A few weeks ago Google announced a significant change to the algorithm that was targeted at so-called content farms. These sites simply exist to catch search traffic, make money on display ads and then pass that content on to another site. In an unusual move, Google announced the change indicating that it impacted nearly 12% of searches.

The social web immediately lit up with blogs, tweets, comments and opinions on what that means. Some said it won’t matter, some said it is the end of search as we know it. This recent article from CNNMoney.com even puts a price tag on the change: $1B in revenue “redistributed.”

As with all things, the truth is somewhere in the middle—clearly for many companies search is the ONLY thing now, and for the foreseeable future. But in the liner notes of the various articles and blogs there are some interesting stats and strategies that are beginning to show up. They look something like this in the aggregate:

• Marketers are seeing declining keyword performance
• Search is becoming one component of the overall digital strategy  
• Search marketers are very focused on integrating social channels across PPC and SEO 

In a separate article about linking strategies, JC Penney reported that just 7 % of traffic came from organic search 

Not surprisingly, it appears we are clearly seeing the broadening of web strategy beyond search. The goal remains to get found, and have your visitor take some action (buy something, read something, contact us, contact them, come visit etc).  

Importantly, however, the location of that conversation or conversion is moving from your web site to the community as a whole. Now is the time to speed up your participation in the community--your customers may never make it to your site. 

@ajdun