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The 4 main things (like four pillars) for future of SEO

What does the future of website search engine optimization improvement have in store for us? Writer Pratik Dholakiya takes a gander at recent trends to clarify the course our industry is going in.

SEO has progressed significantly from being about on-page optimization improvement, building backlinks and making relevant content. When I read popular web search engine blogs, web journals, I see an a definite trend: SEO is moving toward a more comprehensive strategy that goes beyond better approaches for third party link building or content marketing. 

A biggest part of present-day SEO practices is brand building and influencing search queries themselves, rather than beginning with a truckload of keywords and making content around them. In this way, while links, keywords, content and site optimization improvement remain the building blocks of SEO, the columns on which the structure is being built are going up different appearance. Let’s see what these pillars (4 main things) are.

1. RankBrain 

Although RankBrain is the third most huge significant ranking factor in the Google algorithm, it is perhaps the most misunderstood one. The speculations and counter-speculations never seem to end. 

Since RankBrain was one of only a handful few algorithm updates that Google initially revealed to a noteworthy news publication, it has caught and held the attention of the general tech-reading public, in addition to search engine marketers.

I personally believe Google’s admission that they completely don't understand RankBrain. However, this doesn't mask the fact that they've made extraordinary strides in using machine figuring out how to depend their prized search algorithm to it. 

Also, we do have some thought regarding what RankBrain does not do. As indicated by Gary Illyes and Andrey Lipattsev of Google, RankBrain does not follow up on your backlink profile, content quality or active visitor clicking percentage. It just helps the algorithm interpret queries better and match them with relevant page content.

Furthermore, since Google can do what it specializes in with less human intervention, industry leaders unanimously agreed that it will gain more significance. So it was nothing unexpected when recently, Jeff Dean revealed that RankBrain now processes each and every Google search (that is no less than 63,000 a second) — up from barely 15 percent nine months before. 

The future has as of now happened here. 

In any case, you can't make a move: Gary Illyes said at SMX Advanced not long ago that there is nothing one can do to enhance a site for RankBrain

2. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) 

In February 2016, Google integrated results from its Accelerated Mobile Pages project into its search results as a "Top Stories" carousel in mobile results. After six months, Google began showing links to AMP pages in the AMP pages in the main organic search results.

Today, Google has 150 million indexed AMP documents in its index, and, empowered by mainstream adoption outside the publishing industry (including eBay and Bing), has recently announced that users searching from mobile devices will be directed to the relevant AMP pages regardless of the possibility that an identical application page exists. 

In any case, the normal Google user hardly knows the importance of an AMP result yet. In  an informal survey directed by Glenn Gabe, just three of 44 respondents could effectively recognize what the AMP symbol in the SERPs remained for. Furthermore, they clearly prefer the "mobile-friendly" label over the cryptic "AMP" combined with the lightning bolt.

This means Google's choice is definitely in accordance with their aim of "bringing the mobile web on par with native apps and keeping Google relevant in the increasingly mobile-centric world we're living in," as we called attention to in an article on the E2M blog not long ago. AMP is here to stay (and become omnipresent), in any case.

3. The Knowledge Graph and rich answers 

Google's Knowledge Graph, which it launched in 2012, is its slow but sure attempt to "organize the world's data and make it universally accessible," in accordance with their mission. More or less, it's Google's attempt at scraping — sorry, replicating — Wikipedia: 

The Knowledge Graph is a knowledge base used by Google to improve its web  search engine’s search results with semantic-search information gathered from a wide variety of sources. 

The "wide variety of sources" includes Wikidata (to which Google moved its Freebase data and actively contributes), Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook. 

Commonly, knowledge graph elements are as boxes of organized data with links to authoritative sources of further information (not generally, though). Common formats include the knowledge panel displayed on the right of a SERP and answer box, showed on top of other organic results. 

The number of queries that show ready answers in these formats keeps on becoming unabated, as ongoing studies from Stone Temple Consulting have shown. Right now, around 40 percent of Google queries display "rich answers," which incorporate included featured snippets, however not knowledge panels:

Brand managers and advertisers are progressively hoping to control the impression, conversation and queries that people have about them. Moving forward, one of the best approaches to do that is attempt to impact what Google knows and needs to say in regards to you. Here are a few methodologies from Propecta and Kapost that include characterizing and interfacing elements with markup, editing Wikipedia, and yes, not abandoning Google Plus.

4. Constant, integrated penalty filters

Presently you see it, now you don't. There it is! Goodness, it isn't. Google announced that they have finally updated Penguin (after what seemed like an endless hold up of right around two years), noting that it is for the last time. 

That is on the grounds that Penguin is currently a continuous flag handled inside Google's search algorithm — data on your pages is refreshed each time Google re-crawls and re-indexes them. 

A couple of months earlier, Google likewise integrated Panda into their main algorithm (however not at all like Penguin, it doesn't update in real time). 

See a theme here? Google wants to make spam fighting a central,  automated function of serving search results. 

This is an exceptionally positive sign for site owners — cleaning up spammy backlinks and getting rid of poor-quality content will bring speedy results. Advertisers attempting to justify extra efforts to enhance the quality of their sites will now be able to put their cash where their mouth is. 

Conclusion 

Obviously Google will concentrate on machine learning, understanding of semantics, connections and patterns and user experience in the future. 

SEO right now is very closely tied to content marketing. While Google can translate content and infer its significance to search queries with a high level of success, it is continually  centered around making refinements to enhance how timely, relevant and valuable this content is to the searcher. The Knowledge Graph, rich answers, RankBrain and AMP all fill this need, while integrated penalties keep up the quality of results. 

I see brilliant days ahead for SEO. Talk about with me on Twitter how these factors  will work out in the following couple of months.