One of my favorite SEO/Webmaster blogs is SEOMoz.org.  The content these guys put out is outstanding.

The founder: Randfish recently posted on the pubcon 2006, and based on some of the things he learned, he made some predictions for the next 6 months.  (You'll even notice a mention of Zillow, which shows me the reach and impact it has made in the seo/webmaster world)

Here are the ones I thought were most interesting with my comments below: 

• Google's Webmaster Central will offer full link information about your site (like the old link command before they broke it)  *I'm curious to see how this will develop.  It's frustrating sometimes when you can't see detailed link info from Google.

• Digg will reach its height of publicity and begin to wane as other verticals in the space take off.  *It's true that digg has some room to grow yet, but with the advent of other similar sites, I agree that we will see a spread in traffic.

• SearchEngineLand will become the definitive source for search-related content; most in the industry foresee SEW (search engine watch) becoming irrelevant very quickly.  

• Linkbaiting will continue to grow in opportunity and popularity - many more firms will begin to offer services in that sector.  *This is an obvious one.  I have been seeing some very creative link baiting techniques being tested in the last 6 months.  The opportunities and new ideas in this area are almost endless.

• A few SEO-backed projects will become big brands in the online world. I think the next Zillow or MySpace or YouTube will have its seeds in this industry - so many capable people are hard at work on fascinating projects. *Totally agree... again, this one is a no brainer really.  The one obvious problem is that the SEO world is so chock full of good talent, that you don't have any one major industry leader.  But you have countless mid-sized firms all vying for the top spot... stay tuned on this one.

• Google will continue to make it more worth spammers' while to take white-hat routes as they close off link spam opportunities and make authority sites impossible to resist.  *Cheers to Google for plugging the holes in the damn.  I've seen less and less link spam sites showing up in the serps lately.  Quality results have become the norm, and not the exception.

• Blogs will find more creative ways to finance their growth - and while blog number growth may slow down a bit, web traffic to them will continue to skyrocket.   *Hopefully this means that the rapid growth of the splog will die down, but I doubt it.  Does anyone have internet wide stats on blog traffic?  We are truly in the golden age of the blog.  As content improves, things will only get better.

Thanks Rand for the great reviews of Pubcon, and these predictions.  They look pretty sound to me.

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Posted by Searching Solutions  

Review of Pubcon and some Predictions by Randfish of SEOmoz.org