Ok, sure, you could drop a couple of big ones and attend the SES conference next week, but you’d be missing the really cool stuff. Yup, the best information is shared by those who go by secret forum handles and tend to congregate in the bar, rather than go to the various sessions.
However, if you’ve decided to go to the actual sessions during the day, there is still hope for you. Joe Morin has put together a complete list of afte

If you’re new to search engine optimization, and not really had time to build up experience with what works and what doesn’t, you’d be smart to head over to SEOmoz’s new Search Engine Rankings Factors study.
SEOmoz asked 37 SEO experts to vote on various factors that impact (or don’t impact) an optimization campaign. If you’re a believer in the “wisdom of crowds”, you’ll probably find a l

I’d really wanted to spend more time looking at the full launch of Google Optimizer (announced last October), but sadly have been tied-up with clients this week.
Instead, ClickZ does the heavy lifting and provides a great overview of Google’s full deployment of the multi- variate/variant/variable (who knows what the correct useage is) product that allows web site owners to test the effectiveness of various page items.
“The main

I’m an avid reader of Aaron Wall at SEO Book, because he always has great insight.
Questioning the Legitimacy and Authenticity of Internet Marketing Advice & Sources from Aaron out today is an especially good read that I’d recommend to anyone trying to understand what to trust, and what not, when it comes to products, websites and advice. Lots of good tips for those new to search marketing and evaluating resources, plus helpful for anyo

Internet Retailer has released their latest survey on the state of search engine marketing: oh, the beautiful data. Of the merchants surveyed, the largest group (37.9%) said that over half of their online marketing budgets are spent on SEM. Also in the good news category, the largest group (30.2%) said that more than half of their online revenue is attributable to search engine marketing.
The survey asked the merchants for a general status chec

There are a lot of open job listings posted at the Marketing Pilgrim Job Board. Here’s what you’ll find listed. Account Handler/ Manager
Search Marketing Specialist
Search Marketing Manager
Brand Manager
Marketing Director
Manager, Database Marketing
Marketing Specialist
Marketing Intern – Events & Associations
Web Design/Interactive Marketing Manager
Junior Marketing Coordinator
Paid Search Specialist
Search Engine Optimizatio

Now that E-consultancy is fully on my radar - and in my inbox - I’m impressed by the amount of free content that comes out of this UK marketing resource.
Today, our readers can head on over to their site and pick up a free copy of their “Online PR Briefing“, which covers: What is Online PR?
Which department or agency should own Online PR?
SEO and Online PR
Importance of bloggers
Affiliates and Online PR
Brands and Forums We&#

Back in November, we reported Microsoft had apparently shutdown their bCentral business directory. Today, we received an email with instructions for making any last minute changes to your directory listing, before editing permissions are removed and the directory changes format.
The good news is that existing listings will retain their “link friendliness and search ranking value”, hurrah!
How about I just go ahead and paste the entire

This week I had an idea for a new column, possibly weekly, where I tracked the search industry through images uploaded to Flickr. Although we don’t have an official name for this column, I thought I’d tag this as a BETA release and see how it goes. So sit back and let me run you through this week in search, brought to you via Flickr!
Click to continue reading…

E-consultancy has published a free 12- page briefing on the Paid Search industry in the UK.
The document is packed full of useful information, including: An overview of the UK market (including market valuation and trends)
A write-up of the key points emerging from the discussion
New statistics Useful resources Topics discussed included: Yahoo!’s launch of Panama platform Landing page optimization Bid management technology Quality o

Over at SEO Refugee, “Skitzzo” posts a bold proclamation that “SEO is Dead” (linkbait anyone?), and I agree, to an extent.
While at Search Summit Australia, I was asked to name the winners and losers for 2007. I chose the title “search engine marketer” as a loser - not for the skills, just the name. You see, search marketers have grown their talents tremendously over the past few years, and to say that we focus

It seems like every tradeshow, expo and seminar has to have at least one session on the future of its industry. Generally, the predictions are . . . general. The industry will grow beyond our wildest imaginations, something completely different will come along, things we have no control over will change everything, etc.
But what if we made more concrete predictions for the future of our industry? That’s what Manoj Jasra of Web Analytics

A lot of search marketers recently noticed that the “link:” command isn’t working at Microsoft’s Windows Live search. Well, it’s not a glitch, but a deliberate shutdown by MSFT…
We have been seeing broad use of these features by legitimate users but unfortunately also what appears to be mass automated usage for data mining. So for now, we have made the tough call to block all queries with these operators. Huh?

