Photo by epSos .de / Flickr

Search Engine Optimization has changed so much over the years. Since the very early days in the last decade of the 20th century up to today, Google, Yahoo, Bing - even Northern Lights and Dogpile - have all gone through numerous changes. Their goals have all been similar - decrease the amount of webspam while improving the quality of their search index.

Seven SEO Trends in 2013

Here's a breakdown of the seven biggest trends in search engine optimization in 2013, a year wrought with many changes.

Quality - One of the biggest SEO trends in 2013 so far has been the focus on quality over quantity. While this has been trending for years now - since the birth of SEO really - it's become even more important recently.

Spam Detection - Whether it's Panda looking at content or Penguin looking at links, recent Google updates in 2013 have left SEO in flux for many webmasters. This trend is likely to continue.

Author Rank - While Google isn't officially using this yet, their Google Authorship and Author Rank schemes got more attention in 2013. Look for this to become very important in 2014 and beyond as Google tries to tie information about who wrote a content to the content's intrinsic value in their eyes.

Social Media Signals - This is another area that is still not fully connected to search engine rankings, but that is changing all the time. Google and Bing are both starting to use more social media signals to rank websites.

Transparency - While some would say that Google is still too secretive, they've continued moving forward in 2013 when it comes to being as transparent with webmasters at possible while still protecting their secrets.

Tougher - Ask anyone in the SEO industry and they're likely to tell you that search engine optimization continued to get more difficult in 2013. This trend is likely to continue for years to come. And while people in the SEO industry may moan and complain, it's likely to improve the quality of the search engines.

Dropping Out - As has been happening for a few years now, even more SEO professionals have given up entirely and gone on to do other things. This trend is also likely to continue in 2014 and beyond as search engine optimization becomes increasingly difficult.

Looking at the short list above, it's easy to see that the SEO industry continues to go through dramatic changes. And in 2013 they continued to come faster and faster, accelerating the evolution of the Internet - or at least how we access the information. If you have any predictions for SEO in 2014, leave a comment and share your thoughts with the rest of the world. Thanks!

Author Bio: Jame Cameron has asked many friends and family where to buy sheds over the years. She has an intense interest in fixing up her yard and keeping it looking great. She wishes there were more SEO infographics that were useful.

Bing, one of the popular search engine beside's Google and Yahoo! - introduced the “Pin to Pinterest” feature on image search. Now, you can pin images directly from Bing to your favorite Pinterest boards. If you see something that catches your eye? Just one click and it’s saved to your Pinterest board.
Pinning from Bing is now more easy:

• Simple and Lightweight: There’s no need to install another bookmarklet in your browser, one click and you’re good to go.
• Link to Original Content: Bing automatically links and gives proper attribution to the original, high-resolution source, saving you the hassle of tracking it down yourself.
• Powerful Search Tools: Take advantage of the full breadth of Bing image search tools like sorting and filtering by size, color, layout, and more. You can even do image search within a specific website, for example, see “iPhone” on Techsemo.com.

To get started, go to www.bing.com/images and search for something you’re interested in, click on a picture you like, hit the Pinterest button to pin, sign in once and pin all you want to your board.