SEO-Browser Updated!

We've updated the SEO-Browser!

You can now use it to visit sites from the US or Canada, which is very helpful for multi-country sites. More countries will be added later, as the demand grows.

Canada: ca.seo-browser.com
USA: us.seo-browser.com

In order to add this functionality, we had to put in a FREE one time signup. Don't worry, we don't share emails with anyone.

You can still use it in simple mode without a signup, but the advanced mode is starting to get too difficult to program without assigning users and sessions, hence the login.

Eventually, the advanced mode will add things like ranking reports, etc - all of which require user/password combinations for privacy and data storage purposes, so this is preparation for that.

Search Engine Share 2008

I just made these for a presentation, based on the latest information I have for this year. Enjoy.

Organic Search Engine Share 2008 for North America

PPC (Pay Per Click) Search Engine Share 2008 for North America

Nuclear Safety and Leadership

Although not political in nature, this post is being made in response to a current political issue in Canada. I don't want to get into politics in this blog, but sometimes politicians and government give us very good fodder for thoughts on decision making and leadership, which is the real reason for this post.

The upshot of the issue in question was that a quasi-independent commission designed to oversee the nuclear industry in Canada ordered the shutdown of the Chalk River nuclear reactor because a safety upgrade was not made in a timely manner.

Sounds pretty straightforward, right? After all, who wants an unsafe nuclear reactor in their backyard?

Turns out there is something else you need to know, however. This particular safety device is a third level backup system (the first 2 backups have to fail first) in order to prevent the reactor, not from blowing up, but from shutting down.

See, there are basically 2 ways to make a reactors - grossly oversimplifying things, the first way is to create a nuclear meltdown or explosion, then attempt to control that explosion through containment and cooling. This was the Chernobyl method. The problem is, if something goes wrong, the meltdown or explosion happens - oops.

The second method, which Canada uses, continually forces the reaction to take place. If something goes wrong, the reaction stops and the reactor shuts down - basically a dead-mans switch. Naturally, this method is far safer, since your main concern is keeping it going, rather than glowing in the dark.

Here is the second thing you need to know - this particular reactor has a very special job. You know how some reactors can make things like materials for nuclear weapons? Well, reactors can make other stuff, too. This one makes special medical isotopes. These isotopes are used to detect cancer, among other things.

The reason you can use them for this purpose is that they have a very limited shelf-life - they stop being radioactive very quickly, thereby making it relatively safe to inject into people to find problems. Because they decay so fast, you can't store them - they have to be constantly made. This reactor makes almost two-thirds of the entire worlds supply.

Because of how critical it is for this reactor to stay up and running, a third level, earthquake-proof backup was required to be installed. For reasons that are not currently clear, the company running the reactor delayed doing this. As a result, the commission shut the reactor down for not performing up to safety standards, thus causing a worldwide shortage of these medical isotopes.

When told to turn it back on, the President of the Commission, Linda Keen, refused to do so, saying that it's her job to shut down reactors that are not safe. The Canadian Parliament had to pass a law to force it back on, and just yesterday, fired her. There is now a big hue and cry over whether this was the right thing to do, which I won't get into here.

Let's look at this for a moment. I don't care about accusations of political partisanship, or any of that stuff - let's just look at the decision that was made to shut down the reactor, and why.

The reactor was shut down because of a safety issue. What was the safety issue? That unless the backup was in place, the reactor might shut down! So the disaster that these rules were in place to prevent was a reactor shutdown. What was the response to placing the reactor in a state where a disastrous shutdown might happen? To shut down the reactor.

Huh?

The response to the possibility a disaster might happen was to deliberately create the very same disaster! From "might" to "will".

This is what happens when people don't think about the big picture. This is the equivalent of fining someone for being broke, or shooting someone as punishment for wearing a bulletproof vest, because you are worried about them getting shot.

The spirit of the law was to prevent the safety issue of a reactor shut down. The letter of the law said that you should shut down the reactor if there is a safety issue. These goals are contradictory in this case. So, what do you do?

