Is Google Still The Future of Search Engine Optimisation?

Google has had a rough time of it of late. In the past month it has had to hobble its own browser’s rankings after the search giant breached its own rules on paid links; been accused of breaching trust for its integration of Google+ into its search results; apologise to the Kenyan local search directory Mocality for scraping its database and claiming a fictitious relationship with the company; and been fined $500 million dollars for helping Canadian pharmacies to illegally sell controlled substances to US customers. Add to this a couple of weighty anti-trust investigations looming on either side of the Atlantic and you start to wonder; can a search engine ploughing on so wilfully through dangerous waters continue to dominate the market? And if not, what does this mean for search engine optimisation? rnGreg Sterling, over at Search Engine Land, has argued that the Mocality fiasco was something of a Rorschach test for people’s opinions of Google. If you view the company as a deserved market leader that is forever looking for ways to give its users better and more relevant results, then it was the sort of unfortunate misjudgement that can occur within any large corporation. If, on the other hand, you see Google as the golden boy who let hubris take control, then the current barrage of criticism is nothing but a very large whirlwind being reaped. rnIt’s not hard to see the irony. A decade ago, Microsoft was facing similar anti-trust investigations regarding its bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. It was the end of Microsoft’s run as the hot property of the digital world. Google, however, was on the rise. Its clean, user-friendly interface and relevant results were a genuine innovation in those days of the dotcom bubble. Today, Microsoft is still trying to rebuild its brand image, but it is Google which is facing a mighty fall from grace. rnBut what does this all mean for the humble SEO customer? Currently, any SEO agency is going to focus its attentions on Google. And why wouldn’t you? With 91% of the local search market, you’d be mad not to give it the lion’s share of your attention. But if Google slips, then multi-platform optimisation is going to be of greater importance. This might, on the one hand, prove beneficial for online marketing. No longer will one change to Google’s search engine algorithms have the potential to put entire companies out of business. On the other hand, it raises new issues of how and where resources should be deployed. rnSo, is this the future of Search Engine Optimisation? Well, probably not. 10 years on from its drubbing and Microsoft Windows still accounts holds around 90% of the global operating system market. There’s no reason to think Google will take any harder a hit. It may lose its cool guy image - arguably it has already done so - but people are used to it and it still delivers nice, clean, relevant results. There’s a reason Bing and Ask work so hard to emulate it, and why the cluttered SERPs layout of Yahoos past has been abandoned. Bing may make some ground, but any well established internet marketing company will be already accounting for that; they will track client performances on Bing and Yahoo! as well as Google, aware that at least one of those (and guess which one) might have an interesting future. But for now, Google is here to stay. rnIf you want further information or help with your search engine rankings, be sure to get in touch with an SEO agency who understands the importance of cross-platform optimisation.