As the days grow shorter and my want for mulled wine increases I generally start thinking about the last year and how it has gone within the wonderful world of SEO. Now looking back on 2011 there have been quite a few incidents and algorithm changes that have caused many an article to be written (how many even now explaining Panda properly are on the low side…) and were covering the following topics:

1. Panda/Farmer update
2. Freshness/Mint update
3. [Not Provided] fiasco
4. Google telling people who search for SEO to do PPC instead

I’m sure that there are many more but these are the ones that instantly come to mind and looking at the number of links above it looks like I’ve been a lazy git. It’s been a busy year and the Google motto “Don’t be evil” is being seriously tested for the first time (whether someone can actually compete and take a decent market share is unlikely) and the great and good of the SEO world are getting a touch miffed…

So this made me think ‘What could Google do to try and fuck up SEO in 2012’ and I’ve come up with a few ideas:

1. Remove all distinction between a paid advert and an organic result & put paid results in random spaces within the organic search results – This would result in millions of ranking results to “drop”, antagonising clients worldwide into dropping their “awful” supplier whilst pocketing an extra few quid for Google.
2. Increase the number of results from news, local, shopping etc – Obviously if you know how to get your results in the right places you can react to this, however many won’t and will be dropped for being a “dreadful” supplier. Every SEO loves to see a SERP’s that doesn’t feature an organic result until below the fold…
3. Decide that there should be no privacy differences from a signed in user to a non signed in user – Basically hiding/removing all keyword data. That noise is a million SEO’s editing their CV’s for a new PPC job.
4. Create more ‘Love PPC, Hate SEO’ based adverts for every Google search – This will create a stigma (yes, even worse) for SEO that makes working within the sector LSI linked with nazi sympathisers, serial rapists and child molesters.
5. Invent an algorithm change, create a massive buzz around it and then deny it ever happened – Personally this is my favourite and I would piss myself laughing. Imagine calling a client telling them their traffic and conversions had fallen through the floor because of the “beetroot” algorithm change to then find out it never happened. This would piss on quite a few SEO’s chips and thus lead to (possibly) less SEO “providers” and more companies spending in PPC.

Looking back on this it’s a load of bollocks but I’ve quite enjoyed thinking about the ideas. If you have any similarly “brilliant” ideas tweet me @011100110110010 and I’ll add them! 🙂