Chris Sherman
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About Chris Sherman

Chris Sherman (@CJSherman) is a Founding editor of Search Engine Land and is now retired.

Chris Sherman's latest articles

PPC

Report: Google Leads U.S. Search Advertising Market With 76% Market Share

Efficient Frontier today released the findings of its quarterly analysis of U.S. paid search activity. The report was based on an analysis of 92 billion impressions and 600 million clicks across a portion of Efficient Frontier customers during the fourth quarter of 2008, which includes some of the world’s largest brands. According to the report, […]

SEO

Now Accepting Speaking Pitches For SMX Search Analytics

I’m now accepting speaking proposals for our newest conference, SMX Search Analytics, taking place in Toronto on March 31 – April 1, 2009. Please note that the agenda is final for the show, and I will only consider pitches for specific panels—here’s the agenda. There are a limited number of openings, and I expect to […]

PPC

SEMPO’s Second Annual In-House Salary Survey Opens

Are you an in-house search marketer? If so, SEMPO would like your participation in its second annual in-house salary survey. This survey is for in-house providers only but is not limited to SEMPO members. The 21-question survey takes 10 minutes to complete, and will be open until February 20th.

LinkedIn

Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Top Search Marketer?

We’ve done some preliminary analysis of the top-performing entries in our Biggest Search Geek Contest and have compiled some fascinating (though not entirely scientific) results by looking at LinkedIn profiles of the top 10 scorers. By the way, it’s not too late to participate in the contest—it only takes a few minutes and the prize […]

Google News

Newsknife Announces Top News Sites Of 2008

Newsknife, a site that every month rates the world’s top news sites for quality to help news sites improve their performance at Google News, has released its annual list of the most important news sites on Google news for the year. Rankings are compiled by the frequency of stories being included in Google news by […]

SEO

Announcing Our Newest Conference: SMX Search Analytics

Search marketing isn’t just about website optimization and paid search campaigns. To really know if your efforts are paying off, you need to test, measure and refine on an ongoing basis. Analytics tools are key to these processes, providing you with invaluable information about your visitors, customers and even those that “got away.” Our newest […]

PPC

SEMPO Wants Your Input

SEMPO is launching its 5th annual State-of-the-SEM Market Survey, and if you’re a practicing search marketing professional, they’d like to hear from you, whether you are a member of SEMPO or not. Last year, close to 900 respondents answered the SEMPO survey, and the results always paint a fascinating portrait of our industry. This year, […]

Content

The Complete Guide To Google’s Website Optimizer

Why is it that some web sites are golden, compelling visitors to buy while similar web sites, perhaps even offering the same products at similar prices, fail to make the grade? It may be dumb luck on the owner’s part, but a more likely explanation is that the golden site is the result of careful […]

SEO

Me.dium Changes Name To OneRiot, Launches Social Search Engine

OneRiot, the company formerly known as Me.dium, has launched OneRiot.com, a social search engine that crawls and indexes the pages viewed by OneRiot toolbar users. The idea behind OneRiot is to measure the “pulse” of the web by offering search results ranked by what searchers are actually viewing at the moment, rather than by more […]

SEO

DeepDyve Explores The Invisible Web

As web search engines have improved over the years, there’s been less attention paid to an “inconvenient truth” about the indexes of our favorite information finding tools—namely, that search engines still miss the lion’s share of information available on the web. This so-called “deep web” remains largely impenetrable to search engines for a variety of […]

Content

What’s Ahead For Search Marketing In 2009

It’s an understatement to say that we live in uncertain times, and that any data that can help us strategize, plan or even to some extent predict what’s ahead is worth its weight in… well, let’s just say this kind of information is invaluable. That makes the Marketing Sherpa 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide very […]

SEO

The “Bible” Of Search Engine Marketing

It’s common for comprehensive books written by respected authorities to be tagged as the “bible” of a particular topic or industry. My vote for that distinctive title in our industry goes to Search Engine Marketing, Inc. by Mike Moran and Bill Hunt. Both Mike and Bill are longtime search marketing veterans who were responsible for […]

SEO

Bookshelf: New Column From Search Engine Land

Our newest Search Engine Land column, Bookshelf, launches today. Bookshelf features reviews of books, white papers and other publications that help search marketers do their jobs or gain a better understanding of general digital marketing issues. The Bookshelf column appears periodically at Search Engine Land. In today’s debut post, I review the newly updated second […]

