Good morning readers! It’s late December again and the search conferences have come to a finish, which means like in 2005 and 2006, Search Engine Journal will be hosting and holding our annual Search Blogs Awards.
Our last two years of Search Blogs Awards were a grand success, with corporate, industry and private bloggers walking away with the honor of top blog of their niche search marketing grouping, as voted by their peers.
Search Engine Journal is now opening nominations for blogs to be included for this year’s Search Blogs Awards in the following categories:
- Best SEO Blog
- Best SEM Blog
- Best SEO Plugin for WordPress
- Best Search Agency Resource Blog
- Best Link Building Blog
- Best Social Media Marketing or Optimization Blog
- Best Local Search Blog
- Best Video Search Blog
- Best Mobile Search Blog
- Best Google Blog Not Owned by Google
- Best Search Engine Corporate Blog (owned by the search engines)
- Best Contextual Advertising Blog
- Best Affiliate Marketing Blog
- Best Search Engine Community/Forum
- Best New Search Engine of 2007
- Best Search Engine Research Blog
- Best Search Linkbait of 2007
- Breakout Blog of 2007
- Best Search Conference Coverage of 2007
- Best Search Conference Coverage in Photos
- Best Search Marketing Facebook Group
- Most Giving Search Blogger
- Best Independent Search Blog (not owned by media company or marketing agency)
- Best Search Blog Post of 2007
To nominate blogs, please leave a comment below with the category and your favorite blogs : You can nominate as many blogs as you want (but if someone has already listed one, please don’t feel like you have to list it again).
Nominations will be open until December 21st and voting will being on December 26th and run until December 29th. We’ll then make the winning announcements on January 2nd, 2008.
We’ll be adding some surprise categories into the mix again which should spice up the competition a bit and like 2006, we’ll be giving away blog badges to the proud award recipients.
Very easy choices indeed:
Best Search Linkbait of 2007
http://searchengines.wordpress.com/
Best SEO Blog
seoptimization.blog.com/
Best Search Engine Research Blog -
Most Giving Search Blogger
SEO by the SEA
Best Search Conference Coverage of 2007
SERoundtable
Best Google Blog Not Owned by Google
MCutts (technically not owned by Google, itself)
Best Search Engine Community/Forum Blog
Blogoscoped FORUMS
Best Search Engine Corporate Blog (owned by the search engines)
Tie: Google official Blog and Ysearchblog
Best SEO Blog – seomoz
Best SEO Plugin for WordPress
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
Best Search Engine Corporate Blog (owned by the search engines) – Google Webmaster blog
Best Affiliate Marketing Blog – johnchow.com
Best Search Engine Community/Forum Blog – sphinn
• Best Search Engine Research Blog
Dan and Hamlet
• Best Search Engine Community/Forum
Sphinn
• Best Search Conference Coverage of 2007
Tamar and Lisa
• Most Giving Search Blogger
Bill
You should have a “Pamphlets” category ;)
Feel free to submit your own blogs too!
Loren, when you ask that nicely ;)
• Best search related pamphlets
I hereby selfishly submit my blog.
