Changes in the World of Search Engine Optimization

The world of search engine optimization is of course always changing and always evolving.

It's one of the more fluid areas of any kind of business and business strategy, and therefore it's of the utmost importance that you stay up to date with all of the latest news and changes.

• One of the big changes over the past year has been the META keywords tag.
  
• This was once one of the primary forms of getting your site aligned with particular keywords that you were targeting.
  
• Now however, it has been publicly announced that neither Google nor Yahoo use META keywords in their ranking strategies anymore.
• Therefore, there is no longer any point in you using them either. Many people were already forgoing their usage, in part to prevent competitors from gaining quick and easy access to all of your keywords.
  
• However, it's now official that META keywords do not have to be used for your SEO strategies and tactics, at least with the two major players in the search world.

The importance of incoming links however has been growing.

• With on site SEO losing importance, offsite SEO is continuing to grow.
  
• That means you need to place a premium on developing high quality incoming links to your site, preferably with targeted anchor text and from reputable sources.
• At the same time, some of the old linking tactics are basically not relevant anymore.
  
• Link exchanges for example have essentially been weeded out as successful linking strategies, although they can still be somewhat beneficial in the right circumstances.