Google: Our Core SEO Advice Has Not Changed In Two Decades

Jul 10, 2023 - 7:31 am 30 by

Old Wise Man Google Dress Logo

Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, posted that Google's core advice around how to rank well in Google Search has not changed in two decades. Google showed a screenshot of its advice from 2002 where it wrote, "Make pages for users, not for search engines."

That is the same advice Google is providing today in its creating helpful content documentation.

Google wrote, ""Make pages for users, not for search engines." -- Google, 2002. Our good advice then remains the same over two decades later. To succeed in Google Search, focus on people-first content."

Here is the screenshot from 2002:

click for full size

Here is a screenshot from now, two decades later:

click for full size

Me, being me, I asked if this is a sign that something is brewing - since we see insane volatility but yet Google has not confirmed an update yet.

Danny Sullivan replied to me, saying, "Just good advice that's worth sharing. Was also recently trying to track down the first time we talked about create for people, not search rankings, and 2002 seems to be it. I suspect it was even before then, though." He added, "Also sometimes people think advice for succeeding well in Google changes all the time and, well, this is the core advice that hasn't changed for over two decades."

Here are those tweets:

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Web Analytics

Google Analytics Real Time Reporting Broken Again

Jul 17, 2025 - 10:40 am
Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: July 17, 2025

Jul 17, 2025 - 10:00 am
Google

Google AI Mode Gets Gemini 2.5 Pro & Deep Search For A Fee

Jul 17, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google

Google Discover Officially Gets AI-Generated Summaries

Jul 17, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google

How The Google Ask For Me Feature Works & New AI Local Calling

Jul 17, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google

Google Tests Much Larger Favicons In Search

Jul 17, 2025 - 7:21 am
Previous Story: Google Business Profiles Drops Call Tracking Features