Well, you could play it safe and follow the letter of the law, but that's not leadership. Leadership is looking at what the real goal is and accomplishing it.

Ian

SEMPO International Committees

Once I joined SEMPO, I also joined a couple of committees/working groups/SIGS that struck my fancy at the time.

Since I'm the "International SEO Guy", I joined SEMPO Canada, SEMPO Latin America, and SEMPO Asia. We've already begun having meetings, and although these local SEMPO focus areas are new, there is some nice momentum going.

It's nice to see some localization happening - running things in a centralized or US-centric manner for a global market like the Internet is a bad idea, and I'm glad SEMPO has seen that. I'd like to see more, but I guess that's partly my job now (bait, fish, or get the hell out of the boat!)

Ian

November 11: Lest We Forget

My father drove a tank in Germany for NATO, my Great Uncle was Norman Bethune, who fought fascism as a doctor in China, and my many greats grandfather was General Sir Isaac Brock, who defended Canada during the war of 1812. There were many more, of lessor fame but not lessor valor.

My own military experience is far more limited - Air Cadets, militia and a civilian instructor for wilderness survival. Nonetheless, I feel a strong sense of duty to my countrymen and women, and every November 11 (Remembrance Day here in Canada) I reflect on the losses my family and my country have endured.

I don't like war, and would be more than happy to see it become extinct as a method of solving problems. Unfortunately, not everyone feels the same way, and in practice if you let bullies succeed, it just encourages more bullying. Same with warlords and warhawks.

In Canada (and the UK and Australia), we have a tradition where we wear a poppy on our lapel around Remembrance Day to symbolise our sympathies for those lost in battle, and to help support veterans, who use the money made from the poppy drive to help homeless and ill veterans. It's a really nice gesture, and one I'm astonished has not been picked up in the US.

After all, although the poppy drive gets it's symbolism from a poem written by a Canadian, it was an American schoolteacher who first started wearing them, followed by a French woman who used them to raise money for war orphans. It was only after this , in 1921, that Canadian veterans associations began to use it.

Regardless, I'm posting a poppy on this blog (below) and am virtually giving one to everyone I know - not in support of war, but in remembrance of those lost in war, and in the hope that one day the world will be a better place.

Peace,

Ian

Canada e-Connect Show

I just got back from speaking at the Canada e-Connect show, which was actually several events (and several firsts) all rolled into one. First, there was the inauguaral meeting of the Canada e-Tourism Council. Then there was the show itself, and then there was the Canadian e-Tourism Awards.

I'm not a member of the e-Tourism Council, and it was a closed session, so I can't report much on what happened there, other than everyone apparently was concerned about content - it's quality, availability and use.

The Canada e-Connect show was great. It was backed heavily by Yahoo! Canada and other sponsors, and was very informative. I was pretty humbled because one of the articles written by the Vancouver Sun about the conference mentioned me. I get mentioned a lot around the web, but when a newsreporter only quotes 3 people, including me, and the other two are Flight Centre vice-president Sean Sutherland and Expedia Canada managing director Sean Shannon, that's pretty lofty company.

As an aside, planning and organization for the event was almost flawless, not only was it the best inaugural conference on any topic I've ever been to, it was probably the best organized conference I've ever been to, period.

Jens Thraenhart, the mastermind behind all 3 events and Canada's rockstar of e-Tourism, did an amazing job putting it all together.




The e-Tourism Awards were incredible. They took place in Vancouvers Omnimax Theatre.

If you don't know what Omnimax is, it makes IMAX look small and malnourished. You are seated inside a large globe and the movie covers almost all of our field of vision.

It must be seen to be believed, and they played several clips that were absolutely breathtaking, including a small clip from an upcoming destination film starring a steam locomotive going through Canada's Rocky Mountains.


Speaking of breathtaking, both Miss Canada International 2008 Alesia Fieldberg and Miss Canada International 2003 Lorenza Sammarelli were on hand to help hand out the awards, and to help plug Teddy Bears of Hope.

During the after-event party at the Coast, I just *had* to get my picture taken sitting in Yahoo's purple Chair of Innovation.