I hearby selfishly nominate Facebook Whores for SEO, SMO and SEM Awareness as Best Search Marketing Facebook Group. It is run by myself and grawolf… the group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2239441134 has 670 members, over 30 discussion topics with over 140 posts within them, has nine posted items, 115 wall posts and five custom created cover arts ;-)
* Best SEO Blog – SEOmoz (http://www.seomoz.org/blog)
* Best SEM Blog – Search Engine Land (http://searchengineland.com)
* Best Link Building Blog – The Link Spiel (http://thelinkspiel.blogspot.com)
* Best Social Media Marketing or Optimization Blog – Search Engine Guide (http://www.searchengineguide.com)
* Best Local Search Blog – Small Business SEM (http://www.smallbusinesssem.com)
* Best Google Blog Not Owned by Google – Google Blogoscoped (http://blogoscoped.com)
* Best Search Engine Corporate Blog – Official Google Blog (http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs)
* Best Affiliate Marketing Blog – 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Blog (http://affiliate-blogs.5staraffiliateprograms.com)
* Best Search Engine Community/Forum – Sphinn (http://sphinn.com)
* Best Search Engine Research Blog – SEO By the Sea (http://www.seobythesea.com)
* Best Search Linkbait of 2007 – SEOmoz Marketplace (http://www.seomoz.org/marketplace)
* Breakout Blog of 2007 – Ask the SEO Guru [Bob Massa] (http://massa.techndu.com)
* Best Search Conference Coverage of 2007 – Search Engine Roundtable (http://www.seroundtable.com)
* Best Search Conference Coverage in Photos – Search Marketing Gurus (http://www.searchmarketinggurus.com)
* Best Independent Search Blog – Marketing Pilgrim (http://www.marketingpilgrim.com)
* Best Search Blog Post of 2007 – The Paid Links Industry Needs To Go Underground (http://www.searchrank.com/blog/2007/10/paid-links-industry-needs-to-go-underground.html)
Oohh… need to add one more -
* Best Search Conference Coverage of 2007 – Lisa Barone of Bruce Clay Blog (http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/)
Word Up Rae! Thanks David.
Sebastian, we’re not going to have a category for Best Pamphlets, but good try :)
Looks like my big list didn’t make it. Try to submit and it says is is duplicate. Is it sitting in review que?
Hey Loren–
If self-nomination is fine, Search Engine Land would like to be considered for Best SEO and Best SEM Blog. Sphinn’s already been mentioned in the forum category, cool! Not sure if we’d make it for best independent search blog — do you mean run by an individual or a group of individuals (ala Search Marketing Gurus?).
I’ll make it easy on some of the others:
http://searchengineland.com/#blogroll
That’s our blogroll by category (such as Google related blogs not run by Google or social media marketing blogs), and I think folks there all make a good shortlist for nominations.
Google Operating System and Google Blogoscoped should be considered fro
Best SEO Blog
seowrite.blogsome.com
Danny, a group of individuals would make a fine Independent Blog nomination. My thinking here is to show some love for the people out there covering search marketing who are not representing a specific marketing firm, conference or media organization. So we’re out of the mix :)
Looking for the next SEObytheSEA! Kind of a fuzzy classification, but hopefully some diamonds will become unearthed.
David Wallace, looks like you fell victim to Akismet … taking care of that now.
Thanks for the suggestions.
If self nomination is fine :) , I’d like to nominate my Robots Meta plugin as the best WordPress SEO plugin ! And I’d like to suggest a Best SEO Tooling blog category ;)
Good luck to everyone, and Loren: thx for running this competition again!
http://searchengineland.com/
Yeah, that makes sense, Loren — the Love Not Money Search Blogger Category :)
* Best SEO Blog – Sebastian`s Pamphlets (I can’t think of any blog that pumps out as many actionable articles that are 100% unique content)
* Best SEM Blog – SEL
* Best SEO Plugin for WordPress – Simple Tags http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-tags/
* Best Search Agency Resource Blog – Bruce Clay
* Best Link Building Blog – WebuildPages
* Best Social Media Marketing or Optimization Blog – Pronet Advertising
* Best Local Search Blog – Andrew Shortland http://localseoguide.com/
* Best Google Blog Not Owned by Google – Google Blogoscoped
* Best Search Engine Corporate Blog (owned by the search engines) – based upon the resources they have available, they could all do better.
* Best Affiliate Marketing Blog – Revenews
* Best New Search Engine of 2007
* Best Search Engine Research Blog – SEO By The Sea
* Breakout Blog of 2007 – Doshdosh
* Best Search Conference Coverage of 2007 – SERoundTable
* Best Search Conference Coverage in Photos – Toprank
* Most Giving Search Blogger – Aaron Wall
* Best Independent Search Blog (not owned by media company or marketing agency) – SEJ and SEG
* Best Search Blog Post of 2007
http://www.seofaststart.com/blog/google-proxy-hacking
I didn’t do bad on the links for my first pagerank update post or my list of dofollow plugins, but it is hard to gauge the success of linkbait if a blog already has a lot of attention.
