Challis Hodge’s UXblog

It seems like the trend is shifting from optimizing for a slow, dumb engine, and is moving towards a more sophisticated integration of elements, be it image, video, consumer reviews, or social networks. This changes what is getting optimized from the platform to the asset. That is why the future is all about Digital Asset Optimization (DAO) and not about SEO. Digital Asset Optimization properly assigns value to the platform or device as the conduit for marrying content and intent. By understanding how video can be optimized, a search campaign can be successful on Google or YouTube.

Earlier this week, fellow Search Insider David Berkowitz discussed the new Samsung set top See’N'Search. The device is just one example of how search is going to evolve. I’ve said this before, yet it still has not sunk in for many. Search on the desktop is not the end game. It is the starting point today, and Google has won that medium. When we think about Mobile Search, Local Search, Video and Image Search — and even search on the set top, we have yet to declare a winner, and I would suggest we have yet to even meet all the players.

The closing paragraph of the Keynote study summed it up fairly well. “Whatever the front end, whatever the search domain, the news is sure to be good for users. With such intense competition, and so much money at stake, the leading search providers will continue to make the user experience better and better, and make it easier and easier to find whatever it is we seek.”

So, the future of SEO as defined today is a bleak one. Whether we merely change the description of SEO or use a new acronym like DAO, the days of success being optimization for 10 text links on a standard results page is going to end up just like our old description of the engines: as dinosaurs. Extinct dinosaurs.