SEO

SMN Webcast, Tuesday Oct. 28: “Measuring An Ad’s Value”

How do you measure the value of an ad if it’s one of several in a campaign? If a customer purchases your product after clicking on 3 search ads, which ad should get credit for the sale? Should branded search get more credit? What about the combination of online and offline ads? Next Tuesday, October […]

Link building

A Preview Of SMX London

SMX London is coming up fast, and we’ve put together a great agenda with world-class speakers. Perhaps the best part, for those of you who weren’t able to attend our sold-out SMX Advanced conference, is that we’re running an SMX advanced track for the first time at the London show. This is cutting-edge content that […]

Content

Headup: A True Semantic Web Search Agent

“Semantic web” is one of those phrases that’s tossed around loosely these days, used to describe just about anything that goes beyond basic keyword search to surface relevant content on the web. But true semantic web applications, those that enable people to share content beyond the boundaries of applications or web sites, are still relatively […]

Content

VideoSurf Is Now Live

VideoSurf, the new video search engine that I uncharacteristically raved about a little over a month ago, is now live for everyone to use. As I wrote then, “VideoSurf is one of the most innovative, radically different approaches to video search (or any kind of search for that matter) that I’ve ever seen. Even better: […]

Ecommerce

ChunkIt, A New Information Extraction Add-On, Now Available

ChunkIt is a toolbar that digs deep into the links found on web pages, extracting “chunks” of information from those pages, allowing you to quickly find relevant content without having to click through on the links yourself. Think of the process you already use when scanning search results, or long web pages that are rich […]

Local

Wikia Search Releases Third Party Search Enhancement Platform

Wikia Search, the “open source” search engine that launched to great fanfare earlier in the year, has introduced a new platform (Wikia Intelligent Search Extensions or “WISE”) that allows third parties to provide an enhanced search result—known as a “WISEApp”—for specific keywords. WISEApps allow publishers or searchers to enhance search results, in a similar way […]

SEO

Report From The Field: Search In China 2008

We’re wrapping up SMX China in Nanjing this afternoon. By all measures, the show was a success, with about 300 attendees and a dozen exhibitors, with people from China as well as many other Asian countries, India, Israel and even Africa in attendance. Search in China is thriving, seemingly impervious to the economic turbulence that’s […]

SEO

Setting The Stage For SMX China

Our second SMX China event kicks off tomorrow in Nanjing, China, and there’s definitely some Olympic spirit that’s rubbed off on this show. The conference, together with the 4th China International Software Product Expo, is the inaugural event in the brand spanking new Nanjing International Expo Center, a world-class event complex that’s kin to Beijing […]

Ecommerce

Yahoo Enhances Music Artist Shortcut

About a year ago, Yahoo created a music artist shortcut to make it easier to find quick details about artists, such as videos, photos, sample song tracks and even their official website links, directly from the search results page. Now, in partnership with online music service Rhapsody, Yahoo music shortcut results allow you to play […]

Bing

Powerset Teams Up With Live Search

Powerset, the semantic search engine that Microsoft purchased in July, has been collaborating with Microsoft’s Live Search team on several projects designed to be released within 30 days. Microsoft is currently testing them on a small, randomly selected audience. The projects include:

Google

Early Interview With Google’s Page & Brin

This week, we’ve seen a lot of coverage of Google’s 10th anniversary, yet most writers have spent little time covering Google’s really early days, when the company was just a scrappy startup with a handful of employees. Here’s a great interview with Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin from January 1999, by Karsten Lemm, […]

Content

VideoSurf: New, Genuinely Radical Video Search

I’m generally not given to hyperbole or breathless enthusiasm when writing about a new search service. Quite the opposite, in fact—over the decade I’ve covered search I’ve seen so many so-called “radically new” approaches that are simply updates or spins on existing technologies that I’ve grown a bit jaded. But not after seeing a demo […]

Content

Google Launches Newspaper Digitization Project

Google, in partnership with a number of North American newspapers, ProQuest and Heritage, has begun digitizing printed newspapers, making them both searchable and browsable exactly as they appeared in print, including photographs, headlines, articles and advertisements. From the official Google blog:

