1.
The State of Search
Danny Sullivan
Founding Editor,
Search Engine Land

2.
Let’s play a game:
“Who’s number one?”

3.
Being “Number 1” &
“10 blue links” is dead

4.
SEO is dead

5.
Congrats, SEM!

6.
Thank You!

7.
SEO is NOT dead

8.
Changing landscape
means
changing opportunities

9.
What’s changing?....

10.
Past: T-E-X-A-S
Today: Place connected
to people, things & facts
The age
of entities
&
entity
search

11.
Entity search =
more direct answers

12.
Will
direct
answers
kill
SEO?Was 28% a year ago, now 36%
Source: MozCast SERP FeaturesGraph

13.
Weird
answers

14.
Wrong
answers

15.
Photo ofYgritte from HBO
Watch Game OfThrones!
YOU
KNOW
NOTHING,
GOOGLE!

16.
Reasons
to
relax
• Google can’t turn everything into
direct answers
• Direct answers still minority of searches
• Many searches complex or multi-session
• Most publishers aren’t reporting major
traffic drops
• Some publishers actually want to be answers
because links drive traffic
• StayTuned: Concerns remain & people are
watching to see if Google keeps search engine
“balancing act”

17.
Google Posts & rise of
distributed / hosted content

18.
Special
section
for
select
companies
and
groups

19.
Content
hosted
on
Google
itself

20.
Worry?
Maybe
not,
given
hasn’t
been
success

21.
Rise of AMP &
more hosted concerns

22.
AMP
is
part
of
main
search
results

23.
AMP
pages
effectively
hosted
by
Google

24.
BTW
AMP
>
app links

25.
Maybe hosted & distributed
is the new future…

26.
And OK, if you can
achieve the same goals…

27.
Or not.
Experiment.
Watch carefully.

28.
The end of filters?

29.
After
two-year
wait,
Penguin
goes
real-time

30.
Panda
goes
“slow-time”
but
continuous
all the same

31.
Hummingbird
was new
“engine”
designed
to better
process
signals,
filters &
things
to come

32.
Enter machine learning
& RankBrain

33.
There’s no
“SEO for RankBrain”

34.
RankBrain
uses
machine
learning
to largely
refine
resuls

35.
Match
uncommon
queries
to common
ones where
has more
confidence
in results

36.
The “mobile-first”
world is now

37.
But
“mobile-
friendly”
is
outdated
thinking

38.
Mobile-first
not
mobile-friendly:
If it’s not
in mobile,
it might not
be in Google

39.
Mobile
action
items
Mobile-first, not mobile-friendly, version of site
Click-to-call
App for repeat visitors?
Maybe progressive web app, watch & see

40.
Bots, digital assistants
and hands-free search

41.
Predictive
search
has grown

42.
Google Assistant
is (supposedly)
“assistive search”

43.
But future of
assistive
search
& bots
is less clear,
has long
way to go

44.
Look ma: no hands!

45.
Google
Home:
Google
comes
to life as a
companion…

46.
What
about
credit?
There’s
some…

47.
But we
deserve
better
metrics

48.
I’ll leave you with…

49.
What was true
20 years ago
remains true now…

50.
Search is always changing

51.
What doesn’t change is
people will always search

52.
Search marketers
figure out
how people search
and increase visibility
from search venues

53.
Visibility in print yellow pages:
search marketing!

54.
Visibility with 25 words in Yahoo:
search marketing!

55.
Visibility with web listings in Google:
search marketing!

56.
Visibility with whatever is to come:
search marketing!

57.
The names change.
The specifics change.
The successful curiosity skills
remain the same!

58.
And the curious,
the questioning, the always-
exploring
search marketer
sees
change as opportunity

59.
Thank You

60.
 Google's Knowledge Graph
 Google Direct Answers / Featured
Snippets
 How to get Featured Snippets for your
site
 Google Posts
 How Trump & Clinton have failed to use
free space in Google
 Google: Accelerated Mobile Pages /
AMP
 Google: AMP will override app deep
links for the foreseeable future
 Google Firebase App Indexing
 Google updates Penguin, says it now
runs in real time within core search
algorithm
 Google Penguin Update
 Google Panda is now part of Google’s
core ranking signals
 SMX Advanced keynote: Google’s Gary
Illyes talks RankBrain, Penguin update
 Google Panda Update
 Google Hummingbird
 Google: RankBrain
 Mobilegeddon
 FAQ: All about the Google mobile-first
index
 Google and Progressive Web Apps: the
mobile experience and SEO
 Google Assistant
 For answering questions, Google Home
bests Amazon Echo & Alexa
 How Google Home turns voice answers
into clickable links
 10 big changes with search engines
over my 20 years of covering them
Further reading