Good overview of the SES conference from someone outside the SEM world.

I find the phrase “Search Marketing Has Come Of Age” amusing. You see it a lot. Translation: “the technorati are late to this party”. We’ve known the value all along, eh.

If anything, I think the golden age of search marketing has passed. The search engines, Google in particular, have a lot more control than they ever used to. Update Florida put an end to simplistic SEO. The PPC market is saturated and the spend appears to be topping out.

Still, the future looks bright as search marketing becomes more mainstream. It’s always fun when big companies with more money than sense stumble into a “hot” channel they do not understand.