• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, March 24, 2011

The search engine Blekko, which brought slashtags into vogue, recently gave BrightEdge access to real-time link graph information. Integrating the feature into BrightEdge's search engine optimization platform gives companies the ability to verify that their back links are legitimate as well as whether sites ranking ahead of them are using black hat or unethical tactics to beat search engine rankings.

Blekko's index gets integrated into BrightEdge's SEO platform so clients gain Web data that can verify the quality of the links and those driving performance. This means companies through a dashboard can monitor how spam creators manipulate paid links using black hat strategies. It's an unusual partnership, but one necessary to monitor unscrupulous backend linking, according to BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu.

While Blekko began a mission, aside from Google, to clean up spam sites across the Web, platform companies like BrightEdge are more than willing to step in to become part of the change.

BrightEdge Connect, a technology layer in the SEO platform, enables open integration through standards-based APIs. But this is a "relationship, not just geared toward any specific feature," Yu says.

Ah, a "relationship." We've heard that word used before when talking about collaborating across companies, but entrepreneurs and engineers across the advertising space have been giving it new meaning lately. And with this announcement, we see those relationships in the long run could mean so much more.

Blekko has an open search index that when integrated into an SEO platform allows marketers to understand factors that appear on the page, social signals and other signs that go into ranking factors. Yu says it brings new insights into the type of content that can add value to people searching Web sites across the Internet.

Yu wants to give BrightEdge clients a view into their content through the eyes of search engines, but some experts and execs at engines like Google might disagree. Some say build content for site visitors, not engines.

He sees this as an opportunity to bring in additional data for companies using the BrightEdge platform such as an extended view into valuable content, as well as the ease with which search engines can crawl a Web site and index information. "You now have the ability to get a search engine's view," he says. "This allows you to make sure you're exposing the correct content to the search engines."

The ability to integrate search engine data into an SEO platform moves the search engine marketing medium to the next level, but we have already see it in retargeting of display ads from companies such as Magnetic, and I expect the industry will hear about many more similar deals this year. Search data will become the base for many types of marketing and advertising campaigns and platforms.