Evolution of Google's Rankings - Slideshow by Rand Fishkin

Have you seen this and what do you think?

[adder]

Hi,

Just stumbled on Fishkin's slide presentation on the future of G rankings. Considering it is 3 mths old, many of you must've seen this already.

[slideshare.net...]

I must admit I liked the most of the stuff. What puzzled me a little bit was slide #47 advising to drop all the "classic" SEO tactics :(

I'm still doing directory submissions and reciprocal linking. Although not as effective as used to be, I am sure (at least in my case) they have helped.

One of my bigger sites have reciprocal relationships with over 500 webmasters (all really good quality sites). So, what now, eh? Do I just wipe out my link exchange pages? Mhhh....

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

It's a very valid, believable and interesting presentation but when I see these things I get a sinking feeling in my stomach when I think of my own websites. This makes it look like I am doing lots of things wrong.

Funny thing is they don't seem to be much affected by all of these changes and have held consistently good positions since 2001 ;) so I won't be changing anything as a result of this.

[CainIV]

I think this makes to look at in terms of aggregate factors that those interviewed believe are in play across a large number of genres.

Don't forget that the factors are likely a measurement across similar players in the same vertical.

For example, if you are not currently using diverse inbound marketing tactics, and nor are any competitors in your vertical (or their signal is not strong) then you may not notice any difference, and in fact could continue to rank well, even without (for example) social media.

So I believe these metrics are measured from competitors on a vertical and likely a query intention baseline.