Ian

SMA-NA Dissolved

It's with a very heavy heart that I was forced to dissolve the Search Marketing Association of North America (SMA-NA) today.

I'm the last man standing from the Board, and the only communications I've received from members recently have been requests to cancel their subscriptions. So that's it. I really wish it were different.

The History

The SMA-UK was started back in late 2004 as a response to several issues, notably concerns over SEMPO's teething problems. I had been contributing to SEMPO to this point but had grown disenchanted with some aspects of it as well, so, I flew to Stansted, England around Christmas 2004 to meet with them with the express idea of founding a North American chapter - the SMA-NA. Mike Grehan was instrumental was providing help and encouragement during this stage.

At first, there was a lot of interest and excitement about a new search marketing organization, and I remember the early meetings being full of lively conversation and lots of ideas. At this point a veritable "Who's Who" in SEO stood up to help out: Christine Churchill, Debra Mastaler, Andrew Goodman, Ben Pfeiffer, Fionn Downhill, Bill Slawski, Beth Abernathy, Karl Ribas, Ignacio (Nacho) Hernandez, Kim Krause Berg, Jeff Nelson, Barry Welford, Rand Fishkin, Eric Martin, Matt Service and too many others to list, but not to appreciate greatly! (Yes, I know that there are a couple of errors in the membership list - I'll fix them as soon as I can).

The Current Situation

The problem, I think, is that we started off with the idea that search marketing association should be readily available to everyone who wanted to join. This means low membership fees. The problem is, that means restricted access to resources due to a lack of money and a subsequently higher reliance on volunteers from an extremely busy industry. Worse, we didn't want to appear beholden to large money-rich sponsors (such as search engines, etc) that may attempt to control or direct the organization, so we were not very aggressive in looking for sponsors. This all combined into a significant cash crunch, even though we used as much volunteer time as possible, traded services (ie hosting) for memberships and hired a part-time employee to do updates rather than a full-time management staff.

The other members of the board held on for as long as they could, but there was just so long that they could try to run their own businesses as well as the SMA-NA. Myself, I've been getting very busy as well, and combining this with my recent health problems, it simply is not reasonable to continue attempting to run the organization. It's also unreasonable to expect members paying fees in return for few benefits outside of a nice link and some discounts, and very little communication.

In the meantime, SEMPO has hired professional managers and the initial concerns I had 2 years ago are no longer as valid as they once were. The remaining concerns can probably be addressed internally. In short, I'm fighting problem that really doesn't exist with an organization that in most practical aspects also doesn't exist. No matter how strongly I feel about the goals of the SMA, it's come to the point where I feel I can make more of a contribution to the industry using other methods and processes, and this is where I feel I should focus my efforts to promote and engage this industry I love and am so deeply a part of.

What's Next

From an administrative standpoint, I will maintain my position of President of the SMA-NA long enough to properly wind it down, pay it's remaining bills and so on, but I will not be actively engaged in anything else SMA-NA related.

On one hand, this is a very sad day for me, but on the other hand, I believe that the fact that we are at this stage means that this industry is growing and maturing, and that the issues of the past are no longer holding us back from dealing with the problems and challenges of the future.

Ian McAnerin

Wordpress Sux, Blogger Rulz!

Well, not really - but I made you look ;)

Seriously, there is someone with, uh, "issues" who decided that it would be cool to get attention by cracking a bunch of blogs run by some of the most well-known names in the SEO community.

The common theme was that all of the ones cracked so far were made using an older version of Wordpress, which has a security hole that has since been patched in the newest release, but many people have apparently not upgraded to yet.

I'm carefully using the term "crack" rather than "hack" or "hacked" because so far this is nothing but script-kiddy stuff, rather than a more skilled hacker attack. The code for the crack (and news of the vulnerability) has been available for a week now.

Part of the weirdness about this is that he listed all the sites he was planning on going after and announced he was going to do it, which of course got him banned by Wordpress. He's now on a Blogger account, but I doubt that will last long, either.

