People want to rank high in search. Many of them are working toward this by trying to understand what Google is looking at and optimizing for those factors. Those change constantly because Google is trying to reach an endpoint: greater search result satisfaction.
As Google is chasing greater satisfaction, SEOs are chasing Google. It’s like agreeing to meet your friend somewhere but not agreeing on a place. They’re just going to leave their home and start going somewhere. You’re going to go to their house and look for their tracks. You’ll follow the trail, and hopefully you won’t get thrown off it before you both arrive at the meeting spot.
You’d never do this to meet your friend, of course, but we’re doing it to meet Google. Instead, we should point ourselves toward the goal – user satisfaction – and start going toward it. It’s much more efficient and we’re less likely to get lost along the way.