Could this be the End to SEO?

This week Google officially launched real-time search, and Yahoo announced today their launch of real-time search. Most of the real-time search is related to things like the "latest news", "Twitter", “MySpace” and "Facebook". While there will be competitive terms that real-time search may draw traffic away from. SEO's will still have good representation in the SERP's for their sites.

I don't believe that the entire index is ever going to be able to be involved in "live" searches, so SEO's will always have a place in helping websites rank well for their industry words and phrases. The real-time results do appear at the very top of a results page, which is the most coveted spot for every online marketer. Like anything else that has changed in the past users will have to educate themselves and understand what is what.

It is also true that when users search for consumer brands there is a chance that the respective brand may show up in the live stream results. But again it isn't the only thing on the page, and SEO still has its rightful place.

It is also true that the uninformed may click on the real-time results and may never see the natural search results so it will be our job as SEO’s to educate the user whenever we get a chance.

With proper tracking in place in a few months we will have some figures to look at and we will be able to see what percentage real-time search takes from the SERP’s.

While many are running around claiming that SEO is dead, I don’t believe that to be true.