Vote For The Search Engine Land Logo!

Nov 20, 2006 at 9:40pm ET by Danny Sullivan

I said before that a logo for Search Engine Land was in the works (along with an entire site design — what you currently see is NOT how the site will look when launched next month). We’ve bounced around various logos internally and narrowed the field. But I thought it would be fun to see what people in general think. So below are the some of the final logos we’re debating. I can’t promise that we’ll go with the winner of the public poll, but we’ll definitely consider it. Cast your vote, plus you can leave a comment below, if you like.

Postscript: Thanks, everyone! The poll is now closed. We’ll announce the logo in a separate post, probably in a few days. For reference, I’ve listed the logos below in order of popularity, showing the percentage of votes next to them. Below each logo is the choice it was during voting, to help those reading comments referring to "choice 1" or "choice 2" and so on.

25 percent liked:

(was choice #3)

24 percent liked:

(was choice #6)

18 percent liked:

(was choice #1)

17 percent liked:

(was choice #2)

13 percent liked:

(was choice #5)

5 percent liked:

(was choice #6)

We’re likely to go with something similar to the fourth and fifth logos listed above. They’re very similar, so I suspect the vote might have been split between them. All the comments were super helpful in guiding us to some final changes. I’ll explain the final decision more when the final logo is posted.

Related Topics: About Search Engine Land | Channel: Other

About The Author: Danny Sullivan is a Founding Editor of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also serves as Chief Content Officer for Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series. He has a personal blog called Daggle (and keeps his disclosures page there). He can be found on Facebook, Google + and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan. See more articles by Danny Sullivan

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http://www.seo-blog.com MichaelDuz

Logo #6 is more subtle and will probably look better in situ but in the final analysis it will also depend on the overall color scheme of the page.

- Michael
http://stylespion.de Kai Müller

Sorry, but I think, that every version looks like it’s made in the early nineties. Why don’t you call a designer to do that?
http://www.edwords.nl Eduard Blacquière

Hi Danny,

First of all I like to wish you all the best with SearchEngineLand. I’ll be watching you just like I’m used to at SearchEngineWatch, Daggle and the Daily SearchCast, which I all appreciate and like a lot!

I prefer logo nr. 4, because of the simplicity. The other logos are more ‘screaming’ and ‘in your face’, but if that’s what you want… it works!

Take care,

Regards,
Eduard Blacquière

ps. When will SES come to The Netherlands? ;-)
http://www.biz4you.at/blog/ Martin Muehl

I’d go for #6, with just a thicker white border for the text. Good luck, Danny!
http://weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-hopkins/ Heather Hopokins

Danny- all look great. Maybe it’s my aspiration to be at a fairground, but the wheel in logos 2 through 4 look like ferris wheels to me.

I am sure a case can be made for why this is an appropriate metaphor for search engine news, nonetheless…
http://www.kb3kai.com Dave

My preference is #6. It appears clean, simple and stylish. Good luck with the new site!
http://www.adscriptor.com Jean-Marie Le Ray

Sorry, I don’t like none of these ones!
Jean-Marie
jbrock

I think the green and blue cogs make it look like you work for Bruce Clay :-) http://www.bruceclay.com/ – The cogs are more prominent on their site when they aren’t doing the thanksgiving branding.
http://bloggerdesign.com TwisterMc

I like how in 2, 3 and 4 the gears look a bit like rolling hills. This goes good with Land in the site name. #3 looks to much like Seobook and I hope I voted for the right one as the radio buttons are hard to tell which they are associated with when just looking at the middle choices.
http://www.ladesignz.com ladesignz

I like four – it looks the most modern
http://www.searchenginepapers.com Vu

To keep things simple, I would choose #6. But it is difficult to say without seeing the color scheme of the site.
http://www.psymple.com Asia

I prefer the web 2.0 colors and layout on #1, keeping the two “search” and “engine” together makes for a more appropriate logo, in my opinion.

And hi Danny, it was really great meeting you at Pubcon, I can’t wait until you get this site up and running!
http://www.organicpop.com Dean

I’m not super crazy about any of them, but if i had to pick it would be #4 because it stands out the best font-wise.
http://www.seo-scoop.com dazzlindonna

#3. I like the green/blue colors, and the rest seemed to either lose the “Land” part or didn’t have the green/blue combo.
http://www.mrrebates.com mr_rebates

Danny,

Good luck on this new site. I’m sure it will be successful if you’re running the show. Great job on the Daily Searchcast as it keeps me up to date on the myriad of search engine changes and improvements.

I think logo #4 is the cleanest and most simple of them all.

Regards,
Craig Cassata
http://www.lyndseo.com lyndseo

I really like #3 for the following reasons:

I like having the word “land” a bit bigger and on the same level as “search engine”. Otherwise, it looks like it’s just thrown in there because it needs to be.

Going with the “land” theme, I like the two circles in #2-4 because to me they look like mountains in the distance or something.

I also like #6, but it’s got far too much blue. I suppose it would look okay depending on what the rest of the site will look like.

Good luck! Can’t wait for launch.
http://www.quartzmtn.com Quartz Mountain

I would toss out 1,2 and 4, because the “LAND” looks like it was tacked on as an afterthought.

Of the remaining logos, #6 is the strongest, but I miss the green. I’d go with #6, changing the light blue of the inner gear and the word “land” to the green used in the other logos.

You also might add just a tiny bit of space between the two lines of text, I’m not sure I like the ascender on the lowercase “d” touching the bottom of the “h”.
http://www.bizmord.com/Blog Igor M. (BizMord Marketing Blog)

I am surprised that so far the winning Logo is #3. This proves my theory that I wrote about in my blog … people think that CUTE sells. It doesn’t!

#3 is cute. Has 2 thingies on top, but it doesn’t stick and it’s not simple. Remember the “KISS”? They phrase it “Keep it simple sweetheart” but in reality when this thing was created years ago it would say … “Keep it simple, stupid”. Anyway.

I voted for #6 (if I had to choose one). I don’t know about the colors though. Light blue? Greenish? Green reminds me of Aaron Wall’s blog.

Danny, I am sure you have good “branding” people who are knowledgeable about this. My only suggestion is … don’t try to make it look “cute”. People like it when they see it, but they don’t remember it 5 minutes later. Also … remember, it has to look good in print as well.

Try viewing it in Black and White also.
BenGraham

I think logo 6 is the only contender. Your logos are very Web 2.0. Perhaps the name should be changed to http://serchngn.la.nd?
http://www.ironvine.com/blog Steve Terjeson

I prefer the streamlined flow of #6. Plus it would be the easiest to build into an integrated design layout.
http://searchengineland.com Danny Sullivan

I’ve closed comments now that the voting has ended.