I think that there has been a massive change in only probably the last month with regards to how mainstream SEO has become. To illustrate this point, about a month ago I searched on wiki for seo and there was a few hundred words on the subject. I've just looked at it again and there is now a very healthy article on the matter. Why is seo going mainstream? I think there are a number of reasons for this. Firstly there have been a number of high profile articles about seo very recently - many due to the latest contest which has been of a v. high profile. Secondly seo is an activity that anyone can get into. From the optimisation of the first page of a website (maybe something as simple as putting rewording a title of a page or putting headings in <h> tags) you become a "SEO". This means people can quite easily get into the basics. So what SEO becoming more mainstream mean for the future? I believe from studying of the latest contest that the seo industry is going to very much go down the route (if it has not already) where it's not what you know but who you know. X could create an information rich beau site that would not be rated as highly as Y's site because he knows a couple of web masters with pr5/6/7/8 sites. So is this fair? Yes and no. In one sense seo is there for business and business is about building relationships with others for mutual gain (hopefully creating barriers for entry in the process). On the other hand, maybe not. If off-page factors continue to become more powerful determinants of pages then the actuall relevance of high renking pages could be diminished. To conclude I think that in the future seo is going to go full circle (as many things in life tend to). I think that off-page determinants will become less important over time as google adjusts for SEOs forming coalitions to improve their sites rankings in the serps over possibley more relevant sites.
I think seo is going to go wherever the dominant search mechanism tells it to go. No more complicated than this.
I would have to agree with you 100% HalfAgain. SEOs are looking to get top serps and it will depend on how the search mechs functions, how seos go about seo. The only reason i started this topic was because i think it would be very useful for us to try and look towards where the search mechanisms are going so that we can prepare ourselves for what the future might hold. I know this topic might seem a bit stupid to some people but by intelligent guesswork we might be able to predict which roads the SEs go down, giving us a slight edge. I don't think it helps to simplify it as much as you do though HalfAgain. Useful insights won't be got by simplifiying the matter so much. Any more ideas anyone? Cheers ~Jamie