SEO

Now Accepting Pitches For SMX London 2008

We’re now accepting speaking proposals for SMX London, taking place at the New Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden on November 4 and 5, 2008. We’ve got an all-new agenda for the show. Please note that the agenda is final for the show, and we will only consider pitches for specific panels. There are a limited […]

SEO

Industrial Strength: New Column From Search Engine Land

Our newest Search Engine Land column, Industrial Strength, launches today. Industrial Strength is written by search marketers responsible for managing SEO for huge websites and running massive search advertising campaigns. Topics range from handling technical challenges to working with multiple key stakeholders and getting everyone to play nice together. The Industrial Strength column appears weekly […]

SEO

Reactions To SMX Brazil

Our first SMX Brazil conference ran last week and by most accounts was quite a success, with over 500 attendees. Search Engine Land columnist Sara Holoubek was there and offers her thoughts on both the conference itself and the reactions of other attendees in her SMX Sao Paulo Wrap Up.

SEO

A Roundup Of SMX Local & Mobile Coverage

Mike Blumenthal, who pens the estimable Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search blog, has compiled a comprehensive list of coverage for the SMX Local & Mobile show that’s the best roundup of coverage I’ve seen for the show, despite its witty, self-deprecating title: The Lazy Son of The Mother of All SMX Local/Mobile Recaps. […]

SEO

The Mother Of All SMX Local/Mobile Recaps

Did you miss our SMX Local & Mobile show in San Francisco last week? If so, no worries, as David Mihm has an excellent roundup of the highlights of the conference. Even though I’m obviously biased, I have to say the event was one of the best I’ve had the privilege and honor to be […]

SEO

Last Call For SMX London Session Ideas

I’m in the process of finalizing the agenda for our SMX London conference, which will be posted in early August. If you’ve got a unique, compelling idea for a session you think we should consider for the conference, I’d like to hear about it. And don’t delay—tomorrow is the last day we’ll be accepting session […]

SEO

Speaking At SMX East (New York) And SMX London

We’ve begun planning our two big autumn conferences: SMX East, taking place in New York on October 6-8, and SMX London, on November 4-5. As we’re developing the agendas, we want to hear from people who have solid ideas for potential sessions and are interested in speaking at one or both of the shows. Remember, […]

Paid social

Me.dium Launches “Real Time” Social Search

Me.dium has introduced a social search engine that blends results from a “real time” index of what people are currently viewing online with Yahoo’s full-scale web index. The result is something I’ve not seen elsewhere—and despite my long time skepticism regarding social search, this approach actually holds promise for delivering a unique view of relevant […]

SEO

Top 5 Reasons To Attend SMX Local & Mobile

Pundits have been touting the promise of local and mobile search for years, but it seems like hype often outweighed substance—until now. This year, we’re seeing the convergence of a number of key factors that resoundingly demonstrate that the local and mobile space is emerging as a serious opportunity for savvy search marketers. Conference co-chair […]

SEO

Now Accepting Pitches For SMX Local & Mobile 2008

We’re now accepting speaking proposals for SMX Local & Mobile, taking place in San Francisco on July 24-25, 2008. We’ve got an all new agenda for the show. Please note that the agenda is final for the show, and we will only consider pitches for specific panels. There are a limited number of openings, and […]

Ecommerce

Google Celebrates Bauhaus B’Day With “Broken” Logo

I love Google’s special holiday logos, which typically honor unique individuals or special holidays. Today Google has a special logo recognizing the birthday of Bauhaus (“house of building”) founder Walter Gropius. But it’s a weird tribute. In some respects, the logo can be seen as a rendition of the Googleplex headquarters in Mountain View. If […]

SEO

Pictures From SMX Munich ’08

Last week we kicked off our inaugural SMX Munich event, and by all accounts it was a big success. Attendee turnout exceeded expectations, and exhibitors reported robust (and well-qualified) traffic throughout both days in the exhibit hall (and, of course, the food was a highlight, with an absolutely mouthwatering spread of local Bavarian dishes and […]

SEO

Looking For SMX Local & Mobile Session Ideas (And Speakers)

Do you have a topic you’d like to see covered in a session at SMX Local & Mobile in San Francisco on July 24-25, 2008? Something you’d like to see covered in depth, or a discussion of advanced strategies and tactics for getting the most out your local and mobile search marketing campaigns? If so, […]

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