I find it interesting that Wordpress is so popular among SEO bloggers. I've never used it myself (I don't consider myself a blogger - I just happen to have a blog. Yes, I think there is a distinction.) but so far whenever I've looked around Wordpress seems to be pretty high on most SEO's software lists.

Me, I'm using good ol' Blogger, the get's-no-respect "geo-cities" of the blogging world. Thing is, I like it, for the most part. It's easy to use, especially the newest version, it's on a completely different IP range/server from my main site, and it gets spidered and indexed by Google very, very quickly.

It's not perfect, of course. Forget trying to access it in China. Some scripts and widgets just don't seem to like my template (I gave up trying to install a flash based Flickr widget) and it doesn't seem to remember who I am no matter how many times I log in and check "Remember Me'. The rest of Googles sites remember me, but not Blogger. For shame.

I'd feel an urge to go "neener, neener" to those who got cracked, in the same way that someone driving a Ford Pinto by a broken down BMW might, except 1) I've had sites cracked before and I know how it feels, 2) just because this guy started with Wordpress doesn't mean that Blogger doesn't have security issues, and 3) I'm probably going to use Wordpress at some point in the future for something, and I'd like to avoid jinxing it ;)

For now, I'll just lend my sympathy to those who it happened to, and to hope the guy who did this gets the professional psychiatric help he apparently needs.

More:

http://www.jason-roe.com/blog/stuntdubl-marketing-consulting-hacked-seos-a-target/
http://searchengineland.com/070115-182610.php
http://www.threadwatch.org/node/11333

So far, the only information that has become available is that he is probably from Canada (Hamilton, Ontario) and using Bell as a connection - which isn't a lot to go on , especially as anyone with any brains would do this stuff from a public internet connection, rather than a home IP address.

He also claims to be an SEO, though the claims and the manner he's making them make me think that's a red herring. Oh well.

Bottom-line, someone actually thinks it's cool to be a lamer, so we are dealing with an immature kid who needs a spanking and to be grounded from playing with daddy's computer.

Ian

Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada

Well, I just got back from Whitehorse - it was great! Whitehorse is the capital city of the Yukon Territory of Canada, and the most north I've ever been.

For those of you more familiar with US geography, the Yukon is the Canadian Territory that is right beside Alaska. As a matter of fact, the Klondike (of the famous Klondike Goldrush fame) is roughly the area that is the border between the two. Goldrush history pretty much defines the area.

Since it's pretty far north, my general concept of the place before visiting was freezing snow in the winter, and mosquitoes in the summer. Well, I can vouch for the mosquitoes, at least. But there is more, of course.

The city is surprisingly small - you can walk from end to end in less than an hour. It's very much a government and tourist town. I was there giving a seminar on Web 2.0 for the government, but also took some time to act as a tourist.

Some Highlights and Observations:

North of 60 is also known as "The Land of the Midnight Sun" - and it's true. This is a pic of my watch (and the town) a few seconds after midnight, and below is a picture of me around roughly midnight. I was able to walk around town and take photos in the natural sunlight until I went to bed at around 2AM!

Food: I always try to eat locally whever I travel, so I made sure I tried some local stuff - I had Muskox and Halibut at the Klondike Rib and Salmon BBQ, Caribou at the Westmark, and Bannock (Indian bread) at the Talisman, a Native-owned eatery. But for the life of me, I could not find sourdough pancakes anywhere! Weird.

Housing: During the building of the Alaska Highway, they ran out of space for all the workers, and the Log Cabin Skyscraper was born. There is one of these in Whitehorse, and it's a very strange sight indeed. Another interesting site was the use of sod on many of the log buildings - yup, that's grass growing on that roof!

Entertainment: Well, although the most popular pastimes in the area appear to be hiking, fishing and partying until the sun goes down (about 6 months from now), I was tired, so I just took in a show - The Frantic Follies, as vaudeville review (including CanCan Dancers) based in the Westmark Hotel. One of my favorite parts was the rendition of the "Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert Service (a famous writer of the Canadian north), and the very, very funny skits involving audience members.