Whatever… don’t nominate Jason Calacanis ;)
Best SEO Blog – Search Engine Land (http://searchengineland.com)
Best SEM Blog – Search Engine Land (http://searchengineland.com)
Jonathan
Best Local Search Blog http://www.blumenthals.com/blog/
My self nomination is http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/blog/dsc00001-what-do-people-take-pictures-of-first/ for best search linkbait & blogstorm for best linkbuilding & breakout blog of 2007.
selfmademinds.com for breakout blog & best contextual advertising blog.
Shoemoney for best affiliate blog
Best Search Engine Corporate Blog – Yahoo! Search Blog.
Best SEO Blog SEOmoz
Best SEM Blog Search Engine Watch Experts
Best Search Agency Resource Blog MarketLeap
Best Link Building Blog WeBuildPages
Best Social Media Marketing or Optimization Blog stuntdubl
Best Search Engine Community/Forum Search Engine Watch Forums
Best New Search Engine of 2007 Was there one?
Best Search Linkbait of 2007 Neil Patel – Miss Link Whore 2007
Best Search Conference Coverage of 2007 SERoundtable
Best Search Conference Coverage in Photos
SEOmoz cartoons
Best Search Marketing Facebook Group
Facebook Whores for SEO, SMO and SEM Awareness – Rae Hoffman
Most Giving Search Blogger
Aaron Wall
Best Search Blog Post of 2007
Terry Semel’s resignation
My vote for best Local blog goes to Matt McGee of Small Business SEM, but I do think that Greg Sterling, http://gesterling.wordpress.com, should get serious consideration.
Best Breakout Blog – Pat Sexton, SEOish.com. He may not have a lot of readership (or he might have a lot of readership, I don’t know) but from what I can tell, he’s so far ahead of the game wrt Google Gadgets and OpenSocial, I think he should be considered.
I vote for http://www.seroundtable.com/
http://blogstorm.co.uk/ by Patrick Altoft
best seo blog
best sem blog
Most Giving Search Blogger
Alrighty, I’ll go out on a limb and submit myself into the SEO category.
http://www.slightlyshadyseo.com
See how it goes I guess :-)
Surely Charles Knight and altsearchengines.com deserve a couple dozen mentions here? He’s a friend and I’m biased, but I think there’s a legitimate case:
Best local, video, mobile (heck, best anything vertical)
Best new search engine (or at least the source to find the best new search engine)
Best research (if you want your research to extend beyond the Big Five)
Definitely Breakout Blog
and Most Giving… where would those thousand Alts be without him?
Best Breakout Blog and Best Social Media Marketing: CenterNetworks
http://www.centernetworks.com
Best SEO – Searchengineland
http://searchengineland.com
For best Local Search blog, I shamelessly nominate myself, The Praized blog (http://www.praized.com/blog) but I also nominate Greg Sterling (http://gesterling.wordpress.com), Peter Krasilovsky (http://localonliner.com/) and The Kelsey Group’s blog (http://blog.kelseygroup.com/)
Best Search Engine Research Blog:
SEOBYTHESEA
This is really tempting …
For now -
Trying to find herself blog … vanessafoxnude.com
Funniest blog … (still under snow)
sugarrae.com
Best forum for SEO / SEM … OK, sphinn.com
Ugh … were these categories?
