There are a number of factors that are driving this.

1. The ad revenues are reducing. There are a number of factors at play here. The first is that we are getting better at search, we tend to go straight to a site that can serve us.  Second being, that advertising does not work. We filter it out, we don't trust it and in the days of content marketing, it's just so bloody old fashioned. 

2. Because Google revenues are reducing, it won't stand by and let this happen, so it is creating its own sites.  As this article points out, in the world of travel, Google supports its travel sites in search over competitors.  How long before Google comes for your industry and cuts you out over a Google site.

3. Google just isn't good enough at serving up the right results.  The reason for this is that people keep trying to "hack" the algorithm.  Google's job is to give you and me the best result for our search, every company is trying to hack that.  Of course, Google isn't stupid, they know about the hacks and constantly change the algorithm.  So you keep having to pay the SEO company to keep trying to hack the system.

Back-link circles are one of the latest hacks that Google have stopped.

Let's take the quote again 

“If you are in the business of being a parasite on top of Google, your medium-term and long-term prospects are terrible; you’re an impaired company, you don’t know it,” he added. The only way to win, he argued, is to offer unique value; many companies have done the opposite, becoming more like their competitors and relying on Google to drive volume. That’s a recipe for disaster."

There is, of course a remedy for this.

Be totally organic.

The earned media approach has always been the option to take.  But like Google too many marketers and SEO agencies rely on this "hoax" to put bread on the table at home.

Your clients and prospects are social media, shouldn't you go where they are? Stop this spend on advertising that nobody looks at and interests nobody.  Create conversations on social media, tell stories, empower your employees to be active on social.  It is by the cheapest and more effective means.

The only thing that companies have today that is unique is their people / employees.  Their skills, experiences all are unique.

These employees are connected to their family and friends, people who love and trust them.  How about if we motivated your staff to share authentic, insightful and educational content.  They will share it with a network that loves them.

We demonstrated this recently when we were in Singapore.  Their cellular network Singtel has 35,000 followers on Twitter, which is good.

Not when you find out they have 25,000 employees and 4 million customers.  In fact more people ignore them,than follow them.

What happens if we empower 10% of the employees and they all have 100 followers, this gives the business a reach of 250,000.  Already more than the current corporate account.

If we could empower 50% of employees and they have 500 connections like the average person on LinkedIn.  This gives the business a reach of 6.25 million.  Add to that the connections love the people and are more likely to share the connect.  You have here a clear business case.

Maybe it's time to "come clean" and have a Google detox!