There is often a lot of hype in the business world when it comes to web technology. The emergence of social media and it’s huge impact on the world of online marketing is a good example of this. People tend to make rash statements such as “Social Media is the new SEO”, or “SEO is dead” etc.
More recently these comments have been along the lines of “Social search will replace SEO”. I think these comments are pretty wide of the mark.
When people refer to social search they are usually talking about the impact that activity from social networks has on search results. This activity includes shares, likes, re-tweets etc. They also mean the prominence of social networks within search results. Although social networks will have a greater and greater impact on SEO, this does not mean they will replace it.
Good SEO is about gaining credibility in the eyes of users and search engines. It involves a number of factors including branding, link building and social media marketing. SEO will always be there as long as people use search engines. It will also evolve with the web to incorporate more and more elements.
In this article on Social Search from Mashable Joe Devine explains this very well. As search engine algorithms constantly become more sophisticated SEO broadens it’s scope and becomes more holistic.
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Photo under Creative Commons licence taken from the Library of Congress
