Search Engine Marketing Journal

SEO digest

Last year I proposed the creation of a Journal of SEO Case Studies, but much to my frustration my duties here at Visible Technologies precluded my going forward with the project.

In February of this year I wrote: we need a truly professional journal that accepts only peer-reviewed documents. But who should be the peers? Who should be the editors? Who can afford to take the step to commit time and resources to do this?.

It appears that I was on the same wavelength as several other people, who together launched the Search Engine Marketing Journal in June. There are quite a few editors, including a number of people whose names are well known in the industry: Bruce Clay, Hamlet Batista, Will Critchlow, Eric Enge, and maybe a few others. The journal staff look like a who’s who of conference speakers, although only one is, to my knowledge, situated in the academic environment.

I cannot say I would have high expectations for the journal at this point but it’s a first step in the right direction. I’ve asked Visible Technologies to purchase a membership. Maybe they would let me submit a paper somewhere down the line (with no guarantee of acceptance, of course).

The search engine optimization industry is going to continue growing regardless of whether we have a professional standards organization, peer-reviewed journals, or an industry certification or licensing body. But there should be no doubt that the quality of professional knowledge will improve and grow if we channel both our knowledge and opinions into forums that provide thoughtful review.

The quality of a peer-reviewed journal is not determined by the fact it is peer-reviewed, but rather by the submissions it receives, the tolerance it exercises for differing points of view (provided serious consideration is made for verifiable facts), and the audience it attracts. A peer-reviewed journal that only appeals to its editors and authors is of no value to anyone, really (except in secret societies).

The SEO community needs to give this journal a chance to establish itself and build a reputation for thoroughness and professional standards. The papers that are accepted for inclusion may not necessarily reflect everyone’s opinion of what constitutes good (or bad) search engine marketing. The initial set of papers, in fact, looks rather unimpressive, as they could all easily be topics on anyone’s blog.

But where the peer-review process has a chance to raise the bar of quality is in the challenges that may be raised by people who review the papers. SEMJ’s first set of papers doesn’t include the kind of SEO case studies I would like to see, and they may never really nurture a body of case studies. But the format has made its appearance in our professional literature. We should support it and give it a chance to help our industry mature and grow.

www.seo-theory.com

published @ October 24, 2008