SES London

The Search Engine Strategies conference in London I approached with a number of expectations, and was left disappointed in key areas, though I learned a lot more than I expected to.

Networking

The main disappointment was the lack of networking - space inside the venue itself just didn’t lend itself very well to networking opportunities, and although I tried to start conversations with people I ended up at lunch with, I found it difficult to meet people who could discuss SEO issues.

General networking at the Hilton hotel next door to the event were also unfortunately limited - I also had the great misfortune more than once to go to my room to keep up with general admin work, only to find when I returned that the lobby was empty, meaning that I missed out on various social meets I may have actually been invited to join with.

This was especially pronounced on the last day, which I’d booked in extra for, specifically for social networking - only to face a completely empty hotel lobby whenever I went to it, which was rather frequently.

I did, however, manage to meet some very interesting people for the first time, such as Shak, Joseph Morin, Mikkel deMib Svendsen, Christine Churchill, and Chris Sherman. I was especially pleased to meet Alan Perkins, whom despite a sometimes zealousness in the promotion of ethical ideal in search marketing online, I found to be a very pleasant and affable fellow.

It was also great to see various other people I’d already been introduced to at the SEO Roadshow and Threadwatch present, such as Mike Grehan, Danny Sullivan, David Naylor, NFFC, Mike G, Amon Johns, Dixon Jones, Aaron Wall, Pete, Jen, and Barry Lloyd.

I also finally met Brett Tabke, the person behind WebMasterWorld, though as I barely engaged in conversation with him, and as I have almost no experience of WebMasterWorld or his dealings with it, I was unable to form an opinion.

There seemed to be a fair amount of friction at times, though, specifically regarding issues between some staff at WebMasterWorld and SearchEngineWatch - politics that was above my head or business, and I ensured it remained so.

I also atteneded the inaugural meeting of SMA-UK as Andy Atkins-Kruger took over the presidency, which provided what I hope to be an promising beginning for an interesting premise - a professional trade association for search marketing.

There were a number of people I had hoped to meet but were not present, not least from SearchEngineWatch forums, and it was particularly disappointing not to see more people from there attending. I had particularly hoped to meet Jill Whalen and Barry Schwartz at the event.

Search Engines

Search engine presence was very disappointing - MSN couldn’t have got any more low key if they tried, and there were no search engine parties to network at. In comparison to the American meetings, it made London seem disappointingly second-rate, despite it’s market presence in Europe.

Additionally, Yahoo! simply sent a PR company to attend its stall, who then dished out cocktails, bacon butties, and bunny girls - but knew jack-all about search. Effectively, it’s presence was a limited token gesture.

Google, on the other hand, sent in a number of AdWords accounts managers, and also put on a well-attended two-part training session on Google AdWords management. If this didn’t tell you that Google was properly clued-up on how to use the event, the positioning of it’s stall was a piece of genuis in brand marketing - Google had managed to set themselves up in such a way, that the moment people descended from the actual talks, the first thing they saw on the traders concourse was a huge lit-up sign of “Google”.

General search engine staffing was disappointing, though - there were no names from any of the search engines present, which left a strong feeling of the UK not being regarded as a particular priority.

The sessions

I expected least from the sessions, and was rewarded most by them. Expecations had been especially muted after a complaint I’d read about sessions being too basic. So I made a point of trying to attend sessions on issues I was least aware of, such as PPC.

Even still, on issues such as link building and general search developments, I was impressed with the level of discussion taking place, which overall were rich with detail and informative even for more experienced webmasters.

I still attended the basic session “Meet the crawlers”, which was effectively minor staff from Yahoo!, Ask, and Google, all talking about basic issues of how to work constructively with search engines. MSN was conspicuously missing, and the fourth panel member was effectively just a self-promo from a new search engine Exalead. While Exalead’s presentation was interesting in itself, it was obvious people just wanted to talk about basic search issues with the major search engines.

Something I found very telling was when someone, apparently running a small business, complained to the Google engineer that their new site was not ranking in Google at all. A hell of a murmur went around the room when this was raised, and this among an audience that appeared comprised primarily of general businesses (from the tone of questions generally raised) rather than search marketing companies. Even more telling was the Google engineer’s answer - effectively, that Google will implement whatever general policies it needs to, for combating spam. I had considered that Google Sandboxing was exclusively an issue of newer sites being unable to rank for targeted keywords used in link anchors - it suddenly seemed suggested that newer domains in general may be more generally delayed from ranking, which I hadn’t considered before.

As a point of note, the one talk I was especially impressed with was on trends - Google had emphasised that AdWords worked because of the fragmentation of the mass market, but what Danny Sullivan spent a lot of time covering was the fragmentation of search itself.

He especially emphasised developments in local and personal search, and clearly argued that search engines would eventually move to a point where the primary data the search user encountered would be based on local and personalised preferences, and that international search would become little more than backfill. This was probably the most valuable lesson I came away with.

SES London - overall

The SES London event was disappointing and enlightening - I learned important things, I met interesting people - but the lack of representation by the search engines themselves, coupled with limited networking opportunities, left the whole event feeling second-rate in comparison to the US SES events.

Considering, the overall cost of over £1,600 for accomodation and the conference pass, it would probably be much better spent on a trip to a high-profile and better attended US event.