{"id":103728,"date":"2012-10-05T16:52:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-05T21:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/smx-east-2012-day-three-recap-search-marketing-grows-up\/"},"modified":"2025-01-03T04:48:17","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T09:48:17","slug":"smx-east-2012-day-three-recap-search-marketing-grows-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/en-gb\/insights\/blog\/strategy\/smx-east-2012-day-three-recap-search-marketing-grows-up\/","title":{"rendered":"SMX East 2012 Day Three Recap: Search Marketing Grows Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is part three\u00a0of a three-part series covering SMX (Search Marketing Expo) East 2012 at the Javits Center in Manhattan. Read part one\u00a0here<\/u>\u00a0and part two here<\/u>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Perhaps my favourite line of SMX East 2012 came from a day three-panel discussion on where SEO is going in 2013. Alex Bennert<\/a>, in-house SEO for the Wall Street Journal<\/em> <\/a>(and let me just say, what a cool job), was responding to a question on what things SEO\u2019s will need to keep in mind going into next year, and the conversation was naturally drifting into the murky waters of social signals.<\/p>\n

\u201cSearch engines are dying to replace links with social,” she said. “They\u2019re just having a really hard time.”<\/p>\n

To me, that really sums up where search marketing is and what 2013 will bring. The continuing transition to a post-link world of Search Engine Optimisation<\/a> is part of search’s long, slow march into the mainstream of strategic marketing<\/a>. The search engines (Google in particular) know that links are not the answer anymore. That\u2019s what has spurred things like the Penguin update. In this same panel discussion, Search Engine Land\u2019s Danny Sullivan <\/a>asked Bing\u2019s Senior Product Manager Duane Forrester <\/a>if links were still the most important signal. The answer was a pretty flat \u201cno.\u201d That\u2019s Bing, of course. No one from Google was on this particular panel, but their answers have been trending that way as well (Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts love to talk about the 200+ different ranking factors that go into Google\u2019s algorithm).<\/p>\n

So search is in a bit of a strange transition phase, like an NFL franchise that knows its ageing quarterback is past his prime, but the rookie from last year\u2019s draft isn\u2019t quite ready for prime time. Links are a sign of what has been wrong (and exploited) with search for a while (although they\u2019re still important and can be legitimately earned), and social signals are the promise of search experience that better understands user intent.<\/p>\n

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