Last week, ConsumerBase CEO Larry Organ made the case for hiring two search firms (or having two separate search teams, at the least) in a Chief Marketer article . And Lee Odden offers up a rebuttal of sorts with this post, which details the problems inherent with having two separate companies working on SEO.   First off, is the confusion that can come from having multiple heads making changes to the Web site. "With many web sites, it's enough of a challenge to get all the client side stakeholders on board with the changes in content processes …

Joshua Stylman takes Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) Chairman Steve Harty to task in this post, for Harty's recent comments pooh-poohing an agency's use of search marketing to promote itself. "We're not convinced that the people we are marketing to are using that as a channel..." Harty said. "We have a more targeted strategy than, 'We're open for business.' Search is kind of indiscriminate in a way." Stylman uses BBH's presence (or lack thereof) in the SERPs to illustrate why agencies actually do need to establish a strong paid and organic search practice for themselves. …

We're already in the latter half of 2008--and it seems like yesterday that the pundits were making predictions as to what the search landscape would be like by now. But Jody Nimetz offers a recap of what actually happened in search over the past six months, starting with the retooling of Ask. "Ask began the year by replacing their CEO, and hiring marketing man Jim Safka," Nimetz says. By spring, there were reports that the engine was shopping its Teoma search technology to a bigger player (namely Google), and though they never came to fruition, Ask did eventually …