…side by side on my computer keyboard, oh Lord, why don’t we?
Ok, so maybe you’re didn’t enjoy my butchering of the McCartney/Wonder classic, but you might like to know that iCrossing has found great synergies between organic and paid search.
According to Rob Garner…
When appearing in both natural and paid search for the same keyword impression, clicks lifted 92 percent, actions lifted 45percent, orders lifted 4

Research and Markets writes up eMarketer’s new report on the future of automotive marketing. They predict a $1.1 billion aggregate spend on search marketing (SEO and “paid ads”).
That’s a pretty big number—but I’m not impressed. Why not? Number one, the press release touting their new study starts off by noting that the automotive industry spends $21 billion in advertising. Granted, the automotive industry doe

Neil Patel has provided an update on his challenge to show Jason Calacanis that SEO is not “snake oil” and can in fact help a site increase its search engine traffic.
Here’s the latest from Neil…
Currently SEO changes are still being made and around 10% of them have been made so far which has resulted in 7,449 search engine visitors between March 14th and March 19th. This proves that there was a 21.14% increase in sea

Dallas-based search and social media marketing firm Kinetic Results has rebranded itself as Dexterity Media, and founding partner Kevin Ryan has left the company. “We’ve been working for the last year or so on ways to promote social media, and we think we’ve got the formula down now,” Tony Wright, Dexterity’s VP of client services, told SEW. “We’ve had tremendous demand for these services, and we wanted our name to more closely reflect what we d

It’s no secret that every ratings service has different numbers for search engine market shares, site visits, and just about any other metric out there. What to do?
We ask Danny Sullivan. (I mean, DUH. Who else would you ask?) Danny has a set of graphs showing the trends over the last year from comScore, Hitwise, Nielsen and Compete. So what are the conclusions? While there’s a relatively huge spread on the percentage, the over

Now that Yahoo CEO Terry Semel has gushed we expect to see “some very exciting numbers” in Q1 from Yahoo, in part due to the launch of Panama, the company has decided it’s time to tackle click fraud head-on.
Yahoo has today announced the promotion of Reggie Davis to a new position within the company - vice president of marketplace quality. Basically, his role will be to reduce the amount of click fraud on the Yahoo search networ

It’s back!
After the phenomenal success of last year’s contest, the Marketing Pilgrim SEM Scholarship Contest is back and this time it’s bigger, better and badder than before!
Not only will the winner of the contest have a chance to kick-start their reputation as one of the world’s leading search marketers, but they’ll win a prize package worth over $10,000!!!
Yep, we have a fantastic prize list this year. Not only d

Apparently it goes both ways with online searches and offline activity. MediaPost’s Center for Media Research reports that offline advertising often prompts online searches. In fact, of any action taken, the study performed by BIGresearch and teh Retail Advertising and Marketing Association finds that an online search is the most popular consumer response to an engaging advertisement.
Just under half of the consumers surveyed said they

If our readers ask us nicely, and we think it’s appropriate, we’re happy to give a shout-out for conferences and events.
This one goes out to all Portland (and pacific north-west) search marketers looking for an event in their neighborhood.
SEMpdx is hosting SearchFest 2007, a full-day search engine marketing conference.

If you’ve been following Gareth Davies ECommerce Rocks video series, you’ll already know that he produces some fantastic stuff.
I recently worked with Gareth on a new video that has just launched. In it, I discuss recent developments with keyword suggestion tools and then discuss some basics of keyword research.
Now, I may be biased, but wouldn’t you agree this is one of the best produced SEO tutorial videos ever? (emphasis on the “produced”).
Enjoy and please share.

