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SEM Theory: Shaping Search-related Theory

Posted by Michael Martinez on July 26, 2007 in SEO Theory

If I were to ask you how you think SEM theory might differ from SEO theory, what would you say? What would be your first impulse?

Several years ago Danny Sullivan proposed that people use search engine marketing as an umbrella expression to describe all aspects of search-related marketing: search engine optimization, directory optimization, paid listing service optimization (PPC).

In that article, Danny wrote, “In many cases, you aren’t really ‘optimizing’ for these other services….” I don’t agree with him. We were always optimizing something to improve performance. Directory optimization is longer useful because directories are no longer useful. Directories have, in fact, become liabilities to both search engines (that have had to implement robots meta directives like “noodp” and “noydir”) and search optimization specialists who have had to figure out ways to prevent directory listings from meddling with search results pages.

Through the years people have put forward different expressions: “search engine positioning” (basically organic SEO, but it can also apply to PPC), “search engine submission” (not really SEO but it is a supportive function), “search engine registration” (not really meaningful in 2001 but it’s meaningful for Local Search), and search engine placement. I like search engine placement because it is all-encompassing, going beyond “search engine marketing”.

In fact, search engine marketing has been widely accepted according to Danny’s proposal, but it doesn’t encompass everything.

“Search engine marketing”, I would argue, is not what a spammer does. A spammer positions or places content in search engines, not with the intention of building brand or market share, but simply for the sake of riding the coattails on someone else’s brand or market share.

If we agree that my distinction is reasonable, then it follows that whereas SEO theory encompasses what spammers do, SEM theory does not. In fact, SEM theory would be better defined as a subsidiary discipline of marketing theory.
Spammers don’t market anything; spammers just scrape residual sales from search engine vulnerabilities.

There is no need to redefine SEO theory as it really deals only with organic search engine placement. But it would be reasonable to say there is (or should be) a paid search listing optimization theory (hopefully named more elegantly than I can contrive). Directory Optimization Theory is a realistic if unnecessary name to describe the principles of selecting directories and submitting listings to them.

PPC Theory is more complex than Directory Optimization Theory for a number of reasons, but primarily because PPC services have continued to evolve whereas Directory Optimization has almost vanished, except for the very healthy Local Search segment (and I think many people would want to speak more about Local Search Optimization Theory).

For historical purposes we should probably seek to define Directory Optimization Theory just so people have a concise framework to use as a base reference. General Directory Optimization is the fundamental set of principles that govern how you select a directory and how you write your listing description. Niche Directory Optimization refines General Directory Optimization by focusing on specific topics, sectors, or industries — the so-called niches we like to speak about.

But then there is also Business Directory Optimization, Personal Information Directory Optimization, and Local Search Optimization. I would also say we now have 411 Directory Optimization for mobile search, although this subsidiary discipline is in its infancy. So it’s not entirely correct to say that Directory Optimization is dead — it’s just the general directories that have become albatrosses around our search necks.

I think people would be quick to point out that there are Wiki optimization tactics that have become somewhat standardized. Wikipedia and its clones are just the tip of the iceberg. Many other Wiki sites have appeared over the past couple of years. But I don’t know if all of these various subsidiary directory optimization disciplines can be (or should be) fully monetized. I don’t think there is yet sufficient demand to support many specialists in all those categories.

And there is certainly very little actually said about Directory Optimization. In fact, today we have no acknowledged authorities on the subject. I could certainly say a few things about directory optimization, having done a fair bit of it, but I’m not a Directory Optimization Theorist. I don’t devise strategies or campaigns for directory service placement. There is room, I think, for someone truly knowledgable in the subject to start a more formal discussion. But I would be reluctant to say that anyone who is currently active in SEO discussions is really qualified to be the thought leader in that field.

Which isn’t to say I don’t think anyone could do it. Rather, since no one has been openly formulating and testing ideas in directory optimization, it’s a lost art that will have to be rediscovered, or at least resurfaced by people who do it day in and day out. I don’t do that kind of work any more. I don’t know of anyone who really does, except in a few small niches.

PPC Theory is in a similar state of suspension, except there are many PPC practitioners and even a few books (and eBooks) available that discuss how to set up and manage pretty sophisticated PPC campaigns. But PPC theory isn’t as concerned with the mechanics of implementing and managing campaigns; the theory has to address the thought and planning that go into campaigns. How do you develop a strategy? How do you implement A-B testing? How do you manage the competition for resources between PPC and organic SEO?

