Note to self…. if you want to get a table spot up front for keynotes and sessions then get there early. As I type I am sandwiched between two large gentlemen and fighting for space. At least I am not standing like the handfuls of people swaggering in late!

Danny Sullivan launches the event today with a quick history behind the creation of SMX and a rundown of the tools like SMX connect and the rest of the event.

Now the keynote, Search 3.0, 4.0, and beyond! These numbers (2.0, 3.0, etc) note the improvements in search over the past few years. 2.o notes the beginning of link analysis and off-page factors that were of course quickly gamed by early SEOs. This spawned the evolution of PageRank and anchor text. Anyone remember “miserable failure?” This was an era of manipulation.

Search 3.0

3.o marks the beginning of blended results and the idea that the answer to everything is not in a Web page alone, but should include images and other specialized vertical searches intertwined. Google Universal, Ask 3D morph, and Yahoo! Answers, are just some of the examples of this. The idea is that PageRank is dead and that optimizing for specific vertical searches is the future. Heck, who wouldn’t like to claim the top spots for your keywords with a Web, image, video, news, and product search result? The relevancy of each vertical’s results are measured against others. With local search now taking up the top 10 spots and with product search results showing up in the same prime real estate, it is crucial that you optimize not only for Web search but also the other verticals!

Search 4.0

Search 4.0 is all about personal search and social search. Now this is where it gets scary, this means that the search engines will know ALOT about you. Results are reordered based on what is deemed to be your personal preferences, shifting the rankings up and down based on what they think you like. iGoogle is a great example of this, along with Google Bookmarks, search history, etc. I kind of have a problem with this level of search for a few reasons. The first being privacy issues and the second being, how the heck am I going to optimize against personalized SERPS! Another thing is that what if the search engine is totally wrong about what they “think” you want? No thanks, I like to do my own searching.

Search 5.0

OK, search 5.0 equals human refinement! Now I like this idea. Mahalo.com is making a great attempt at this as well as Search Wikia. When you type in search for current events like this year’s Malibu fires Google was still showing the news results from the Malibu fires a few years back. While MSN has adapted well by showing news results for the current fires. The idea of making news “recent” is very logical and is something that search engines struggle with. I guess computers really cannot do everything. Thank God us humans are not obsolete yet!

Extra Innings

Danny goes on to cover the Microhoo merger and notes that the main reason for a merger is that by combining the traffic that both engines garner, it can allow real competition for Google. He then moves on to Video for Adwords is a cool new medium that should inject new opportunities for paid search. Next he covers the economic recession and the its impact on our industry. basically it probably will not but the jury is still out. Finally he covers the reputation of search marketing and SEO. We all know that many people have been burned by bad SEO firms and individuals. At eVisibility we hear how our clients have been burned by a former company or individual all too often. Danny notes his recent conversation with Shoemoney and the bad reputation that SEO has. He notes that despite all of this, SEO continues to grow at a good rate! The idea of creating some standards in our industry is his proposed solution to this. I argued this last night with someone and I am not sure if standards will make a huge different or not. I just have a hard time with “standards” in such a dynamic industry. If there were accepted standards they would have to change almost every month, and perhaps every week! I think that a strong track record, success in the SERPS for your own site, client references, and accountability will win the day!