I have been nominated for SEMMY awards in the past, but not on the scale of the nominations I received this year. I have always been somewhat aloof from popularity-based awards (including the Oscars, Emmys, Golden Globes, etc.) as both an observer and as a participant. In my early years as a Web marketer I did receive (and acknowledge) quite a few Web awards but they eventually lost their appeal for me. I think they also lost their appeal for a lot of people because I no longer see most of the old awards being given out.
The SEMMYs have been around for a few years. They represent the SEO community’s collective opinion on which articles were the best for a given year. I’ve never really felt like drumming up support for voting-based awards. I guess you can blame that on my experiences as an online Xena fan back in the mid-1990s when people used Perl scripts to hammer vote counters for favorite television shows and actors.
One’s enthusiasm for any easily gamed system quickly diminishes in most contexts, unless you’re the guy gaming the system. If there is a way to game the SEMMYs, other than to leverage your immensely popular blog to ask people to vote for you, I don’t know how to do it and I wouldn’t try if I did.
I will also admit that in the past I’ve raised an eyebrow or two when seeing judges’ articles nominated (although I don’t recall any judges having articles in their own categories). Some of this year’s judges have been nominated again, but they are not judging their own articles. Let that be the only caveat in my acknowledgement of the process. Heck, even candidates for President of the United States get to vote for themselves — why should we be critical of contest judges?
Anyway, seeing my name listed 6 times in the 2010 nominee list, I felt a bit peevish about not having supported the SEMMYs in the past. There are actually quite a few very good (in my opinion) blog posts in the nominee list. Obviously, they’re all good articles in the judges’ collective opinions, but I have to say that I feel I could have stood with a less distinguished list of nominees.
So, I won’t make you hunt for the nominations. Here they are by blog and by category. You’re welcome to reread the articles and enjoy (or hate) them as you would. And don’t feel compelled to vote for me — I would have to edit the articles again to include Finalist and/or Winner badges if too many of you did that.
SEO THEORY 2010 SEMMY Nominations
2010 SEMMY SEO Category
Duplicate content for SEO and SEO for duplicate content. Published: February 26, 2009 in the Intermediate SEO category.
2010 SEMMY Link Building Category
Secrets of how to escape the link building trap now. Published: February 24, 2009 in the Link Building category.
2010 SEMMY Google Category
Google launches a new spam industry. Published: December 7, 2009 in the Web Spam category.
2010 SEMMY Industry Category
Good Search Engine Bad Search Engine. Published: February 25, 2009 in the SEO Case Studies category.
BEST SEO BLOG 2010 SEMMY Nominations
2010 SEMMY SEO Category
SEO Tactics vs. SEO Strategy. Published: August 6, 2009 in the SEO Technique category.
2010 SEMMY Link Building Category
Why link building may not work. Published: November 25, 2009 in the Linking Technique category.
Don’t mistake my careful labeling for keyword insertion. I’m not trying to optimize this article for search — it’s just that there are so many links I want to make sure you know where they lead. All external links (including those to Best SEO Blog) open in new browser windows.
The judges have to consider (potentially) thousands of articles each year. I have no idea of how they do that, nor of how I would do it if I were one of the judges.
Thank you to the judges for selecting these articles, thank you to the people who read them, and thank you to everyone who subscribes to and/or comments on either SEO Theory or Best SEO Blog.
Should I be included in any Finalist or Winner slots, I’m sure I’ll use the event as an opportunity to write some content and build some internal or cross-blog links (where appropriate).
BTW — it IS okay to interlink your Web sites. Maybe I should write about that some day.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
jansie 01.14.10 at 2:13 am
I sometimes wish I was in the States to better appreciate these kinds of awards. Let it be known, however, that even if you don’t receive a Semmy, I still consider you as one of my mentors in building websites. Thanks for your contribution in my online life Michael. Appreciate it.
Hazo 01.14.10 at 4:45 am
Congratulations mate. Thoroughly deserved IMHO. I don’t get into the whole “SEO guru” and the politics of it whatsoever.
Just want you to know you are the only “SEO guy” I read and there’s a reason for that.
If however you don’t pick up one of the awards, I’ll be sure to send you a prestigious Hazo trophy.
jamesw 01.14.10 at 5:31 am
a more than fully-deserved ‘reward’.
however, the upmost respect you have from the non-sheep of this industry is the real reward for all of the hard work and REAL writing/testing that you do continually.
so, congratulations, but please keep doing what you do – if you ever go ‘mainstream’ i will personally track you down and stick ‘[insert seo-sheep guide here]‘ down your throat.
Michael Martinez 01.15.10 at 10:58 am
Thank you all. And don’t worry. I don’t think there is much chance of my changing course at this stage in my career.
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