BTW, Gareth’s looking for more experts to join him on future videos and is also providing his video producing talents to clients, looking to “jazz-up” their content

It’s always satisfying to learn something new about an industry, and today brings to light a marketing practice, I never knew existed.
AP explores a loophole with domain registration, which allows anyone to return a registered domain name within 5 days and get a full refund. This has led to hundreds of thousands of domain speculators and search arbitragers registering domain names, testing which ones do well for type-in traffic, and getting a full refund on any duds.
During the grace period,

Why is it I get a strange sense of déja vu, while writing this news that David Wise has resigned from his position as CEO of Did-It?
Wise, who has worked with Did-It since January 2005 after being hired away from Ask Jeeves’ sales department, said his departure stemmed from a fundamental disagreement about the direction of the company

I noticed a change to the Alexa traffic reports late Friday, and have now found the official announcement from Alexa. They’ve added new data points including:

Geographic location of visitors.
Your site’s traffic rank in different countries.
Audience reach percentages.
Changing terminology to reflect latest data is from “yesterday” and not “today”.

Pilgrim Partners: Best of the Web Blog Directory - Find out what the best bloggers are talking about now. Submit your blog today!

Yahoo asked us nicely - so we’re obliging - if we’d let all search marketers know about the upcoming Searchlight Award Show.
The 2007 Yahoo! Searchlight Award Show celebrates the best and brightest in search advertising. A panel of industry experts will evaluate four agency campaigns and the audience will vote for the winner

ClickZ is reporting web analytics firm, Omniture, has acquired Touch Clarity, a site-side behavioral targeting and analysis firm.
Utah-based Omniture said the deal should be completed before the end of the first quarter. In addition to spending up to $51.5 million to acquire the privately held, London-based Touch Clarity, Omniture will spend about $8.5 million for assumed vested stock options, the company said.

The acquisition will give Omniture the ability to analyze user behavior, alongside their

Hat’s off to Kelly Spors for helping to keep WSJ readers up to date on the latest marketing buzz. In today’s weekly roundup of news, she explains the art of link baiting…
Here’s a new catchphrase in search-engine optimization these days: Link baiting.
The term may sound shady, but link baiting is an aboveboard tactic that calls for generating new or particularly interesting content on a Web site in hopes that a popular Web site links to it

I just got off the phone with Google’s Nick Fox, Senior Business Product Manager for Ad Quality, and got the scoop on the upcoming changes to the AdWords Quality Score.
As we reported earlier today, Google is indeed planning a change to the Quality Score, with two major updates.

The addition of a new column in AdWords campaigns, showing the Quality Score.
A change to the Quality Score algorithm.

Fox explained the addition of the new column was Google’s effort to “improve transparency” and “make it easier to understand the quality score.” He also explained that Google hoped the new Quality Score information would “help advertisers optimize their ads.”
The new data will be available as early as tomorrow afternoon, which is a key move in anticipation of an algorithm tweak to the Quality Score in the next week or two

Over at SEJ, Loren provides 13 reasons why the NoFollow tag simply sucks. My favorite?
Linking to someone with a NoFollow attribute is a sign of not trusting them. It’s like reaching to shake someone’s hand, but stopping to put on a pair of latex gloves.

Loren’s also turned off the default nofollow for links in comments

According to an email received by Shimon Sandler, Google is gearing-up to start letting AdWords advertisers see their Quality Score.
…we’re making improvements to the way that we evaluate the Quality Score to set minimum bids for keywords. First, we will be launching an optional Quality Score column to provide you with more transparency into the Quality Score for your keywords

Over the past two days, there has been a ton of debate over Jason Calacanis’s
post calling SEO "bull." Since then, Danny’s done a long response, Jason’s been
challenged (and accepted) to have his site SEOed and much more. Here’s a rundown
and a rough timeline of developments:
Click to continue reading…

Now, had I known that the Spannerworks guys were about to announce their acquisition by SEM mega-firm iCrossing, I would have swung by for an interview, while visiting my home town of Brighton.
Spannerworks, a 10-year-old search engine marketing company based in Brighton, England, has done work for clients including Best Western Hotels, car insurance site Confused.com, SN Brussels Airlines, and nursery company Kiddicare.

iCrossing is rumored to announce the deal this coming week.

