Will Software Programs Kill The SEO Star?

[seowhiz]

I have a programmer friend, he's kind of a genius though he smokes to much pot.
Anyways, he's trying to rain on my parade and tell me SEO is going to die out in most part to some software program that will encompass everything.

What do you think? Possibility or to complex?

[AnthonyCea]

That's nuts, but SEO may die out if Google forces webmasters to meet Google webmaster standards and I think they are moving in that direction with the creation of programs like SiteMaps.

[mcanerin]

That's like saying that the art of writing good novels will die out if someone makes a better wordprocessor.

Frankly, it shows a lack of knowledge about how SEO actually works. A search engine is not a calculator, it's a system.

To give a trite example, what would happen if two people using the same software compete on the same term? Would the search engine freeze up, or toss a coin? I doubt it.

Ian

[seomike]

A genius that smokes pot. Isn't that a contradiction

There is no software out there that will put us out of business.

[SEMBasics]

5 reasons why SEO will not be replaced by a computer program:

1) The new Google Algorithm gives a lot of weight to authority and whitelisted sites. Authority sites are the big guns in any particular industry and whitelisted sites are sites which can do no wrong in the eyes of the search engines. Getting links from this site is not an automatic process, one has to offer them something of value (such as quality content) in order to get a link. One can't automate that.

2) Comments on blogs and forums are decent ways to get links, but again only if the comments are quality -- and again, one can't automate quality.

3) Social bookmarking sites such as del.ici.us and digg are becoming more important in SEO as people tend to link to sites which show up on the front page of these sites. But the front page is determined by viewer voting which no computer program can manipulate even if it was theoretically possible.

4) Press releases are becoming valuable means of getting quality links. Again, one needs to write quality press releases in order for this to be effective, which a computer program will not help with.

5) Business partnerships can be good sources for links, computer programs don't form business partnerships.

Indeed, SEO is getting LESS automated as the search engines get more sophisticated.

[egain]

One reason why a computer program will never replace SEO (coming from an ex-programmer)

Programs work to a set of predefined rules, defined during the programming and installation stage (generally). The algorithms used by the search engines are constantly changing, and thus would affect how effective the software could be.

Software should be used to compliment SEO not to replace it

[dannysullivan]

Software programs have been around since 1998 at least, and SEO still goes along.

I think it also depends on the type of SEO you're talking about. Want to scrape and post AdSense, hoping the cheap labor of software plus volume will add up? Maybe software wins. Running a corporate web site? Some human SEO tweaks that software's not going to make can send you plenty of traffic.

[xan]

That would be a shame there'd be noone to talk to about seo anymore (unless they do that too) - but even so there would always be some kind of human involvement I would guess, just less.

[fantomaster]

Reminds me of the initial hype regarding translation software: In the early-to-mid 60s, "Machine Translation" (MT) was the big craze. Tons of experts were singing dirges on the demise of the human translator.

Some 30 (!) years later, after several billion dollars had been thrown at this venture (the European Union alone invested some $500,000 in the hope of cutting their exceedingly high administrative and legislative translation costs), voices were a lot more humble and subdued. So nowadays it's all about "Machine Aided Translation" (MAT) instead.

Turns out that language is a pretty complex and volatile animal not easily reproduced by automated software. Same goes for SEO related content, of course.

So, if that's anything to go by, the best we may expect is Machine Aided SEO - hard to see what's new about that, though.

[vayapues]

Originally Posted by dannysullivan

Software programs have been around since 1998 at least, and SEO still goes along.

I think it also depends on the type of SEO you're talking about. Want to scrape and post AdSense, hoping the cheap labor of software plus volume will add up? Maybe software wins. Running a corporate web site? Some human SEO tweaks that software's not going to make can send you plenty of traffic.

In my experience, you are exactly correct in this point. A program can do a fairly good job pushing scraper sites up, do to the overall volume. However, if I take any one of those pages originally setup by the computer, and put some research and personal effort into it, I can make those individual pages come up much higher in the SERPs.

I am a programmer, and an SEO. I can tell you from the point of view of someone who understands both sides, that I have absolutely no doubt that at some point the job of SEO will be replaced by computer programs. However, that is not until DATA from Star-trek, or some other form of artificial intelligence is living among us. SEO is not just following a simple set of repeatable instructions. It requires research, understanding, judgement, intuition, in other words, it requires intelligence. Perhaps this technology will exist in my lifetime, but it won't be during my career.


In the mean time, suppose someone did write a program that did a fairly reasonable job of SEO. Were did the SEO knowledge come from? The programmer would have had to hire an SEO professional to guide them. The SEO is not gone, they are just higher paid.

After six months as the search algos evolved the program would become obsolete. Again the programmer would have to hire an SEO professional, to help them update it.

And as pointed out, these non-intelligent programs are still going to be beat by the intelligent life-forms inhabiting distant SEO firms all over the known galaxy... well, all over the known planet anyway.

[evilgreenmonkey]

If I were to use software, it would need to either; think like me or respond like me. To do this, I would need to code the software from scratch or fully oversee the development process.

At least this way, I will be in control when variables change.



Rob

[Robert_Charlton]

Will Software Programs Kill The SEO Star?

SEOs are a resilient bunch. We've survived years of forum spam touting Web Position Gold, and that makes me think we'll survive the next killer app as well.

[Wilksy]

It's possible.. I can't see why anyone would release it public though. SEO stars run the programs for themselves.

[leonus]

SEO is too manual a process to completely automate, i am a programmer and a SEO i use web based software for my own use and thinking of releasing it for others but a software cannot seo for you.
Software automates tasks not reasoning. My partner is a masters in artificial intelligence and though she believes the reasoning can be automated too its not happening anytime soon
Cheers,
Adi

[joedolson]

Originally Posted by leonus

Software automates tasks not reasoning.

I think that pretty much sums it up. At least with current levels of computing, there's no software which will be able to automatically build the kind of development which can be most successful for a site. SEO is really a marketing track, not a technological track - although knowledge of the technological basis of search is certainly critical. A large part of successful SEO is based on user testing and smart strategies - not following rote rules to make a site match the search engine's model for a quality site.

If SEO was purely making certain that your site was optimized to be found by search engines, that would be possible - but you can't disregard the human searchers in the equation.

[vikasamrohi]

I am with dannysullivan, I am in the development of SEO and web analytics well software's can never take place of SEO gems.
No doubt softwares are improving the trend of reporting and making website's owner intellegent.

[sportsguy]

Humans optimize - software usually messes up when someone forgets to download the latest version...

[simleon]

in my opinion, I dont think that is possible. Seo is an Intellectual phase of a web project, and a Seo writes the content for sites in somehow to complete a webmasters work.

So what can a software do? Help you with links, optimization of some tags and skip a bit of long process but that is it... Seo will work with software in future to help the job get quiker, but never the software will take the place of seo.

But one thing is fore sure: A seo must be every day improveed because the market is quite full... so only the best seo's will stay up.

But that's normal, same thing happened wit web designers in past, and programmers.

You can find always new software for programmers... but is this killing there job? Nop....

Simone - Seo