Best Syndicate offers the top three tips to sniffing out a bad SE marketing company.

The search engine penalties debate that was so much a part of the Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in San Jose this month has not died down, nor should it.

We need to have a lively and informative online discussion about penalties with all interested parties. This is an important debate worthy of a robust exchange.

Join in the discussion by clicking on the Comments link below. You can also see my previous penalties posting.

Related links:

Search Engine Bans and Penalties, or Just Your Imagination? - ClickZ

When the Web went big-time in the late 90's, many traditional journalism organizations didn't know what to think about it. Nowadays, they are regularly having to answer to criticism and anlaysis of their reporting from bloggers - a nightmare for the old media suits.

And if you think about it, what an irony. News organizations traditionally rely on the public for their coverage and depend on them as customers. However, they have for years looked at bloggers as a menance, rather them embrace them and even signed them on as reporters and columnists, or "new media" bloggers.

Major Study Released on Search Behavior

A rather suprising study of online user search behavior and page ranking from the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences' debunks criticism that high visibility web sites receive preferential treatment over other keyword competitors in organic search results.

The bottom line: There is no evidence that web sites like Yahoo or MySpace are more prominently featured in keyword searches on Google, MSN and other popular search engines.

Of course, they have a significant advantage in visibility for paid search placements, like AdWords, because they have the money to pay the highest price for a number of marketing approaches.

View the full report for $10 or downloaded it for $25, which I say is a hefty price for a "non profit" organization, but search enthusiasts and executives will probably find it worth the investment to review the entire report.

Google SEO Guru Provides SES Videos
The SES Conference in San Jose wrapped up this week and it was considered a great success. Matt Cutt at Google has provided a number of videos in which he explains Google's search engine updates.

Lee Odden has posted a useful meeting notes from the SES Conference for SEO optimization and blog feeds.

Search Patent Applications Overview
This week's search patent applications have been submitted. SEO Roundtable provides a comprehensive abstract of the applications, most of which include improving search results for users, from web pages to documentation.