Author: Daniel Page

As I’m certain many of you are already aware, Google recently acquired Deepmind, an artificial intelligence firm with a focus on machine learning.

You’d be forgiven for thinking the corporation is looking to augment its new army of robots with better intelligence (all the better to kick off the machine uprising with?).

After all, this purchase came directly on the tail end of a flurry of robotics acquisitions, of which Boston Dynamics was the capstone. And while smart robots could certainly be in Google’s future, that isn’t the reason Google bought the startup.

See, what a lot of people appear to have forgotten in light of Google’s recent innovations and inventions is that it is, at its core, about search.

Writing can be pretty rough work, and putting together a piece of quality content that’s both properly search-optimized and valuable to the reader can be a very tall order.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could simply take a single good piece of content and turn it into a hundred pieces or more without having to put in any extra effort?

Wouldn’t it be great if, instead of having to pay a hundred writers, you could simply pay one and sell the same piece a hundred times?

Actually, that’s entirely possible – and completely inadvisable.

The only constant in search is change. Every time you think you have Google figured out, they switch it up again. The search engine giant kept the SEO world guessing in 2013 by changing their algorithm over five hundred times, a trend that will most likely continue this year. It’s important to stay a step ahead, so in that spirit, here are five bold SEO predictions moving forward in 2014.

Conversational Search via Natural Language Processing

In 2013, Google made most keyword data private. Many saw this as a war on keywords. Currently, the “Not Provided” rate is 82%. Experts anticipate this number will reach 100% by June.

In the continuing saga of big companies implementing SEO strategies that get them a spanking, Rap Genius has had its SERP positions wiped out by Google.

Rap Genius is a lyrics site that allows its users to comment on lyrics, explaining and analyzing their meaning. The lyrics industry is a cutthroat niche, with a large number of sites fighting it out for the top SERP positions.

Rap Genius stands out among competitors. Its site quality and insightful commentaries are excellent. However, the company’s owners apparently disagreed. They implemented a link-building strategy. Even a novice SEO would have called it unwise.

In an uncharacteristically forthright blog post, Matt Cutts, head honcho of Google’s webspam team, lashed out at the practice of guest blogging. Apparently infuriated by what is probably the millionth automated spam email from low-grade online marketers offering to produce content for his blog, Cutts seems ready to go to war with guest bloggers.

“Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.”

If you haven’t already, you should check out the post to understand the nuance of his position. Of course, a backlash is already well underway, with many apparently having missed that nuance.