Without doubt users in general are becomming more sophisticated – they are thinking more and searching better. Unless you are running a youth-only-brand however I would still advise any client to ‘accomodate the less sophisticated’ whenever possible.

As with good site information architecture, it is surely better that someone gets to what they want via one of a number of routes as opposed to not arriving at all?

I would enjoy debating this further if people feel otherwise though!

Gary Lockton

In my experience that’s the case. What the solution? Different level approaches or just aiming towards the new generation of consumers coming through?

I would say the bias and importantly the momentum is towards on-page as opposed to off-page factors.

What is more a look at some of the postings by Google’s Matt Cutts (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/) makes pretty clear that his company’s mission is to concentrate on aligning search results directly with end-user value, hence their continued work to decipher subject matter from within video, audio, Flash etc. as well as from the written word.

More than a simple ‘hygiene’ focus on off-page factors leaves SEO open to abuse by technical ‘pirates’ as was seen a few years ago with page meta-data for example!