You know, between the belly dancers in China and the CanCan dancers in the Klondike, I'm starting to notice a pattern in my travel entertainment. I sure hope my wife doesn't...

Shopping: I like to buy local souvenirs, of course. I got the kids some cool prospecting pans with real gold dust and my wife a necklace made from genuine mammoth ivory. For myself, I bought a soapstone card holder with an inukshuk on it, an ulu (traditional Inuit knife) and a nice shirt from The Main Man.

One thing that stood out clearly while shopping that that all the shop personnel were genuinely friendly and helpful, not only for their own wares, but in directing me to other shops when they didn't have what I was looking for. The salesgirl at the Main Man even phoned all over town on my behalf in order to help me in my (ultimately failed) quest of sourdough pancakes. She really went above and beyond, and it's appreciated.

History and Culture: Well, it's a small town, and fairly recent by global standards, so there isn't a huge history, but what there is, is wild and fascinating (kind of like a colder Las Vegas). The goldrush, cabin fever, ruthless criminal gangs, fearless NWMP (Canadian Mounties), etc.

They do have the orginal cabin the Sam McGee lived in - that's cool.

The poetry of Robert Service ("The Bard of the Yukon"), is a very interesting series of stories that tell about life back then. Read them - they are worth it. My favorites:

The Cremation of Sam McGee (funny)
The Law of the Yukon (tough)
The Men That Don't Fit In (my favorite - sad, though)
The Ballad of The Black Fox Skin (traditional myth)
My Friends (really good - another huge favorite)

Actually, I like almost everything he wrote (19 books of verse), but that's a good sampler. The actual book I bought was "The Best Of Robert Service".

Trivia: in the local parlance, if you are not native, you are either a "Sourdough"(tough and experienced local/prospector type) or a "Cheechako" (technically a foreigner, but generally just a spoiled, lily-livered, city-folk tourist type...).

Ian

Hello from whitehorse

I'm in Whitehorse right now :)

Canada Online Revealed

I speak and moderate at a fair number of conferences, so an engagment is nothing I normally blog about. However, I'm rather excited to facilitate at the Canada Online Revealed conference.

The Canadian Tourism Commission has invited the Canadian Federal Provinces for a CTC E-Marketing Summit to discuss how we can all work together to market Canada to the world by leveraging the Internet. This is by-invite only event.

Attendees may choose two from six topical tracks, which are a combination of short presentations and "speed-dating" interactions with the presenters.

It sounds like fun. I'll be a facilitator for a star studded panel:

Exploring the difference between Search Marketing and Online Advertising in Canada & USA

What is the difference between Search in Canada & the US and how can you effectively market your hotel or travel company on search verticals?

Facilitator: Ian McAnerin - President, Search Marketing Association of North America

Vince Chirico - Google
John Manning - Genie Knows
Jennifer Koo - West Jet
David Doucette - Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
Bryan Mavrow - Intrawest

Ian

Ian Blows Up in Fiery Explosion!!!!

So I was flying back from SES NYC yesterday and had an interesting near death experience I'd like to share.

I flew in from NY, landed at Pearson in Toronto, and was in the process of switching to my final flight to Calgary. I got onto my plane, sat down, buckled up my seat belt, and waited....

After a REALLY long time, the captains voice came on.

"Folks, this is your Captain speaking. There appears to be a fuel truck that has flipped over on the runway behind us. We'll need to wait here for a while".

As I sat there, thinking about the fact that I was on a jet aircraft, and how jets are really hot and fiery, and any fuel truck, flipped or not, should try to avoid being behind one, the captain came back on the intercom. Apparently he agreed with my assessment.

"Folks, I think it would be best if we offloaded the plane. Please take your belongings and exit in an orderly manner"

Ummm... OK.

Once we were off, I went and took the picture you see below from my cellphone camera (that's why the quality is so bad - my prized Canon Digital Rebel XT is tucked in the cargo hold of the plane you are looking at.)

