August 22, 2003

Between August 19 and August 22nd, 2003 was held one of the most important search engine strategies conference in the industry. Organized by Danny Sullivan, the conference was held in San Jose, CA and brought an impressive and intensive four days of search engine optimization (SEO) advice and search engine marketing (SEM) news to more than 1,720 people that came to learn, listen and get updated in the rapidly-changing world of search engines.

The highlight of the whole conference was on day three, when Danny Sullivan personally interviewed Sergey Brin, one of the founders and owners of privately-held Google. If a person still had some doubts about the very existence and/or legitimacy of search engine marketing, one look at the large quantity of exhibitors, industry sponsors and a list at some of the attendees would quickly dispel any reservations one could have had before coming to the conference.

In all, there were 49 companies, including Google and Yahoo that decided to exhibit at the event. This is the highest number of exhibitors ever for any search engine conference held in the past. Conference speakers included representatives from all of the main search engines as well as the top search engine marketing companies and professionals. Needless to say, the registration desk was quite busy for pretty much the duration of the conference. With Google, Overture and Lycos, just a few of the search engines expected to make some important public announcements during the conference, the proceedings were expected to provide a lot more than just "how-to" information. Some of the most important and influential people in the world of search were present at this important SEM conference.

Day One of the conference:
The first day of the conference had been designated as a "pre-conference" day with the sessions taking on two distinct directions. Danny Sullivan had decided to move all the "beginners SEM sessions" to this day and take some opportunity to provide an annual update on the ramifications and economic status of the search engine industry as a whole. This conference was actually the most important of the year so far.

What was really interesting about this conference is that there was something interesting for beginners, intermediates and professionals alike, which is not always the case with some of these large conferences. In the past, such large SEM conferences tended to be more for the advanced level of professionals, or, on the opposite scale, meant for people that are at the "beginners" level.

Search Monetization Strategies
On the first day of the conference, one of the highlights of the day was unquestionably the Search Monetization Strategies. While none of the panelists seemed to agree on what the word "monetization" meant, they certainly all had some very interesting information to share that was really on-topic. In discussing the exponential growth of Google, some panelists shared ideas that Google is not only the largest search engine property, but is also the fastest growing one at that.

Focusing on the "how to make money" side of Google's operations, some offered that with more than one 100,000 advertisers, 88 different interfaces and products in over eleven languages, Google had taken huge steps to secure its position among all other major search engines in the industry. Another growing market for Google is the "Google Search Appliance" solution, allowing any business to purchase an easy and effective search tool for their own website. Companies using it include: Boeing, Cisco and Xerox, among the largest names, and also a few smaller companies in various sectors.

Another important new growth area for Google is their recently-launched AdSense service, which allows the average website to display Google's AdWords campaigns and receive commission on the click-thrus. The real success of AdSense is in part due to the fact that Google is able to spider the website of the proposed partner and use an algorithm to determine which ads would be most relevant to the page being displayed. This format was far more accurate than simply asking the website owner which terms they thought were relevant to the page.

Here are some of the closing remarks on Day One:

1) While Google's AdWords campaign does track the click-thru rates of an ad, they do not track how long a visitor remains on the advertiser's website.

3) While Google is still the darling of the search engine industry, Yahoo has caused quite a stir with all their many recent acquisitions. Tim Cadogan, VP of Search for Yahoo explained some of the initiatives Yahoo had taken to improve their search offerings.

4) Commenting on eBay's request to remove any ads that infringe on their copyright, some panelists confirmed that these requests can be made by any company concerned about trademark or copyright infringement.

5) One of the most interesting Yahoo developments has to be their new Product search. While still in beta-testing, this service strikes an uncanny resemblance to Google's new Froogle service. Perhaps it's no surprise that the new service from Yahoo will also include sponsored listings from Overture. Cadogan also describe some other steps Yahoo has taken to improve user access to search. These included:

Showing Yahoo Yellow Pages listings in search results for products or services that also include a zip code. E.g. Pizza delivery, 95110

Search for Weather or Maps for a location will bring up relevant information not just search results.

Including a search box in Yahoo Mail accounts so that a user receiving an email on a product or service can search without leaving their mailbox.

With the addition of Tony Mamone of LookSmart and Jim Diaz from Ask Jeeves, a lot of information was shared.

Advertiser Roundtable
Another session of interest was the Advertiser Roundtable. This was an opportunity for respected experts in the search engine marketing industry to discuss future developments of the search engine technology, in particular Pay-per-Click (PPC) and Paid Inclusion.

Most of the panelists at the Conference agreed that there needed to be a lot of improvements made to PPC or paid inclusion if the search engines wish to see marketers continue to use these mediums. Dana Todd of SiteLab International made a valid point when she complained that with all PPC solutions, an advertiser must pay the same click-thru rate whether their ad was shown on one of the top search engine partners or on some lowly unknown search engine. She suggested that a model would need to be developed which would provide for different costs per click depending on the quality of traffic.

Kevin Lee of Did-It.com offered that there are two types of company that place high bids for search terms. Those that are very smart and those that are incredibly dumb (!). The smart bidders are the ones that track traffic and understand the value of their visitors, while the dumb ones simply keep increasing their bids without knowing if the high bid brings a ROI.

Asked whether PPC and paid inclusion would overtake Organic SEM, Frederick Markini of iProspect suggested that there will always be a need for a balance in online marketing. With PPC there is always a risk that a company will run out of money or no longer be able to keep up with escalating bids, he argued that organic SEM did not suffer from these factors.

The Industry Analyst Roundtable session brought together some of the industry's best know analysts. Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman of Search Engine Watch were joined by Brett Tabke of WebmasterWorld.com and Greg Notess of Search Engine Showdown. This open forum took on a simple format with audience members interacting with the panelists. Some of the topics discussed included:

There's a real evidence that simple paid inclusions did offer some assistance with obtaining better search engine ranking despite claims to the contrary by the search engines themselves. The limitations of PPC- advertisers are limited to only being displayed for search requests that they have identified and bid on. Many search terms have no PPC bids on them.

Another topic discussed was: Should XML Trusted feeds be labeled as such, clearly identifying their placement in the various search results?

Conclusion to day One of the conference
There is no doubt that the international search engine industry is growing rapidly, especially in North-America. To a lesser extent, it is also growing in other parts of the world, namely Europe and Asia. Large American and Canadian corporations are discovering the significance of search engines as an important marketing media that can reach millions of online consumers as well as businesses. The search engine industry is expected to continue its fast growth and to even accelerate well into 2010.

Day Two      Day Three      Day Four

Note: This is a condensed report originally produced by Andy Beal, v.-p. of Search Marketing for Keyword Ranking.com

        

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