Finally – maybe Google will get a run for it’s money. I love Google as much as the next guy, but it’s been tough to watch the rest of the “competition” get left so far behind in the dust.

As you can read in this article on Search Engine Watch “It’s Official: Microsoft and Yahoo! Finally Strike a Search Deal” – the deal basically says that:

1. Bing will power Yahoo’s organic search results

I think this is a great move. Bing has made some pretty terrific strides in creating a better search engine. Spending another 100 mil on advertising it is making a dent as well. Bing isn’t perfect, but Yahoo organic results haven’t been all that great either.

2. Yahoo will handle the paid search

Again – this is a great move. If you manage paid search campaigns – you know there’s two specific problems with Microsoft/Bing.

1. AdCenter sucks to use. It just does. That’s not to say that Yahoo’s platform is great, but it is better than AdCenter and now they can focus on making it more usable.

2. Low search volume: WIth the exception of some verticals, the search volume is rarely there for clients to justify the time, energy & budget required to build & manage an additional campaign with Bing

So ideally, as a part of this deal we’ll just be able to opt-in or out of displaying ads on Bing with a simple check box. Just like you check a box to add the Google search partner network today.

This move will still be tricky and they’re both a long way from pulling it off. But hopefully by allowing each to focus on what they do best – maybe they’ll be able to actually compete and we’ll also have to start thinking about results from more than one search engine!

As I alluded to last week with my post “SEMpdx SearchFest 09 Rawked!“, I asked the team to give me their impressions from SearchFest 09. The SEMpdx board put together a similar post on the SEMpdx blog and you can read all of our SearchFest 2009 Reflections impressions over there. We’re biased though because we’re too close to SearchFest, so I wanted to see how the team felt about their experience and what they learned. Here’s what they had to say:

BLU

In my opinion SearchFest ’09 knocked it out of the park! It was great to see such a high caliber of speakers and can very well be the point where we look back and say this was the event that put Portland on the Search Marketing map. Seeing Danny Sullivan (the Godfather of search) kick-off the festivities at a SEMpdx event was a big indicator that SEMpdx has arrived as an organization.

But it wasn’t just the speakers that made the event it was also the topics that were discussed. The level of diversity for the different sessions was impressive providing value for everyone, from the novice to expert. I especially enjoyed the analytical session where Eric Peterson, Ian Lurie and Bob Garcia discussed the future of online measurement and services that are readily available today that can make a big difference when it comes to increasing the bottom line.

SPENCER

Searchfest 2009 was my first Searchfest, and I can honestly say is, “nerds, nerds as far as the eye can see, and even some lady nerds.” But in all seriousness it was great. The information served up was almost overwhelming in its quality and quantity. It had everything for everyone no matter the experience level. The speakers not only had a lot of brand cache (see: Yahoo, Microsoft, SEOmoz, Search Engine Land, etc), but they were entertaining and personable.

My highlights from the event:

Best speaker: Danny Sullivan (Search Engine Land) – Almost most entertaining, but got edged out. Loved his dismissal of white hat vs. black hat debate. Basically, do not be a scumbag, not cheating and down with the spammers. Being fairly green in the industry, I enjoyed his “historical perspectives” on search.

Most Entertaining Speaker: Marty Weintraub (aimClear) – He could have filled the whole hour, and no one would have noticed.

Best Session: SEO Beyond Theory: SEO Tips From the Trenches – Marshall, Laura, Jeff and Derrick presented great tips for SEO noobs and vets, and featured my favorite stats.

Favorite Session: Online Reputation Management – Really good tips about how to set up your own monitoring program with feeds, and how to participate with your consumers online effectively. Plus, swearing, slandering and social media always make for a good time.

Best/Favorite Stat (tie): Derrick Wheeler (Microsoft) – Microsoft.com has over 2 billion+ unique URL. Marshall Simmonds (NYT, About.com) – The New York Times had 591 duplicate versions of a news story. They both better get paid well.

Person Who Learned the Most: Me (Amplify-Interactive)…long way to go before I can present.