Looking into the centre, you can see a yellow fuel truck slightly to the left. Slightly to the right, an identical one is lying on it's side. I don't know if you can see it, but there is a siphon hose between the two, and the good truck is pumping fuel out of the flipped one. You can click on the picture to get a larger picture.

Underneath, you can see the HUGE pool of fuel, and the stuff they have dumped on it to help soak it up!

Now look at the jet to the right and front. That's where I was sitting (seat 19A, actually). Now look at where the jet engines are pointing.

Ouch. I'm very lucky to be here typing this right now, as opposed to being the center of attention at a cremation...

Speaking of which, how the HELL do you flip and dump an airport fuel truck!?!?!?!

You'd think they would have a low CofG and maybe even some safety valves, etc. Maybe they let one of the idiots they use for baggage manhandling drive. Oh, and my luggage came back with my tags missing... Again.

Oh, the joys of flying Air Canada....

Ian

New Canadian Authority Domain - .gov.ca

The official TLD for the Government of Canada is .gc.ca

The reason for this is because Canada is officially bilingual, and everything has to be in French and English. And since "government" is spelled "gouvernement" in French, some have said that .gov.ca would not be bilingual, since you would presumably shorten it down to .gouv.ca or something for French (at least, that's what France does).

The problem is, that pretty much everyone else in the world uses .gov.xx to designate government sites, and it's very confusing to them to see .gc.ca

Further, Canada isn't France (which is uni-lingual) and if you look at other countries that have French as an official language, you see that uni-lingual French countries (Monaco, French Guiana) tend to use .gouv.xx, but multilingual countries tend to use .gov.xx (Belgium, Switzerland).

Unfortunately, no one uses .gc.xx or anything similar. It's all well and good to be different, but not when no one outside your country understands you. The idea behind the web is to communicate, not isolate.

So, to make a long story short, the Canadian Government now owns .gov.ca.

Ministry Sites will still use .gc.ca, of course, but .gov.ca is now being added to .ca as sites run by the Canadian Government that are aimed at the public, especially non-Canadians.

Based on a LOT of feedback and experience, this is likely to be a very popular move, as well as opening up more opportunities for the government to register useful and memorable domains while still maintaining the fact that they are government.

Right now, .gc.ca is used mostly by Ministries and ultra-official sites. Many of the sites the government runs are multi-departmental or other initiatives that don't easily fall under the .gc.ca umbrella currently use .ca, but that is confusing to people because anyone can register a .ca, so there is no indication that it's authoritative or government run.

Further, non-Canadians tend to automatically assume that Canadian government sites use .gov.ca. I know this personally from many, many discussions.

The .gov.ca is intended to address this. Yay!

Ian

New Search Engine Share Chart

I've updated my search engine share chart to reflect the latest information. I started with logs from my own sites and then augmented them with some information from Search Engine Watch. Enjoy.

Ian

Search Marketing Association

I recently got back from a quick trip to London, England. It was a pretty interesting experience, as it was business, but pleasurable all the same.

In late November, a good friend of mine, Christine Churchill contacted me to ask if I wanted to be nominated as a director of the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), which at the time of writing is the closest thing we SEO's have to a trade association.

A long time ago SEMPO got themselves into a bit of a flap because they had incorporated themselves as a Non-Profit, but then proceeded to break almost every rule known that non-profits are supposed to follow. It was a real mess. Christine, one of the hardest working and most well meaning people I know, knew that I was pretty much the only SEO *she* knew with a legal background that might be helpful, and she somehow sweet-talked me into joining and helping sort out the mess.

I learned a lot, going through the paperwork and dealing with the behind-the-scenes politics and personalities. I also discovered that although SEMPO is, in my opinion, fundamentally broken, there are a lot of very good people who joined it because it's clear the industry needs a trade association.

The problem is that SEMPO is designed to cash in on big bucks sponsors and SEO firms. Key members have even stated that small SEO firms are "not their target audience".

To me, that was unforgivable. Small SEO firms and single SEO's working in IT departments form the vast majority of this industry. How can you claim to be an industry association if the industry is not your target audience? I have it on good authority that Google and Overture agree with me on this one.

