As I said in my last blog, I'm new here to AR. 

Reading over some other posts, and comments left on my last blog, I find there is a lot of disinformation on why people are going crazy for blogs in respect to SEO. 

I've been in the SEO game since late 2001.  I'm involved in a lot of online SEO communities, and attend at least one SEM conference a year.  To explain why blogs have become so important, I need to give a little history on a few things.

It is known that the most effective SEO campaign is developed from off-site strategy, which can be summed up as getting back links from other websites.

4 to 5 years ago, any backlink was pretty much weighed the same.  People started picking up on this, and of course developed all kinds of schemes to get these links.  This is when Google started "tuning" their algorithims to account for this.

For instance, reciprocal links was one of the big strategies that was talked about.  Therefore everyone started doing reciprocal linking for the purpose of SEO. The reason why everyone was talking about reciprocal linking back then was because Google deemed them important. Reciprocal links started out so professionals could share clients.  A plumber in Tuscon may have links on his site for a carpenter in Tuscon and a electrician in Tuscon.  Google considered this to be objective information.  Now fastforward a year or so, and everyone and their brother is starting up reciprocal link exchanges with anyone who will particpate... FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF SEO!

 Google caught on to this, and changed the algorithim so that reciprocal links were not given as much weight as a "one way" link.  Why? Because Google realized people were now setting up reciprocal links that really didn't mean anything. So they figured that one way links should be given more weight because there was obvioulsy no collusion in regards to that type of link.  For a short while, that was a true statement.

Fastforward another year or so, and now you have all kinds of Link Farms, Link Co-Ops, Text Link brokers etc etc. These are all things that people use to get more one way links for the sole purpose of SEO.  Well Google caught on to that too.  Yet it has been difficult for them to design an algorithim that is smart enough to tell what is a genuine one way link from one that has been purchased or is part of a co-op etc.  So now they just give less consideration for one way links.

Now fastforward to the present!  The people at Google got the big idea that links which people put in blogs and comments of blogs should be considered more geniuine, than a link sitting on a footer of someones e-commerce website.  This is because blogs have such a human element to them. It is considered people sharing information with one another, whereas a link on a e-commerce website was put there by its owner (probably for the purpose of SEO) So as of now, LINKS ON BLOGS ARE GIVEN THE MOST WEIGHT

So now we are in the blogging craze. And just like the last methods, EVERYONE IS NOW DOING IT FOR SEO!  You have people setting up fake blogs with fake comments, or hijacking abandoned blogs to post their links on. 

My point is that SEO is always evolving, and while blogging is now the "recommendation" of "experts", don't believe it's going to stay that way. 

Blogs have many other important uses other than SEO, but the SEO part is all I was addressing. So I'm not telling you to abandon blogging, just don't count on it as the only strategy for a good SERP rank. I'm sure everyone has heard the saying "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"