Best Room Monitor: Me (Amplify-Interactive) All I can say is I rocked.

CHRISTIAN

1)  Favorite presenters / presentations: I really enjoyed the social media session with Dawn Foster, Neil Patel and Matt Inman.  Sure, Neil’s presentation might have been more gray area than it should have been… but out of any of the sessions I attended, this one got me thinking the most.  Also – Matt’s presentation got me thinking about potential linkbait ideas for my clients; his examples showed that, really, you can create engaging linkbait for any client.

2)  Best new tip or trick I learned: there were a couple of key takeaways for me.  I gained a great deal of knowledge during the Local SEM session about what’s important when optimizing a local business.  There were some ideas presented that got me thinking about optimizing a local website in ways I never even thought about previously.  I also learned a couple of tips from the Technical SEO session, namely which pages you should block with your robots.txt file that I didn’t even think about.

3)  Best stat: in the PR session – 2/3rds of the “internet population” visit social media sites.  That’s a whole lot of Facebook / Myspace / LinkedIn / Twitter people.  Todd also mentioned that 91% of people use Google’s standard search to find articles or research something in the middle of a sales cycle.

4)  Most interesting industry person I met: Todd Freisen of PositionTech.  Funny presentation and he was sitting at my table for awhile and we talked a bit.  Funny and nice guy.

5)  Etc.: I really enjoyed the sessions I attended.  The local session, technical SEO and social media sessions were definitely my favorite.

So – did you go to SearchFest 09? What did you think?

We’ll be posting the team’s thoughts shortly, but I wanted to seize the opportunity today to put down a few links and leave a few of thoughts of my own.

As president of SEMpdx, I was really proud of the quality of the event. Having had to plan SearchFest on my own previously – I know it’s not easy and takes a lot of extra time & effort to pull together. I had the luxury of not having to worry about a thing this year and I really want to thank SEMpdx for all their hard work. We had some top speakers from around the country and even a few folks from town (special thanks to local heroes Kerry McClenahan, Rick Turoczy & Dawn Foster… I’m sure I’m forgetting someone).

Some interesting stuff here:

• Twitter was absolutely BLOWING UP with tweets about SearchFest (Did Janet Johnson lead the pack?) – see SearchFest 09 tweets here
• Lots of blog posts – there will be more. See SearchFest 09 blog posts here
• Fox News stopped by to cover SearchFest 09 (thanks Amy Rosenberg!) – here’s the SEMpdx SearchFest 09 story along with the short video

We’ll follow up soon with more on SearchFest

SEMpdx announced today that SearchFest 2009 will take place on Tuesday March 10 2009 and will feature Danny Sullivan as keynote speaker. SearchFest is a full day search engine marketing conference held in Portland Oregon and allows the Portland community to get up close & personal with some of the biggest names in the search engine marketing industry.

More details can be found at www.searchfest.org – register soon as prices will increase in February.

2009 – The year of “OK” in the search marketing industry with further emphasis on Integration, and the beginnings of consolidation

In my crystal ball – I predict that the search marketing industry will weather the current economic storm, but it won’t be the best year. It’ll just be OK with more churn than growth. While there will be potentially more dollars devoted to search, those dollars won’t be astronomical. There will be opportunities for search marketing firms to really demonstrate effectiveness and to grow accounts, but the flip side is that the companies we work with won’t be immune to the economic downturn. The savvy companies will adapt and spend more money on the Web.

Like everyone else – I also see “traditional” marketing agencies taking an even greater interest in bringing an SEM offering to the table as they struggle to stay afloat as marketing dollars dry up. I also see this as the beginnings of consolidation where marketing agencies and other SEM firms consolidate as the economy starts to turn around late this year and into 2010. I also predict that sole practitioners and smaller SEM shops will be absorbed into larger firms as finding and keeping clients gets harder to do and the brand and business development power of a larger shop or marketing firm brings in the clients.

These 2009 SEM predictions were also posted to the SEMpdx.org Web site