It’s time for the yearly edition of Sökmotorkonsult’s view of the future. 2011 is closing in rapidly and as always it is important to keep an eye on where our industry is headed. We have knocked together all the smart heads at Pineberry to make a few educated guesses about the coming year.
Primarily we discuss tendencies we’ve seen during 2010 within all areas of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), some of them clever, some quite odd and some downright counter productive. Here are the 5 biggest trends for 2011.
1. Spam pays off
During 2010 search engine spam has had a revival; discussion forums and blogs about SEO are full of tips on how to generate thousands of blog comments, how to create profiles on social networking websites, and “SEO Consultants” selling these services. Truth is that spam seems to work better than it used to, as if Google has become less proficient at dealing with it.
We are convinced that blog comment spam will peak during 2011 and that Google towards the end of the year will make a big clean out in the search results.
If short term solutions are your thing you can probably spam youself to pretty decent results over the course of 2011 but our guess is that if you do your Crimbo gift from Santa will be removal from the Google search index.
2. More myths, again
Myths spread in the SEO industry in a way that none of us have ever seen elsewhere. It usually starts with Matt Cutts or some other Google representative making a vague statement at a conference. Everybody then make all kinds of conclusions as if the statement is hard fact and before you know it a completely new batch of “SEO experts” say you must wear a Santa hat when you add your meta keywords or that you can flip your TCP cable to turn Pageviews into Unique visitors.
There will be lots of myths about SEO during 2011.
3. Consolidation
There are a lot of small companies in the business, and several bigger companies not making any money. There are lots of ways to work with SEO, some successful, some not so. The last round of SEO company acquisitions was probably premature, the merged companies that came out of it were not very successful. During 2011 we will see a second round of consolidations and now the timing may be better.
We are very likely to see a few consolidations and acquisitions throughout the year.
4. Even quicker pace of change
During 2010 the frequent changes to the Google algorithm have been coming in fast and hard. Bing has started rolling out changes, and research in the field of search engines has progressed. During 2011 it is reasonable to expect even bigger and faster changes than during 2010. Google has more or less released all brakes and started making huge changes in types of search results they previously have been very cautious about.
There is no reason to think they will stop, if anything, they will speed up. Google is a company driven by innovations and Bing is actually hot on their heels these days.
5. Hyper local search
We have believed we already had local search results, in Sweden since way back we have been served completely Swedish results and during 2010 even seen them adapt to which city we are in and what we are likely to click. During 2011 results will be even more local and this affects all search engine optimisers who must adapt to this change.
The incredible increase in mobile search demands hyper local results. Mobile also provides the ability to be very specific. If I am standing outside Village East in East London and search for “pizzeria opening hours”, Google will know which pizza restaurant is closest to me. If I search for “coffee” when walking down Oxford Street I can be served as results only those coffee places that are within comfortable walking distance. What do I care about coffee places in other parts of London?
That’s our view of 2011. If you’ve noticed other trends or don’t agree, please leave a comment below. As with any predictions, we don’t have all the facts and a guesstimate is all we can conjure up

Do you like this article? Share It!