Good luck to all from the …
Most likely to break out 2008 blog :)
* Best SEO Blog – SERoundtable
* Best SEM Blog – Top Rank Blog
* Best Link Building Blog – The Link Speil
* Best Social Media Marketing or Optimization Blog – Quick Sprout
* Best Google Blog Not Owned by Google – Google Blogoscoped
* Best Search Engine Corporate Blog – Official Google Blog
* Best Affiliate Marketing Blog – Shoe Money
* Best Search Engine Community/Forum – Cre8aSite
* Best New Search Engine of 2007 – PeekYou
* Best Search Engine Research Blog – SEO by the Sea
* Breakout Blog of 2007 – SEOpittfall (selfish)
* Best Search Conference Coverage of 2007 – SERoundtable
* Most Giving Search Blogger – SEObook
I haven’t kept up with what’s already been nom, please excuse any dupes…
* Best SEO Blog: http://www.wolf-howl.com/
* Best Search Agency Resource Blog – I don’t even know what the hell that means…
* Best Link Building Blog: http://www.justilien.com/
* Best Social Media Marketing or Optimization Blog: http://www.wolf-howl.com
* Best Local Search Blog: http://www.smallbusinesssem.com
* Best Search Engine Corporate Blog (owned by the search engines): http://www.ypnblog.com (say what you want about YPN, but they work their asses off on that blog)
* Best Contextual Advertising Blog: http://www.problogger.net
* Best Search Engine Community/Forum: http://www.webmasterworld.com
* Best Search Linkbait of 2007: shameless self promotion: http://www.sugarrae.com/five-link-development-experts-a-group-interview/ or
* Breakout Blog of 2007: http://www.vanessafoxnude.com (post Google), http://www.tropicalseo.com
* Best Search Conference Coverage of 2007: http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/ (tamar is good, but Lisa and Susan as a team have to get this vote from me)
* Best Search Conference Coverage in Photos: http://www.toprankblog.com (their flickr account)
* Best Search Marketing Facebook Group: ahem, http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2239441134
* Most Giving Search Blogger: http://www.seobook.com, http://www.copyblogger.com
* Best Independent Search Blog (not owned by media company or marketing agency): I’ll say me, http://www.sugarrae.com because I’m so not ;-)
Loren, you’re missing a “Best Search Industry News” blog category–where can our pilgrims nominate us?
I guess best Independent Search blog for Marketing Pilgrim.
And how about another self nomination for “Best Search Conference Coverage in Photos” – even Matt Cutts said we took the best photo of him evah! http://www.flickr.com/photos/sel/sets/72157603377494914/
Others from me:
Best SEO Blog – SEOmoz
Best SEO Plugin for WordPress – there can be only one, Stephen Spencer’s.
Best Search Engine Community/Forum – Webmasterworld
Breakout Blog of 2007 – Andy Beard
Loren, I think my full nom list was caught in akismet…
I guess I’d have to say either conference coverage or conference photo coverage for TopRank. We’ve posted over 1000 photos from 9 conferences since SES San Jose 2007.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/toprankblog/sets/
It’s been a blast!
SEOmoz and SEObook for best SEO blog. Sphinn and WebmasterWorld for community. WebProNews for industry news.
Lee, for the record, I nominated you in my list for that cat, but it didn’t post and when I try to post it again, it won’t saying it’s a dupe – am assuming I’m caught in Loren’s spam filter… I hope he unearths the post, because there were a lot of first time noms on there.
can I self nominate for “Best Search Conference Coverage in Photos “…. I can update this page more in a couple of days.
http://www.webuildpages.com/marketing-resources/
Best Search Conference Coverage of 2007
http://www.toprankblog.com/
Best Search Conference Coverage in Photo
http://www.flickr.com/photos/toprankblog/
Thanks Aerobe. You too Rae, am looking forward to seeing your list.
AltSearchEngines by Charles Knight gotta be the one.
It is an excellent comprehensive portal, and the winners here will be mostly, if not all, mentioned there somehow!
Cheers.
Hany
Maybe it would be good to differentiate between Diggbait and linkbait.
Even that Google.com designed for Google post I submitted to Digg only gained 340 links according to Technorati, with 4800+ Diggs.
Then again, you wouldn’t want it to be dominated by popular WordPress themes which gain 10000+ links.
