Does SEO Have a Future? (Obsolete & New Methods)

I started my first online project in 2008. Competition was low, and opportunities were tremendous. My loving method to outrank all competitors was to buy more backlinks to competitor URLs.

That worked perfectly fine, but things changed dramatically in 2011 with the first content algorithm, Panda, and in 2012 with a new link-building algorithm, Penguin. That turning point forced me to change many obsolete methods to satisfy more humans and optimize for algorithms.

Since then, Google has updated its algorithms over a thousand times to show the best content in the top 10, but SEOs, including me, still paid too much attention to optimizing for search engines. The foundation of the process is the same: keyword research, creating content, optimizing for search engines, and link building.

In November 2022, ChatGPT started a new AI era to simplify finding information online. Google doesn’t want to lose leading positions launching its Gemini, AIO, and AI Mode solutions. These events scare most SEOs, like farmers who saw the first tractor that could replace them. Luckily, farmers started to drive tractors to increase their productivity.

AI is on the same side because this technology is still not ready to replace humans. I’m unsure about the future, like in the popular movies Terminator and Matrix, but today is far from this scenario. So, farmers adapted to tractors by learning to drive them. SEOs can do the same by getting even higher results.

So, on this article you can learn:

• Which methods become absolutely obsolete
• Which methods work well and have a great future.

Stay tuned – the best part is coming.

Keyword Research Becomes Obsolete

Almost all experts start by searching keywords in Ahrefs, Semrush, Seranking, Ubersuggest, or free tools, such as Google Keyword Planner. There is no future for that because AIO and AI mode replies more accurately to long questions in a conversational style. Google admitted that people started to ask questions more instead of using keywords.

Questions are also more popular on ChatGTP, Perplexity, Grok, Gemini, and Claude. Keywords have been a temporary form of asking questions in search engines for over two decades, but the end is close. I assume 5-10 years are left because it takes time to change habits, but the process began with voice search and increased with AI chats.

Many experts have stopped using keyword research even today and switched to topical research, which works well. My team still uses keyword research that customers ask for, but we mix keywords, topics, and questions in our content strategy.

I suggest making a smooth replacement before killing anything that works but has no future. Let’s go to another SEO method that still brings a lot of traffic but will be replaced entirely in three years.

Stop Writing Blog Posts for SEO Traffic

I started writing many blogs since the first content algorithm, Panda, that could recognize the user’s intent. Before that, all my content was e-commerce and ranked with almost any keyword. My team cooperated with over a hundred copywriters, wrote over 10,000 articles, and got millions of traffic for 15 years.

In 2019, we switched our cooperation from copywriters to experts with writing experience because Google could recognize generic content with E-E-A-T parameters. Experts charge more, but the results also are significant.

We decreased our blog post writing activity in 2023 because we understand that getting information traffic will become difficult in the future. When Google launched AIO and AI mode, which stole around 30-40% of all traffic, according to a few studies, the forecast was even more pessimistic – AI would steal almost all information content from content creators.

Tim Soulo forecasts 3 years left, which looks accurate. My recommendation is simple: If you get results from other channels like a newsletter, social media, or a loyal audience, keep writing — everything will be fine. Forbes and CNN didn’t disappear with the Internet — they adapted to digital format and will adjust to any other form.

SEO traffic for blog content should become only an extra channel that might bring relevant traffic. For example, I keep writing my blog posts because of my email list and LinkedIn newsletter, which have over 42,000 subscribers. If SEO brings zero traffic, I will keep doing it for my loyal audience.

The Era of Learning Algorithms Is Over

In 2010, I considered two algorithms: backlinks and content. In 2020, my list of the main SEO algorithms had a few hundred parameters in our checklists that humans can verify, but the real number should be over 10,000, if not millions.

Today, I still check many parameters but care less about them and pay more attention to content for a human being. All algorithms check out UX parameters and dwell time to determine if users are satisfied or keep searching.

If your content is better for humans than competitors have, then you hit these algorithms better than others.

E-E-A-T parameters still play a huge role, too. For example, when you have free time and want to watch a new movie, what would you check first? Movies with popular actors. They deserved your trust and authority than other movies. It’s the same with books. Jack London or Steven King steal attention from many other great books people don’t know. Millions of good books are dying without getting better attention.

That is why crafting great content still demands promotion but to avoid obsolete methods.

Guest Posting Is Useless

Google was always against link building, especially guest posting connected to Black Hat SEO. Most popular websites with traffic that allow guest posting usually accept guest posts from a limited number of experts who can bring something to their audience. These websites are greedy to share dofollow links; the only reward is to get nofollow links that don’t give any weight to the target website.

Websites that allow posting content from unrecognized people have low moderation, poor editing policies, and no loyal audience. These dofollow links don’t bring real authority to help rank higher.

Do you need any link-building now? Yes, keep reading; the best part is coming.

So, what to do instead? Here is my list below.

Launch AI Tools in Your Target Niche

In 2016, I was looking for new SEO and CTR tools to help make my job more productive. Many existing tools were good, but they didn’t have essential features, leaving many extra manual jobs in spreadsheets. That was time-consuming, especially when I understood that machines can do many tedious tasks.

I started creating my first online tools for internal use and a Ukrainian website, seoquick.com.ua. Some tools became popular and received organic reach and direct traffic. My team didn’t launch anything unique or special—just some add-ons to existing tools.

In five years, I decided to take this job more seriously, which provided great results for some clients in weight loss and trading niches. For example, one of my clients doubled his monthly traffic by optimizing meta tags—titles, descriptions, and H1s. Most popular tools don’t score the quality of meta tags, but our free handy tool can do.

This tool suits small tasks and specific URLs, but many customers need to optimize more than 1,000 pages. That was why we created our website audit, which can do this at scale.

AI technologies improve this tool by generating metatags people want to click in search engines. Many customers also have pain points related to using third-party tools to fix SEO reports and delegating tasks to responsible people. Unmiss lets you restore everything inside the platform and share it with responsible people with a single link.

Today, I recommend that all niches and companies launch their tools instead of overwriting blog posts that will die in three years. Still, Google or ChatGTP can’t steal attention from tools with user-friendly interfaces for specific niches and use their technologies.

Wanna launch your own AI tools? Book a free consultation and let’s create your future growth.

PR Is Link Building That Google Appreciates

Google is always against link building to encourage users to get links naturally by creating high-quality content, but PR is a different story that John Mueller once praised. I spoke with Fabrizio Ballarini on my podcast, Head of Organic Growth at wise.com, who shared that this multi-billion dollar company doesn’t make any link-building except PR.

Why is that?

Journalists decide for themselves whether your link can help their audience and deserves to be published with all the context. That is why Google loves these editorial natural links. Any link building campaign can’t help to earn links on Forbes, Yahoo, CNN and over a thousand high-authoritative websites as the right PR campaigns can do.

Conclusion

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has no future, but SEO (Search Everywhere Optimization) has a great future. The main difference is that all optimization methods should serve humans as much as possible. Instead of wasting time of recognizing algorithms, spend all your time to serve humans and share value.