So when Chris asked me if I wanted to be nominated as a director, my first instinct was to agree, and work from within. The problem is that the major people who were supporters of the "little guy/gal" had resigned (like Chris) or were not planning on renewing their memberships - effectively a slow motion, passive resignation. The remaining executive was heavily linked together, and even though there were many really good people who were nominated as directors, I had a sinking feeling that I could predict the "old guard" retaining control, just reorganized.

In the meantime, I had been quietly working away in Calgary, Canada trying to form the Internet Marketing Association of Canada. I'd got some interest from some high profile members like KS2 (Yellowpages.ca), Critical Mass, Anduro, Telus, and a few others. But I was concerned about membership levels being able to support the costs of running an industry group with just Canadians. Small country, but big ideas :)

Chris mentioned that AdWords expert Andrew Goodman (a fellow Canuck) had tried to get together the SMA-CA and had difficulties getting the initial membership levels. Now, the SMA - That's an idea! Take everything good about an industry group, add in effective, fair structure and a genuine concern for the industry rather than fund raising and you have the SMA.

The original SMA was designed as a reaction to SEMPO being out of touch with the rest of the world. Although it claims to be an international body, it's very much a USA only club with a few foreigners thrown in for good measure (a result of following the dollars and sponsors instead of the members).

A clear example of this was when they formed the European committee without, for example, any real input from any, you know, Europeans. Then acted surprised when there were huge objections to it's structure and purpose.

Many very high profile members form the UK (the second largest SEM market in the world) decided that enough was enough. Led by Barry Lloyd, Andy Atkins-Kruger, Paddy Bolger, Richard Gregory, Edward Cowell, Colin Irwin, Simon Collingridge, Jason Cartwright, Ammon Johns, and Mike Grehan, they formed the SMA-UK. A lot of thought went into it, and they deftly avoided the scandals that had rocked SEMPO repeatedly (link-gate, selfpromotion-gate, etc).

Shortly after the success of SMA-UK, the SMA-EU (European Union) was formed, with members Mikkel deMib Svendsen, Ben van den Bergh, Shakil Khan, Alix Jalon, Vincent Israel, Thomas Bindl, Laszlo Fazakas, and Sante Achille.

While talking with her about this, I had what I think is a great idea - form the SMA-NA (North America). After all, we have NAFTA to balance the EU - why not? This solved the membership numbers issue and the USA only issue in one stroke, and also addressed the opportunity to avoid the rot that had already set in with SEMPO.

Christine put me in touch with Mike G and Barry L., and I was invited to fly out to London on Dec 21 to a meeting between a couple of members of the SMA-UK and the founding members of the SMA-EU. The purpose of the meeting was to formally kick off the SMA-EU, and I attended as an observer. This was very interesting to me because the EU is pretty hetrogenous compared to the UK and I was very interested in how they would deal with issues such as multiple languages, vastly different legal systems, etc - since these would be issues in North America.

The meeting went really well and meeting everyone was excellent. I was even able to make the occasional useful comment and observation, though mostly I listened.

I've now come back, and am forming the SMA-NA. Just before I hit the "make new group" button on Yahoo Groups to launch the beginning of the working group, I phoned up Barbara Coll (SEMPO President) to resign. Since I was a member of the election committee, I felt (and Barb vehemently agreed) that it would be a conflict of interest for me to be a committee member in SEMPO while starting up the SMA-NA.

Although the majority of the conversation was confidential, it was made very clear that SEMPO considers the SMA-NA to be a direct threat and a competitor for membership and sponsor dollars. Interesting that the SMA-UK and EU were not considered the same way. To me, that really confirmed the regional blinkers SEMPO wears. The concern about the money rather than the industry was also very interesting. Although it was mentioned that the industry would be better off with only one group (I agree BTW ;) ) this was mentioned in direct relation to funding.
She also repeatedly demanded the names of the others on the SMA-NA working group. Since they had not been confirmed yet, I didn't answer, but the message was clear: SMA members were not welcome in SEMPO. Pity. Personally, I think that all support of the SEO/SEM industry is a good thing, and I'd rather someone support SEMPO than not support anything. I guess they don't see it that way.

