SEO
SEO Is Not Dead, But Old SEO Is
Keyword-stuffing and link-building are dead. Topic authority and entity clarity are very alive. Here is the shift.
SEO has been declared dead in roughly each of the last 15 years. Old SEO is dead. Modern SEO is alive and arguably more important than ever, but the techniques have changed. Keyword density, exact-match domains, link-building schemes, and thin content all stopped working years ago. Topic authority, entity clarity, and high-quality user experience are what work now.
Topic authority means publishing comprehensive, deep content across an interconnected set of topics within your category. Google's algorithm rewards sites that demonstrate genuine expertise across a topic cluster, not sites that rank for a single keyword. The shift requires editorial planning, not just keyword research.
Entity clarity means having clean, unambiguous structured data (JSON-LD), consistent identity signals across your site (About page, leadership pages, product pages), and external citations that reinforce who you are. Google's knowledge graph rewards entity clarity. So do AI assistants in the GEO era.
User experience signals (Core Web Vitals, mobile experience, dwell time, bounce rate) compound on top of content quality. A great piece of content on a fast, well-designed site will outrank a great piece of content on a slow, broken site. Invest in performance and UX as core SEO, not as a separate engineering concern.