Recap of Search Engine Strategies NY 2008
So today is the last day of the Search Engine Strategies Conference and Expo which has been going on since Monday at the New York Hilton. I’m not there today, because, well, I stayed out too late last night and have work to catch up on from this week. But — Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were awesome!
I was live blogging five of the sessions for my new friend Barry Schwartz of SE Roundtable - so check out the site to read my transcripts. I especially liked the Orion Panel on Tuesday because it was a lot of fun watching John Batelle bash Jack Menzel from Google (the attacks were meant for Google, not Jack). John “suggested” that Google is manipulating algorithms so You Tube and Google Finance appear in the number one spots for video and stock searches (remember when Yahoo Finance used to be number one?). That Google has turned into a media company and is shying away from their original focus which was purely on search. That Google is “capturing a second click” according to John, monetizing still after the search result is clicked. Jack defended Google by saying that they are just trying to give the most relevant stuff, if that happens to be You Tube, it will be up there, and there is nothing biasing the algorithms.
Anyway, it was a highly entertaining panel. What are all your thoughts on this?
Another session I enjoyed was called Search Engine Friendly Design. A lot of back-to-the-basic stuff for SEOs, like alt tagging and breadcrumb navigation structures. But it served as a good reminder of best practices that we sometimes tend to forget, and the panelists all held the attention of the audience.
Last night was fun! We went to the SearchBash party at Spotlight in Times Square. It was my first time at Spotlight, though I had been wanting to go since they opened last year. A karaoke bar that provides backup singers! Brilliant. The naked singing cowboy was there! My brother Avi Wilensky of Promediacorp and a few others were great singing Violent Femme’s Blister in the Sun. Equal shout outs to the woman singing Like a Virgin, and the guy singing Journey at the end. Anyone know who they were? They were fabulous. Thanks to the sponsors of the party, Webmaster Radio, Bruce Clay, Cranberry, ABC Search, Lyris and PR Web.
You can check out more SES coverage on some other blogs:
To those of you responsible ones who made it today to the sessions, enjoy. Great week, and we’ll see everyone at the next conference.
March 20th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Nice writing style. I will come back to read more posts from you.
Susan Kishner
March 20th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Thank you so much for your hard work. The community and I seriously appreciate it!
Thanks again!
March 20th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Nice recap Sheara! It was a great conference for sure. It is interesting to watch how the big players in search have evolved their brand, though I can understand how some editorial bias can occur, it’s still funny to hear the “do no evil” mantra attempt to carry on.
My favorite moments were definitely watching Avi rock out at search bash
and the IMNY charity party at Black Finn sponsored by BOTW
Danny Sullivan in a Cami = HOT
March 20th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Good blog, Sheara. Great party at the Spotlight too. The guy that sang the price song in high pitch vocals was great. I ate too many of those mini-burger things that wre being carried around.
Thanks for the free drinks, webmaster radio!
March 20th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
[...] Recap of Search Engine Strategies NY 2008, Sheara Wilensky [...]
July 10th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Shear! I like your blog, looks great with info on two of my fav things(seo & nyc). Question: Why so many no follow tags? And what did Jill do to get an exception?