I was looking at that earlier too Andy… the post I nominated for best linkbait only had 280+ diggs, but gained 1200 backlinks according to Yahoo (adding up the old url of the post and the links to the new url of the post – it was 301′ed when site structure was changed)… digg worthy doesn’t always equal links.
I humbly nominate my blog for “Best Local Search Blog “: http://www.localbizbits.com
Thank you for your consideration.
I’d like to nominate my own blog for Best Link Building Blog.
:P
http://www.martinibuster.net/
Best Search Engine Research Blog: AltSearchEngines.com
Most Giving Search Blogger: Charles Knight – AltSearchEngines.com
Best New Search Engine of 2007: WikiAnswers.com
best conference coverage and photo gallery
Shoemoney
http://www.shoemoney.com/gallery/main.php
Its not the best of 07….but it will be the best of 08 :)
I wonder about what a good way to evaluate “Best Search Linkbait of 2007″ would be?
Most links?
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors – has about 9,000 links according to Yahoo!
http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml – has 5,000
http://www.seobook.com/bloggers – has 9,400
http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html – has 13,300
http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0 – has 766,000
http://www.google.com/search?q=inurl%3Acopyblogger+site%3Acopyblogger.com – Copyblogger has ten posts that have more than 2,000 links apiece.
Personally, I liked http://www.sugarrae.com/five-link-development-experts-a-group-interview/ a bunch, but Yahoo! shows only 80 links or so.
For best breakout or seo blog I nominate wingnutseo.com
for me, all these nominations go to http://searchengineland.com
i enjoy reading Danny Sullivan’s crew.
Loren,
Here are my nominees: (Includes us too )
* Best SEO Blog: http://www.pagetrafficblog.com
* Best SEM Blog: http://www.pagetrafficblog.com
* Best Search Agency Resource Blog: http://www.pagetrafficblog.com
* Best Social Media Marketing or Optimization Blog: http://www.pronetadvertising.com/
* Best Google Blog Not Owned by Google: http://blogoscoped.com/
* Best Search Engine Corporate Blog (owned by the search engines): http://www.ysearchblog.com/
* Best Search Engine Community/Forum: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/
* Best New Search Engine of 2007: http://www.mahalo.com/
* Best Search Conference Coverage of 2007: http://www.searchengineroundtable.com/
* Best Search Conference Coverage in Photos: http://www.toprankblog.com/
* Best Independent Search Blog (not owned by media company or marketing agency): Searchengineland
Can I nominate myself and Danny for “Most Giving Search Blogger”?
If you guys knew the amount of work Danny and I put in to find and aggregate all the SEO/SEM and Search blog posts through the day, you would understand.
We give so much to the industry, day in and day out – consistently.
* Best SEO Blog – SERoundtable
* Best SEM Blog – Search Engine Land
* Best Link Building Blog – The Link Speil
* Best Social Media Marketing or Optimization Blog – Techipedia & SEOmoz
* Best Google Blog Not Owned by Google – Google Blogoscoped
* Best Search Engine Corporate Blog – Official Google Blog
* Best Local Search Blog – ScreenWerks (Greg Sterling)
* Best Affiliate Marketing Blog – ShoeMoney
* Best Search Engine Community/Forum – Sphinn & WebmasterWorld
* Best Breakout Blog – Pat Sexton, SEOish.com
* Best Search Engine Research Blog – SEO by the Sea
* Best Search Conference Coverage of 2007 – SERoundtable & BruceClay & Online Marketing Blog
* Best Independent Search Blog – Marketing Pilgrim & SERoundtable
* Most Giving Search Blogger – Danny Sullivan and Barry Schwartz (selfish)
Best SEM – http://www.semgeek.com
Best Independent Search Blog – http://www.searchmarketinggurus.com
Breakout Blog 2007 – http://www.semoe.com
Actually Rand, that post has over 1,000 backlinks… I changed the url structure of the blog like a month or two ago… the current url has about 80ish: http://www.sugarrae.com/five-link-development-experts-a-group-interview/ but the OLD url: http://www.sugarrae.com/blog/five-link-development-experts-a-group-interview/ has over 1000 on its own. ;-)
For links I will nomination Wiep (great weekly link coverage) and myself
http://wiep.net/
http://www.justilien.com/
Sigh. Justlien, I nominated you too… as an FYI… so you know your work went noticed… but my noms haven’t appeared and I’m guessing Loren has been MIA since I started complaining about it.
