In the past couple months or so, we had some significant departures of key personalities from the SEO industry. First with Danny Sullivan retiring, then with the news around Rand Fishkin leaving Moz and then Matt McGee leaving Search Engine Land. Before that, we had Maile Ohye leave Google, Matt Cutts officially leave Google, Amit Singhal leave Google and many others. We also had some big departures on the paid search side with Larry Kim leaving his company, WordStream.
Of course, this month, I received dozens of questions from around the industry asking me if I am leaving also. While there are some out there that would love to see me leave, I told them, I have no plans on going anywhere. In fact, I joked that I am going down with the ship.
I’m going down with the ship! pic.twitter.com/5IxFKKci9P
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) July 13, 2017
I personally think there is a lot more in the SEO industry to give. I think it is still growing and even more confusion than ever. My goal is to help there as much as I can. I love the industry, I love the way it constantly evolves and how fast it moves. I don’t think this means we will have less thought leadership, I think more and more people will stand up and act as thought leaders in there place.
Rand said:
There are far more (quantity & quality) remarkable people in the field now than at any other time in the past, IMO.
— Rand Fishkin (@randfish) July 14, 2017
We have some seriously smart people in the industry still, some who have been here since day one. I do not want to start naming people, because then I am sure I will be missing out of names that should have been included. But we all know how many SEO personalities are still around, and they are in the hundreds. So we are safe – for now. 🙂
As long as people are searching for answers, there will be search engines. And as long as there are search engines – there will be an industry for SEOs. How people search may change but SEOs will adapt.
Forum discussion at Twitter.