I don't know if you guys have been following what is happening but, things are about to be shaken up at google yet again. It seems starting next year that their will be a move to bias the search results on a user-by-user basis. So for example, if someone types in Java, google will return either coffee, programming, or the country related data. Already some experts are saying that SEO is dead. I am just going to wait and see...
You mean, like targeted by user? Don't they already do that? My results for a given term are not the same as yours or others, and sometimes I'll see some geo-targeting involved.
I don't think it is right still there are lot of global searchers in which the changes will not effect them. For this , People still need SEO.
Google isn't the only search engine. And I'm sure that there will still be a need for SEO. Someone is still going to want to be at the top of those categories.
SEO will always be around, they will just always be looking for more ways to make search results better.
SEO keeps changing each day but it's up to us to see all updates and understand the new changes. Google is fast, but our minds should be faster.
Even if they increase the role of geotargeting, they will still have to rely on other factors such as quality of backlinks. Think of how lousy their search results would be if they simply ranked websites based on how close they are to your location geographically. Google is not stupid (despite some stupid moves they make). They realize that a lot of businesses are now national or international thanks to the reach of the internet. People who say SEO is dead are just simply trying to generate hype for their article, blog post, ebook or whatever else. It's just not possible to make a good ranking algorithm that can't be artificially influenced in one way or another. Even if Google does move to pure personalized search, seo's will develop techniques to influence those results too.
As long as there are search engines (SE), webmasters will optimize (O) for the search engines. Search Engine Optimization will never die out as long as there are well-informed, motivated webmasters competing for the first-page rankings. SEO will change with the changes made by the search engines, but SEO is not likely to die out.
+1 for this but i think its going to be one hell SEOing your website/blog and on the other hand, each n every website/blog would get some part of the good ranking pie in some or the other corner of the world... this step will be a major development in Search engine technology....not sure if a good one or bad
Content will always be king don't forget it, the internet is like a book. You have good content and lots of it you should always be good to go.
If you are talking about about happened at PubCon and what Matta Cutt and Bruceclay said at this conference on behavioral/intent based search results, then Google and everyone one who thinks SEO is dead are mistaken. SEO will be here for atleast the foreseeable future. Search Wiki, behavior and intent based search results using IP and third party cookie tracking is not only difficult but flawed.