SEO Predictions for 2012

5 SEO Predictions for 2012

At the time of year when we all reflect on the year past and make resolutions for the 12 months ahead, this post will take a look at some of the trends in the world of SEO we can expect to be coming our way in 2012.  Here are the top 5 SEO predictions for 2012.

More big algorithmic shifts

2011 was the year of the Panda. SEO news this year was dominated by the major Google algorithm update in a way not seen for years. If you think your site survived Panda don’t rest of your laurels though, expect to see new iterations of the Panda update rolled out throughout 2012 and other updates designed to remove defunct parts of the web which Google is on a mission to cull – if you’re an affiliate (especially in a niche like travel or finance, where Google is trying to carve out their own affiliate product offering), a review site, a made for Adsense (MFA) site or an article directory then expect more updates designed to pull the carpet out from under you.

Social signals will become more important

Something I first mentioned in 2010 in my post about ecommerce link building was confirmed in 2011 – Google are now using social signals from Twitter and Facebook as part of their ranking algorithms. A lot of SEO’s spent a lot of time researching and talking about this in 2011 and we saw loads of new ‘buy retweets’ and ‘buy Google +1 votes’ services as a result but the truth is that at this point in time the effect of social signals on regular SERP’s is pretty insignificant. As links become less reliable and Facebook and Twitter become more popular expect Google to start using these signals far more aggressively for ranking time based content and establishing who the original source of a story is. For small businesses this will likely remain far less important than good old fashioned links but this definitely isn’t going away as a ranking factor.

Anchor text will become less important

With anchor text manipulation at an all time high in the SERP’s in 2011 we’ve already noted anchor text being less powerful towards the end of the year and we’d expect 2012 to see Google using signals from link anchor text and exact match domains less actively in the ranking of results.

Negative publicity will push more users away from Google

With anti-trust cases and a number of other law suits in the US set to throw up some negative press for the search giant 2012 may finally be the year that Google’s user base starts to implode. Don’t get me wrong, this time next year they’re still going to have by far the largest market share but with every percent of traffic which Google loses to Bing the opportunity opens up further to pursue a 2 engine search strategy – something which just hasn’t been practical for the past 3-4 years given Google’s awesome dominance. Start brushing up on your Bing SEO methodology or at the very least make sure you’re monitoring your traffic and rankings in Bing as well as Google.

Link spam will get harder and penalties will be more severe

One thing that probably got less publicity in 2011 than it deserved was the gradual shift by Google away from penalizing sites that sell links or host spam towards a more proactive approach of actively penalizing link buyers or spammers with ranking penalties. As Google continues to tread this tightrope will 2012 be the year that the practice of negative SEO or “SEO sabotage” makes the headlines? For big brands its time to stand up and pay attention to who’s linking to you and keep a watchful eye out for any spam links which your competitors might be sending your way.

Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the Guest Blogger:  John Mcelborough runs an SEO agency in Brighton and blogs about ecommerce and travel SEO at his personal blog johnmcelborough.com