Please, post your view. The best view slected will be ofered free ebook on SEO.

Interesting question.

It all depends on how you define SEO!

My understanding says SEO (White Hat)is not all about optimizing a page for search engines. It is an easy job to SEO a page only for that purpose.

However, proper seo mainly concentrates on user experience while feeding the search engines. Good SEO is a unique combination of the both.

As far as Web2 is concerned, the SEO falls in the next category where you must concentrate on both the aspects. (And when LSI is working, you can not ignore end user experience.)

SEO is not dead - it has only become more user friendly.

It is not dead. I have sites that still rank pretty high from the old school SEO that I did years ago.

But SEO can be bypassed. I think a person very active blogging, commenting on blogs, and social media can tell search engines to take a flying leap. Not that they want to, just that they could.

What this means is an even better landscape for people building traffic to websites. Much more options.

And if you work on an ecommerce site like I do, SEO is definitely not dead. I have seen an increase of over 100% in unique visitors just through changing category names and product titles.

I think it just depends on what your site focuses on. If you are writing about something hot like Ipods, lean more towards SMO. If you are selling window parts, SEO is your major focus.