SEO 2.0 Definitions: It’s about People, Self-Spreading and Being Reputable

A group of people join their hands. On them a bright red heart is painted with lipstick it seems.

SEO 2.0 doesn’t exist and I’m glad it doesn’t! OK, SEO 2.0 doesn’t exist according to Wikipedia. It existed – someone wrote an excellent article about it – but the Wikipedia censors deleted it. I’m glad.

I prefer to spread the SEO 2.0 definition myself than letting a bunch of Wikipedia censors outrank me.

These – on a side note – even blandly admit in the censorship notes that they consider all SEO to be spam.

In any case according to Wikipedia the term SEO is still strictly 1.0 or about Search Engine Optimization just like in the nineties. They simply ignore two decades of progress.

This post is not meant to whine about SEO 2.0 being censored on Wikipedia. Every Web-savvy individual by now knows how unreliable Wikipedia is.


How Do People Elsewhere Define SEO 2.0?

I want to focus on third party articles on SEO 2.0, especially on the spelled out or inherent SEO 2.0 definitions in these articles.

The longer I write about SEO 2.0, the better I understand it and the closer I get to a definition that makes sense.

While I’m not yet perfectly sure about the definition itself I’m quite certain what it is not though!

Let me link some SEO 2.0 definitions that have been published elsewhere:

  1. The new Search Engine Optimization – SEO 2.0
  2. SEO: What’s Hot and What’s Not
  3. SEO 2.0 – SEOs are Marketers Too! | SEO.com

Before I comment on each definition let me summarize for the quick readers who just skim this:

SEO 2.0 is not about Google, a buzzword, a pay-per-click scheme. It’s about the people.

In the broadest sense SEO 2.0 as a term just describes a paradigm shift in SEO that took place with the appearance of

  • Web 2.0
  • social media
  • Universal Search

Other major developments that led to this shift were localized and personalized search results.

Apparently a lot has changed and the online publishing industry had to adapt to the new situation. You can call it what you like but it did happen.

It still happens and thus we have to hive it a name as well. The easiest way to name it is: SEO 2.0!


Three SEO 2.0 Definitions to Consider

OK, so let’s see what the third party articles say about SEO 2.0 in detail.

#1 The new Search Engine Optimization – SEO 2.0
Tom Arah readily admits to revisit SEO after a few years of absence. While he gets the first paragraph right summarizing that “a whole lot changed” his conclusion is mostly wrong.

He rightly acknowledges that SEO 2.0 is not about tricking search engines anymore. Hallelujah! This should be the consensus by now.

Then he goes on to state that SEO 2.0 is basically about Google telling webmasters how to do basic SEO. No, it isn’t.

He errs as well in saying that SEO 2.0 is actually “new”. It wasn’t new in 2007 when I started this blog to cover it.

Also – in a bizarre twist – the Google SEO Starter Guide is the bible of SEO 2.0 according to Tom Arah. Sorry to disappoint you but you haven’t done your homework.

SEO 2.0 is not about Google SEO.

SEO 1.0 was. SEO 2.0 takes over the reigns from Google by ignoring it basically. I prefer to call that “SEO as a side effect”.

When you get popular on

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • on the Web

Google basically can’t ignore that and you get links that push you at Google as well. At the same time you probably haven’t done much of any old school SEO.

#2 SEO: What’s Hot and What’s Not
Mihaela Lica attempts to address the fuzzy SEO 2.0 topic on Sitepoint. While the commentators mostly fail to grasp the concept she quite aptly describes and elaborates on it.

In her article she argues correctly that social networking sites are major SEO tools nowadays which is true both for SEO and SEO 2.0 practitioners.

She also mentions link baiting, one of the first SEO 2.0 tactics around. It has surfaced somewhere around 2004/5 already and its more recent extension, the so called viral marketing. That’s right.

While in 2005 you did a link bait to get links in large numbers form social news front page appearances. you nowadays try to create “viral content”.

Viral content spreads on social media like Twitter by itself. Lica also goes on to cover the so called long tail concept.

The long tail was one of the earliest SEO 2.0 definitions around, the Hittail definition from June 2006.

All in all Mihaela Lica gets all her points right. She doesn’t cover the whole scope of SEO 2.0 but who can in such a short blog post?

#3 SEO 2.0 – SEOs are Marketers Too! | SEO.com
David Malmborg of SEO.com very carefully explains why the SEO industry had to adapt in recent years.

The changes of the Internet landscape that led to the paradigm shift of SEO 2.0 have rarely been so well formulated in such a short post.

He goes on to declare that the most crucial aspect of SEO 2.0 is the reputation management part of it.

This may be overstated but reputation building is indeed the prerequisite of a successful SEO 2.0 strategy. You can’t succeed with people when they assume that you are a jerk.

I agree with Mr. Malmborg but I admonish you not to forget all other aspects of SEO 2.0 and not to solely concentrate on your reputation.


Define SEO 2.0 Yourself Before Someone Else Does it

What do you think? Is SEO 2.0 still an actual buzzword or doesn’t it exist at all like some uninitiated assume? Add your own private SEO 2.0 definition now!

Ideally you write something about it on your own blog or site and I simply link to it and add a summary here in this post.

You can still define SEO – whether 2.0 or not – before someone else does it.

Why? Those who define things also govern them. When you create your own definition you can act accordingly to it instead of obeying other people’s demands.

Don’t wait until heavily biased Wikipedia editors define something for you even though they aren’t even familiar with the term or the sources that describe it.