If you're in the industry they are in, then there's much more competition direct from google, so i can see why the views are biassed.

Is SEO dead? No!

The landscape has changed, and you just cannot rely on one thing alone.
Search Engines, Traffic, and Mobile [webmasterworld.com]

Until search engines die SEO will exist in one form or another. SEO has no life of it's own so can not die on it's own.

Again? LOL!

If you want to have a hearty laugh, check out this post from 2005 [webmasterworld.com] that was written at the height of the paid links and reciprocal links free for all. Nothing could have been further from the truth then and the same holds true today.

My belief is that SEO is dead. Content is king

I wish the SEO IS DEAD topic would DIE. :)

Reminds me of those guys whining about Y2K, Mayan Calendar, End of World. There are some things more important. SEO is a concept, not a fact, and as a concept it is only mechanical and commonsense, nothing magical or even....

You feed the serps with what it seeks the same as you feed a car engine what it needs. The search engines need content they can digest, a car engine needs gasoline (or other fuel of like nature) to ensure performance.

Proper content, titles, links and your "seo" is done. Anything else attempted is de-optimization (or gaming the system).

Even if paid get's bigger(I believe paid gets about 35% of the clicks while the organic still get the majority), even if paid goes upto 50% of clicks, that still leaves 50% that are completely free, no charge, nada. The smart online marketer uses both and leverages the revenue from organic to offset the cost of paid.

Edit, I should mention that I love seeing these types of threads because a lot of SEOs quit and that leaves less competition for the ones remaining.

I'll step up my last comment by one: I wish the SEO topic would die.

There is no "optimization" to be done. You either have content or you don't. That "other partner with whom you have no CONTRACT FOR SERVICE QUID PRO QUO", ie. monies expended for results intended will laugh all the way to the bank. And has been doing so for years. Not an ugly, kiddies, just reality.

SEO these days is DO NO WRONG that the g who started with "Don't Be Evil" lost in the corporate process over the years.

^{Meanwhile, diversify!}

While agreeing that SEO as a secret formula for getting listed high is (and always has been) a complete misnomer, it is still a topic of interest to many - even if it may be stating the blindingly obvious to many who have been working with search for years. Others haven't and may still think it to be a mystery when (as pointed out) it is more a matter of commonsense. Keeping up with what search engines are looking forward and providing decent, meaningful content is often a matter of debate and, as such, still worth discussing as a topic, IMO.

^^^ Better words yet said. I believe in commonsense, have from the start (1996) and kept it KISS (Keep It Simple .... supply last as Simon, Sir, or Stupid) and weathered all the flurries of algo changes with marginal to no harm. SEO really means give the search engines what they WANT, not what YOU want them to do.

Thanks mademetop

I was speaking with a site owner the other day. The site has great content, but, it's terrible from a search engine point of view. While that's still the case, SEO is still required.

I think what's really happening is that for very competitive searches, SEO is much harder. But if you think it's dead, try doing all of the things Google advises against on your page and see if you rank at all.

[edited by: mademetop at 8:51 am (utc) on May 7, 2016]
[edit reason] No links please [/edit]