In a world where all media are digital and all content is available on demand, search becomes vital for consumers, publishers, and marketers alike. In trying to determine how advertising can best fit into this new environment and how search professionals can best prepare for this convergence, I think we need to do a deeper dive into why paid search work so well today.

You think tagging's a game? A plaything? Something people do for fun? So does Google. In other words, you should take this game very, very seriously.

When I write an article, I typically follow a process which begins with a simple question, "What fascinates me?" (not to be confused with Arsenio Hall's "Things that make me say hmmm.") I consider myself a fairly simple person--therefore the time it takes to develop an answer to this question typically is very short-lived! But recently several items have struck me as just plain intriguing.

This Tuesday, a bomb dropped on the search marketing community. It started, as so many stories do now online, with a simple blog post. After 10 years, Danny Sullivan was leaving Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch. Jaws could be heard dropping around the world.

In my Aug. 2, column, "Natural-Born Search Killers," I discussed how not having a URL strategy could kill a search presence, detailing four key elements that contribute to the value of site domains and URLs. (The elements included link equity, positive search engine equity, bookmark equity and search investment.) In this article, I will discuss a few additional elements of URL equity.

The building block of Search 2.0 is the link, but with Web 2.0, it's the tag.

In my continuing discussion of the new e-Media Exchange--the auction-based ad-buying exchange driven by blue-chip advertisers with technology from e-Bay--I'd like to talk about why the push for auction-based advertising is, at its root, a push for accountability.

I was chatting with a marketing manager from a well-established West Coast real estate brokerage the other day. He expressed a philosophy that I have heard a million times before, and always wondered at, because it's amazingly misguided....

Hello, my name is Gord, and I'm addicted to the Internet. I didn't realize I was addicted until I recently spent three weeks in Europe and had to go through withdrawal. But after hanging around hotel lobbies trying to get a hit from a local hot spot, I've had to face up to the fact that I can't kick the habit. I need my broadband, baby!

In my last column, I pointed to a recent JupiterResearch report that projected online advertising at 9 percent of overall advertising budget in 2011. Given the convergence and emerging digitization of traditional mediums like TV, radio, and print, I think we need to clarify the definition of "online" advertising--not only for the sake of having accurate projections, but for us marketing professionals to truly benchmark our efforts and innovate.