For years, SEO was kept as a secret, as it is some sort of black magic; then, we also heard about terms like, white hat and black hat; weve been told that white hats are the angels and the black hats are the demons; and, we believed it. After great quality content, the focus shifted to include specific keywords, meta-descriptions, title tags, article directories, blog submissions and doing everything what could help a web site get the attention of Google.Now, should we believe that this one-time-king has died a silent death because Google showed too much concern for its users? Well, I, at least, do not think so. Panda and Penguins shocked the world of webmasters; many cried, many shouted; and slowly many started doubting the tactics theyve been using for so far. And, many soon started blogging and talking about the gradual death of SEO. Although recent updated by Google came out as kind-of-shocks for any SEO company, a large number of web sites soon restored their rankings. However, Google, in the recent few years, have taken a complete U turn in how it values a site when users search something through its search-engine. So, the crux of the message is that a web site should be designed and the content should be written for the ultimate users, and not for the search-engines. Just keep this in mind and your web site is always on track, and a favourite of Google and hundreds of other search-engines.. Here is a statement that appears in Googles current quality guidelines, and has been there since the first time they were published: Make pages [primarily] for users, not for search engines. Primarily was added in June of 2008, and Matt Cutts (head of Googles webspam team) had this to say about it: the spirit of that guideline is that users engine bearing should be the primary consideration. Google is primarily making these updates to hunt the spam, and doesnt have anything personal against SEO services. SEO is very much Alive and doing great! SEO services were essential; they are essential; and, theyll always be essential. But it is fine to do some things that dont affect users but do help search engines.