• by Lauren Berger , October 26, 2006

Search engine visibility has increasingly become a top priority for today’s marketers and business owners. Placing too much emphasis on ranking, however, may be a big and costly mistake.

Interactive agency Refinery, Inc. aims to correct this misconception with its new Web site, Refinerysearch.com. Stressing performance over position, the site offers guidance on successful search campaigns through an interactive blog, a newsfeed, and a free site-analysis feature complete with individual recommendations.

“It’s not just about buying keywords on Google,” says Gerry McGoldrick, senior vice president of Refinery. “It’s about optimizing your whole interactive campaign through relevant creative and content.”

Driving the message home, Refinerysearch’s home page features a ticker that tracks the number of online ad dollars wasted by marketers that fail to measure beyond superficial ranking. The current estimate? More than $9 billion annually.