Web Marketing (SEO) Past, present and future

And it will get much, much worse. Six years ago you could easily count the firms doing SEO work. The number of sites competing for each search term were fewer, and the state of the art spamming tricks centered on white-on-white text and multiple title tags.

Such rankings are still possible, but beyond the ability of most site owners. Now we see that the rules regarding spam have tightened, and find many of the top ranked sites are violators. As spamming sites are being removed we find that a disproportionate number of the top pages are going away. These "taking the easy way" pages have been in vogue for so long that many newer SEO firms know nothing else and are deciding to "get out of the SEO business" before they go broke.

Top rankings are again becoming the realm of those editing web sites instead of creating external pages. Site owners, should they care to take the time to learn a new profession, can still tune their sites, but it is difficult. After all, you still need to be in the top 0.008% of all sites to be top 10 after the spammers are gone.

The moral of the story is that if the SEO practitioner isn't well ranked themselves for major industry keywords (Search Engine Optimization, search engine ranking,...), then they probably can't get you into the top results no matter how much you spend or time you allow. But those that are well ranked will probably do well for any customer given time and resources. Be patient, plan on the expense, and choose well.