Best local search blog:
http://www.seo4china.com/blog
Thanks Rae! Much appreciated
My big list of nom’s isn’t showing up either…
Best SEO Blog: Search Engine Land (http://searchengineland.com)
Best SEM Blog: Search Engine Watch (http://www.searchenginewatch.com)
Best SEO Plugin for WordPress: I’m on Mephisto and prefer MT; N/A
Best Search Agency Resource Blog: Search Engine Watch (http://www.searchenginewatch.com)
Best Link Building Blog: Matt Cutts (http://mattcutts.com/blog) (not strictly a link building blog, but the most authoritative one out there, I think)
Best Social Media Marketing or Optimization Blog: Inside Facebook (http://www.insidefacebook.com)
Best Local Search Blog: Screenwerk (gesterling.wordpress.com/)
Best Video Search Blog: Google Webmaster Central Blog (googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/) (not strictly a video search blog, but has great video search tactics on occasion)
Best Mobile Search Blog: Natural Search and Mobile SEO (http://www.brysonmeunier.com) (since self nomination is acceptable and I don’t know many Mobile SEO Blogs. If we’re just talking mobile and not strictly search I’d go with moconews.net)
Best Google Blog Not Owned by Google: Vanessa Fox Nude (http://vanessafoxnude.com)
Best Search Engine Corporate Blog (owned by the search engines): Google Webmaster Central Blog
Best Contextual Advertising Blog: N/A
Best Affiliate Marketing Blog: N/A
Best Search Engine Community/Forum: Sphinn (http://sphinn.com)
Best New Search Engine of 2007: Hulu (http://www.hulu.com)
Best Search Engine Research Blog: SEO by the SEA (http://www.seobythesea.com)
Best Search Linkbait of 2007: http://www.vanessafoxnude.com/2007/09/11/why-the-seomoz-seo-quiz-is-completely-wrong/
Breakout Blog of 2007: http://GoodURLBadURL.com
Best Search Conference Coverage of 2007: TopRank (http://www.toprankblog.com)
Best Search Conference Coverage in Photos: TopRank
Best Search Marketing Facebook Group: SEMPO
Most Giving Search Blogger: Danny Sullivan, Barry Schwartz and Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land
Best Independent Search Blog (not owned by media company or marketing agency): Search Insider (http://blogs.mediapost.com/search_insider/)
Best Search Blog Post of 2007: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/universal-search-best-answer-is-still.html
> Can I nominate myself and Danny for “Most Giving Search Blogger”?
“Most sharing SEO blogger” made me think of sharing technical research only, so I forgot about the news, interesting forum threads aggregation and all that. :(
Best Social Media Marketing or Optimization Blog:
http://danzarrella.com
hmmmm…. Need a spot for Mr. Bill – ooo noooooo
* Best Techincal Search Blog – Seo by the Sea
(honorable mention – SEO Theory by MM)
Oh…. and how about this;
* Best Awards Show – Jeff and Dave’s Excellent Sphinn Adventure (the Sphinn Awards part I and II)
ha ha ha hah a…. O, don’t get me started on awards again….
Happy Holidays all!!!!
Rae, Debra and all : Interesting that Akismet is blocking some of these lists and not others; it’s a great program for blocking the good stuff and letting through the other crap :)
I’m going through the comments right now which are pending.
Thanks for your participation, I was pulled away holiday shopping last night.