over the last year, the impact of SEO over the PageRank toolbar was substantially greater compared to other years, primarily because there have been numerous changes that modified the way search engines credit the web pages around the Internet.
What is scheduled for 2014 in terms of SEO?
Apparently, most search engines are now crediting those websites and web pages that contain useful content for web surfers. During 2012, the search engines increased the page rank of those websites that had many backlinks from other websites with better or similar values, no matter what niche they belonged to. However, given that the web surfers were actually depreciating those websites because of the lack of information and content, the Google algorithm has changed and all the other search engines followed the same example.
In 2014, SEO will be probably a strategy to increase the popularity of a website and make its web presence more observable through the content it provides. The number of backlinks, social network shares, “tweets,” “likes,” “pins,” etc will not matter anymore, unless they offer information and content to people seeking an answer or a solution for their queries. The main proof that supports this argument is the large variety of websites that paid for backlinks to others whose page rank was significantly higher, but without obtaining any result in return.
Impressively, the Google PageRank toolbar is said to be completely eliminated and thus, SEOs’ attempts to increase their popularity using this algorithm will be in vain. If this happens, not only that the search engine optimization strategies will suffer significant changes, but many of them will be not functional anymore, determining web developers and designers to approach new ones in order to attract potential visitors. Of course, content will be the main criterion that will matter in this regard, so the more relevant the content, the more visitors (or customers) will come to the website in question.
Nevertheless, many of these changes may bring the unknown among most SEOs and the most suitable example in this regard is the sitemap of the websites in question. Described briefly, the sitemap is an XML file that helps search engines crawl and index the pages of a website faster, so they will appear within the search results if they are relevant to web surfers’ queries. If the XML sitemap will matter or not, well, the answer is currently unknown, but many web developers, including Google employees, expect it to be still important for the next years, although this prediction is not exact.
Concluding the above arguments, we can easily see that the quality and authenticity of the content is the main criterion that will decide the future of search engine optimization. The way web developers and web designers will handle this aspect will vary, so the results will be different from a website to another. The truth is that we cannot expect certainty in this regard, because we cannot actually know if the PageRank toolbar is going to disappear, but no matter what will happen next, SEOs need to focus on content and information and forget about useless advertisements or backlinks.
Author Bio: Romeo Demes is a graphic designer, passionate writer and SEO expert for a company from Dubai , who enjoys spending his free time with friends and playing his guitar with his garage band.