Jason Calacanis is

riled up about SEO today, telling the world that "90% of the SEO market is
made up of snake oil salesman" and still confused over why the "SEO folks" were
mad at him when he said "SEO is bull"
during our keynote
conversation at SES Chicago last December.
I love Jason

Ladies and gentleman, presenting the heavy-weight battle for the reputation of search engine optimizers.
In the red-corner, we have Jason Calacanis, who blogs a whole bunch of criticisms of SEOs, without backing up any facts or responding to reader’s comments and questions.
…the truth is that 90% of the SEO market is made up of snake oil salesman

If you’re involved in anyway with eBay (or other auction sites), you’re likely very familiar with ChannelAdvisor. They’re arguably the leaders in helping ecommerce companies sell their products via shopping channels and auction sites.
A couple of years ago, they acquired a search marketing company, and ever since they’ve been slowly integrating paid search management into their product offering

V7N’s Contextual Links offering received a lot of online coverage and comments, first here on Marketing Pilgrim, then at Search Engine Journal and Matt Cutts’s blog.
The debate may rage on over the “ethical” nature of paid links. A more important subtext to that debate is the overall effectiveness of link buying as a strategy to improve search engine rankings

There’s a reason for search marketers to smile today - Google has added backlink details to Webmaster Central.
Now, before everyone runs off and pops the top off a bottle of champagne, Matt Cutts would like you to know about a certain caveat to the new tool.
Do not assume just because you see a backlink that it’s carrying weight

Outsell, Inc. has released a report that seems to indicate that we are reaching the end of an era: they project broadcast and print ad spending will decrease in 2007. Key findings of their survey of 1010 advertising professionals include:

Online spending growing the fastest: companies plan to increase online spending by 18% this year as online advertising’s market share increases to 20% of advertising spend.
Advertisers perceive online advertising as “very effective” for branding, a reversal of their “conventional wisdom.”
Search marketing is the fastest growing online medium: advertisers plan to increase search engine advertising spend by 39% (though Outsell didn’t indicate whether this was SEO, PPC or both in its press release).
PPC ads’ market share will actually decrease 1% this year; other online media will grow (CPA ads: 8%; “online sponsorships” 12%).
Why is PPC falling? Ten guesses

ClickZ and JupiterResearch are doing their semi-annual Search Marketing executive survey, and want your participation. This survey will capture what strategies search marketers are pursuing, what features and tools are most important to them and where marketers are spending their search dollars.

It’s a short, 25-question survey, and your responses are strictly confidential.

As a participant JupiterResearch will send you the aggregated survey results and you will be entered into a sweepstakes to

Remember the days when you actually checked your web site’s rankings on AllTheWeb.com? [cue flashback]
Well, the company that originally brought us AllTheWeb, FAST Search & Transfer, is back, and this time they want to help site owners offer their own paid search platform without the need to involve those pesky Google or Yahoo kids.
FAST will today unveil their new AdMomentum platform, designed to be a one-stop solution for publishers and networks looking to cut out the middle-men of search.
“It’s like a digital marketplace in a box,” said Sue Feldman, an IDC Research vice president who reviewed early versions of AdMomentum

Monday February 5th, 2007, will be a day that goes down in search engine history. At 3pm PST today, Yahoo will bring together 30 to 40 engineers and start migrating the old Overture pay-per-click platform over to the new “Panama” model. It’s future success or failure will depend on how well the new platform is received.
Thousands of advertisers, and billions of dollars in ad spending, will be watched closely, as Yahoo finally moves from the pure “highest bidder wins” model, to the “bid plus quality” model

Rand and the SEOmoz team have finally launched the new look for their web site. New features include:

YOUmoz - submit your own posts and the most popular are pushed to the main blog.
Premium Content - for $39 a month ($299 a year), get extra benefits, and access to new tools.

It’s a bold move by SEOmoz to start charging for premium content

Jennifer Laycock’s

battle against the National Pork Board over her "The Other White Milk"
slogan for breastfeeding t-shirts continues to pick up support. as you can see
here at Techmeme.
After I did my own
write-up about the case yesterday, I followed my own advice and emailed the
board. I just got their lame response:
Click to continue reading…

In what appears to be a response to the slow death of the Overture Inventory Suggestion tool, both Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery have offered up free versions of their popular keyword research products.
Via SEW.