The State of Search

The State of Search
Danny Sullivan
Founding Editor,
Search Engine Land

Let’s play a game:
“Who’s number one?”

Being “Number 1” &
“10 blue links” is dead

Changing landscape
means
changing opportunities

Past: T-E-X-A-S
Today: Place connected
to people, things & facts
The age
of entities
&
entity
search

Entity search =
more direct answers

Will
direct
answers
kill
SEO?Was 28% a year ago, now 36%
Source: MozCast SERP FeaturesGraph

Photo ofYgritte from HBO
Watch Game OfThrones!
YOU
KNOW
NOTHING,
GOOGLE!

Reasons
to
relax
• Google can’t turn everything into
direct answers
• Direct answers still minority of searches
• Many searches complex or multi-session
• Most publishers aren’t reporting major
traffic drops
• Some publishers actually want to be answers
because links drive traffic
• StayTuned: Concerns remain & people are
watching to see if Google keeps search engine
“balancing act”

Google Posts & rise of
distributed / hosted content

Special
section
for
select
companies
and
groups

Content
hosted
on
Google
itself

Worry?
Maybe
not,
given
hasn’t
been
success

Rise of AMP &
more hosted concerns

AMP
is
part
of
main
search
results

AMP
pages
effectively
hosted
by
Google

Maybe hosted & distributed
is the new future…

And OK, if you can
achieve the same goals…

Or not.
Experiment.
Watch carefully.

After
two-year
wait,
Penguin
goes
real-time

Panda
goes
“slow-time”
but
continuous
all the same

Hummingbird
was new
“engine”
designed
to better
process
signals,
filters &
things
to come

Enter machine learning
& RankBrain

There’s no
“SEO for RankBrain”

RankBrain
uses
machine
learning
to largely
refine
resuls

Match
uncommon
queries
to common
ones where
has more
confidence
in results

The “mobile-first”
world is now

But
“mobile-
friendly”
is
outdated
thinking

Mobile-first
not
mobile-friendly:
If it’s not
in mobile,
it might not
be in Google

Mobile
action
items
Mobile-first, not mobile-friendly, version of site
Click-to-call
App for repeat visitors?
Maybe progressive web app, watch & see

Bots, digital assistants
and hands-free search

Google Assistant
is (supposedly)
“assistive search”

But future of
assistive
search
& bots
is less clear,
has long
way to go

Google
Home:
Google
comes
to life as a
companion…

What
about
credit?
There’s
some…

What was true
20 years ago
remains true now…

What doesn’t change is
people will always search

Search marketers
figure out
how people search
and increase visibility
from search venues

Visibility in print yellow pages:
search marketing!

Visibility with 25 words in Yahoo:
search marketing!

Visibility with web listings in Google:
search marketing!

Visibility with whatever is to come:
search marketing!

The names change.
The specifics change.
The successful curiosity skills
remain the same!

And the curious,
the questioning, the always-
exploring
search marketer
sees
change as opportunity

 Google's Knowledge Graph
 Google Direct Answers / Featured
Snippets
 How to get Featured Snippets for your
site
 Google Posts
 How Trump & Clinton have failed to use
free space in Google
 Google: Accelerated Mobile Pages /
AMP
 Google: AMP will override app deep
links for the foreseeable future
 Google Firebase App Indexing
 Google updates Penguin, says it now
runs in real time within core search
algorithm
 Google Penguin Update
 Google Panda is now part of Google’s
core ranking signals
 SMX Advanced keynote: Google’s Gary
Illyes talks RankBrain, Penguin update
 Google Panda Update
 Google Hummingbird
 Google: RankBrain
 Mobilegeddon
 FAQ: All about the Google mobile-first
index
 Google and Progressive Web Apps: the
mobile experience and SEO
 Google Assistant
 For answering questions, Google Home
bests Amazon Echo & Alexa
 How Google Home turns voice answers
into clickable links
 10 big changes with search engines
over my 20 years of covering them
Further reading

The State of Search

More Related Content

The State of Search

Editor's Notes