It seemed to me it was kind of like if the Red Cross said that you can't donate to UNICEF - it's one or the other. Odd - I thought the goals were more lofty than membership fees. Perhaps for SEMPO the goal of helping the industry is at odds wth the goal of getting funding. A telling point, in my opinion. It certainly clear my mind of any doubts as to whether I was doing the right thing, I'll tell you that!

We now have a working group for the SMA-NA. In view of the threats by SEMPO and the very real desire of many members of the working group to contribute to the industry as a whole regardless of venue, I'll let them list themselves. It's pretty clear that key people are interested in leaving the sinking ship, though.

So that's what I've been up to. There is more SMA information here from Threadwatch, which for some reason I've become quite fond of ;)

http://www.threadwatch.org/node/155
http://www.threadwatch.org/node/263
http://www.threadwatch.org/node/269
http://www.threadwatch.org/node/273
http://www.threadwatch.org/node/906

Some additional (Mostly SEMPO related) links for your viewing pleasure:

http://www.sempo-tahoe.com/ (Joke Site)
http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/Dec04/SEMPO-departure.html
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/3405021
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=775
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=1051
http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showforum=43

Ian

SES Toronto

Well, I just got back from SES Toronto and had a great time! I met lots of people and my presentation went pretty well, considering it was the last presentation of the last day.

On interesting thing while traveling to T.O. - I took WestJet. The main reason i took it was because the price was right (and it's a local company) but I must say I was blown away by the service and friendliness of the staff!

I've done a lot of travelling and frankly Air Canada is a national embarrassment, as far as I'm concerned - rude staff, lousy service, etc. I don't exactly cry when I hear them complaining that they are losing money - it's called the free market at work, people.

I remember one trip from Beijing to Vancouver on AC where I sat next to an old chinese lady and what appeared to be her granddaughter. The flight crew had turned on the air conditioning full blast and it was chilly - even for a Canadian. The poor woman was uncontrollably shivering and obviously freezing. Finally her companion spoke up to one of the pit fiends masquarading as flight attendants and asked if they could turn up the heat or get a blanket or something. The flight attendant snarled back that they don't change the temperature for anyone and stalked off. I was truly embarrassed at sharing the same nationality as this person - some welcome to Canada! When it became clear that Air Canada's finest wasn't going to be back with a blanket, I gave her mine. Unbelievable.

This is, unfortunatly, not an exception. It was also the last time I voluntarily flew on AC. So when it was time to go to Toronto I booked a flight on Westjet and showed up at the airport, hobbling along with my right leg in a space boot (broken ankle - long story) and was met by a very friendly counter clerk who called over there "Folks Wagon" to give me a lift to the gate without me even asking. I was met at the plane by "Bob" who was the funniest, most personable attendant I've ever met.

Let me put it this way - I actually stayed awake during the safety speach - LOL. The Flames were playing and the captain got on the speaker several times to give updates on the game - and when they won there was lots of cheering and Bob organised us doing the "wave" up and down the aisles. Lots of fun. AC, RIP, Long live Westjet!

Welcome to my new Blog! My name is Ian McAnerin and I'm the owner/CEO of McAnerin Networks Inc, an Internet Promotion company with offices in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

I live in Calgary - guess where I like to have the Annual General Meeting for the company... ;)

I'm a father of 3 (Isaac, Tasmyn, and Kestra) and happily married (Leah). Ok, that's pretty much the sum total of an intro you'll get here. If you are interested in more information, you'll either have to read the whole blog and figure it out for yourself, or actually ask me.

Oh, as a professional SEO (Search Engine Optimiser) and Moderator on the High Rankings SEO forum, you'll probably see a LOT of Search Engine related news and rants here. I'm a "white hat" SEO so various spammers will get it with both barrels on occasion...

After all, that's the whole fun of having a blog in the first place.

Cheers,
Ian