Just today I had a discussion with one of our SEO techs about a customer PPC campaign that is not (in my opinion) well organized. The customer, for historical reasons I’m not aware of, is not using isolated landing pages for the PPC tracking. If measuring the success of your PPC strategy and supporting a system of checks and balances to check for fraud are important to you, then you really need isolated landing pages.

This particular customer has not yet implemented an accurate tracking system that allows them to discern between organic SEO hits to those pages, off-site referrals to those pages, in-site referrals to those pages (through internal navigation), and PPC click-throughs. We deliver our report but what do they have to check against that report?

PPC Theory should explain what the pros and cons are for using isolated landing pages. It should explain the whole concept of isolating a landing page. PPC Theory should also look at accountability, measuring accuracy, validating click reports, and click fraud detection. Google and Yahoo! say they are handling click fraud and third-party auditors say that’s not necessarily so. PPC Theory needs to look at what click fraud really is and how its detected and reported.

And just so it’s clear to everyone, I’m not the guy to discuss PPC theory. Don’t look for a PPC Theory category on this blog any time soon. There are already PPC experts out there. Some of them, I believe, are PPC theorists who either haven’t stepped up to claim that title or who have gone unnoticed by people like me because we don’t delve deeply enough into it.

The theoretical work I do is extensive and ever expanding. I look at the dynamics of relationships between search engines and Web sites. I look at the dynamics of relationships between search engines and searchers. We could say I look at the relationships between search services and searchers and Web sites, but my area of concentration is search engines.

Search engine placement deals with concepts you just don’t encounter in typical search engine optimization. Search engine placement is the core of search reputation management, for example, and it deals not just with which sites are listed in which positions in search results but also with how those site listings appear.

Search engine placement also deals with more esoteric subjects, things so far below the radar you never see them in forums. The “deeper SEO”, the more advanced concepts, that agencies and some individuals implement to expand their reach into the search environment. It’s not rocket science but it is a discipline that requires a fair amount of experience and a lot of thought and work.

When you reach the point in your career where you start thinking about how Web sites you don’t see in search results impact the search results, you’re standing at the threshold of search engine placement. You’re glimpsing the fields of brand management, Web site structure theory, and Internet marketing. Yes, Internet marketing is more advanced than search engine optimization. Way more advanced, much broader, more complicated.

But let’s go back to SEM Theory. What did you think I was referring to when I brought that up? I never provided a context for the expression, but you probably assumed — because you’re reading this blog — that it has something to do with search engines.

Would you be surprised to know that SEM Theory is the abbreviated name for scanning electronic microscopy theory?

In search reputation management you have to look at search results differently from organic and PPC search. You’re not looking at “search results” you’re looking at name spaces. A name space is the collection of all Web documents that are relavent to a name. Some times you have a contested name space, where two or more distinct entities share the same name space.

For example, there are two widely published Internet writers named Michael Martinez. One is a journalist. The other is me. And there are other Michael Martinezes out there who have Web sites, including at least one or two who — like me — have published books. So the “Michael Martinez” name space is a contested name space.

Then you can have a conflicted name space where the Web documents are all relevant to an assortment of names, none of which is clearly the authoritative name. Today, search engine marketing is the authoritative name for our industry’s name space. It supersedes all those other expressions we’ve been using so haphazardly, thanks in large part to Danny Sullivan for having the vision to see that we weren’t just doing search engine optimization.

But before we pick up the mantle of SEM Theory and run with it, we need to recognize that we’re dealing with a conflicted name space, and that’s a very important issue. Maybe we can seize the name space — we’re probably better equipped to do so than the engineers and scientists who specialize in scanning electronic microscopy — but if we seize that name space without allowing for the other discipline’s needs, are we acting ethically?

There is an entire ethical area that we don’t often talk about. In fact, every time the ethics of search becomes a topic for discussion people become intensely divided. In the past I have actively opposed efforts to define search placement ethical standards because at least some of the proponents of such standards were not — in my opinion — qualified to be proponents of ethical standards. Their failures to disclose conflicts of interest, in my opinion, made their efforts seem hypocritical.

I chose to write about SEO Theory because that is what I specialize in. I’ve been sharing my research for years and, so far as I know, the name space is not contested or conflicted. It may eventually be contested, as other people write about SEO Theory (or claim to — but I know of several SEO Theorists out there who are quite knowledgable, in my opinion).

We may soon start to see people writing about SEM Theory with respect to search theory. When that happens, the scanning electronic microscopy folks may wake up and wonder what the heck happened.

But you know what? The change in search results will reflect a couple of the most interesting aspects of SEO Theory: you can never be sure of what other people will do with their Web sites, or of what search engines will do with the data they collect.