Danny Sullivan (technologist)

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Danny Sullivan
Danny Sullivan.jpg
Danny Sullivan in 2005
Born (1965-09-26) 26 September 1965 (age 58)
Newport Beach, California, U.S.
Alma mater University of California, Irvine
Occupation(s)Technologist, Journalist
Known forFounder of Search Engine Land and Maximized Online
SpouseLorna Harris (m. ?)
Children2

Danny Sullivan is an American technologist, journalist, [1] and entrepreneur. He is the founder of Search Engine Watch in 1997, one of the earliest online publications about search engine marketing. He also launched Search Engine Strategies, one of the earliest search marketing trade shows. After selling both companies in 2006, he co-founded Search Engine Land, another search marketing publication. In 2017, he joined Google as an adviser at the search division of the company.

Contents

He has been credited with popularizing the term "search engine marketing" and has been described as the father of the search engine marketing industry. [2]

Biography

Sullivan was born in 1965 and raised in California. He graduated from the University of California, Irvine, and was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register . [3] [4] He helped found Maximized Online with programmer Ken Spreitzer. Later he married Lorna Harris, and lived for several years in Chitterne, a small village in England. They have two sons. [3] The family moved to Newport Beach, California. Sullivan popularized the term Search Engine Marketing in an article on Search Engine Watch [5] although he does not take credit for coining the term. [6]

Sullivan was the chief content officer at Third Door Media, and co-founded Search Engine Land, an industry publication that covers news and information about search engines, search marketing, SEO and SEM topics. Third Door Media also produces Marketing Land, a sister website that covers broader digital marketing topics including social media, display advertising, email marketing, analytics, mobile, and marketing technology. Search Engine Land and Marketing Land are owned by Third Door Media, of which Danny Sullivan was partner and chief content officer. He retired from his position as chief content officer at Third Door Media in June 2017. [2]

In October 2017, Sullivan announced that he would be joining Google as an adviser at its search division. He is Google's public Search Liaison, who helps people better understand search and helps Google better hear public feedback. [7]

Affiliated websites

Search Engine Watch

Sullivan started Search Engine Watch in June 1997 after he posted research about search engines, called A Webmaster's Guide To Search Engines, in April 1996. Search Engine Watch was a website with tips on how to get good search engine results. Shortly after beginning in November that year, he sold it for an undisclosed amount to MecklerMedia (now Jupitermedia). He stayed on to maintain the site, and be the editor-in-chief. In 2006, it was sold to Incisive Media for $43 million. Search Engine Watch was considered by Matt Cutts of Google as "must reading", and Tim Mayer of Yahoo! as the "most authoritative source on search". [3]

He also staged the Search Engine Strategies conference six times each year, attracting 1,500 to 6,000 attendees each time. [3] On 29 August 2006, Sullivan announced he would be leaving Search Engine Watch on 30 November 2006. He later came to an agreement with Jupitermedia to continue participating in SES through 2007. [8] [9]

Search Engine Land

Search Engine Land is a news website that covers search engine marketing and search engine optimization. One of the well-known blogs which shares information about keyword research, trends in search marketing (SEM), paid search advertising (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) as well as analysis, advice, tips, tactics and how-to guides for search marketing. [10] It was founded in 2006 by Sullivan after he left Search Engine Watch. Search Engine Land stories have been cited numerous times by other media outlets. [11] [12] [13]

Related Research Articles

Meta elements are tags used in HTML and XHTML documents to provide structured metadata about a Web page. They are part of a web page's head section. Multiple Meta elements with different attributes can be used on the same page. Meta elements can be used to specify page description, keywords and any other metadata not provided through the other head elements and attributes.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. SEO targets unpaid traffic rather than direct traffic or paid traffic. Unpaid traffic may originate from different kinds of searches, including image search, video search, academic search, news search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Website promotion is the continuing process used by webmasters to improve content and increase exposure of a website to bring more visitors. Many techniques such as search engine optimization and search engine submission are used to increase a site's traffic once content is developed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anchor text</span> Visible, clickable text in a hyperlink

The anchor text, link label or link text is the visible, clickable text in an HTML hyperlink. The term "anchor" was used in older versions of the HTML specification for what is currently referred to as the a element, or <a>. The HTML specification does not have a specific term for anchor text, but refers to it as "text that the a element wraps around". In XML terms, the anchor text is the content of the element, provided that the content is text.

Search marketing is the process of acquiring traffic or customers via search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo and others. Search marketing generally involves two disciplines: SEO and SEM. Originally called “search engine marketing,” the shorter phrase “search marketing” is now often used as the umbrella term over SEO and SEM. The longer phrase "search engine marketing" — or SEM — is now typically used to describe paid search activities.

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising. SEM may incorporate search engine optimization (SEO), which adjusts or rewrites website content and site architecture to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results pages to enhance pay per click (PPC) listings and increase the Call to action (CTA) on the website.

Search Engine Watch (SEW) provides news and information about search engines and search engine marketing.

An SEO contest is a prize activity that challenges search engine optimization (SEO) practitioners to achieve high ranking under major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN using certain keyword(s). This type of contest is controversial because it often leads to massive amounts of link spamming as participants try to boost the rankings of their pages by any means available. The SEO competitors hold the activity without the promotion of a product or service in mind, or they may organize a contest in order to market something on the Internet. Participants can showcase their skills and potentially discover and share new techniques for promoting websites.

nofollow is a setting on a web page hyperlink that directs search engines not to use the link for page ranking calculations. It is specified in the page as a type of link relation; that is: <a rel="nofollow" ...>. Because search engines often calculate a site's importance according to the number of hyperlinks from other sites, the nofollow setting allows website authors to indicate that the presence of a link is not an endorsement of the target site's importance.

Social media optimization (SMO) is the use of a number of outlets and communities to generate publicity to increase the awareness of a product, service brand or event. Types of social media involved include RSS feeds, social news, bookmarking sites, and social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, video sharing websites, and blogging sites. SMO is similar to search engine optimization (SEO) in that the goal is to generate web traffic and increase awareness for a website. SMO's focal point is on gaining organic links to social media content. In contrast, SEO's core is about reaching the top of the search engine hierarchy. In general, social media optimization refers to optimizing a website and its content to encourage more users to use and share links to the website across social media and networking sites.

Search Engine Strategies (SES) is a conference series focused on search engine marketing and search engine optimization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barry Schwartz (technologist)</span>

Barry Schwartz is a blogger who writes about search engines and search engine marketing. Schwartz is the founder and currently the editor of Search Engine Roundtable, an online news site covering the search engines and search engine marketing. He also is the CEO & President of RustyBrick, Inc., a New York–based web development company, and a news editor at Search Engine Land, a search engine news site founded by Danny Sullivan. Previously, Schwartz was a writer for Search Engine Watch. He also moderates online and offline panels at Search Engine Watch, Cre8asite Forums and WebmasterWorld's PubCon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geotargeting</span> Website content based on a visitors location

In geomarketing and internet marketing, geotargeting is the method of delivering different content to visitors based on their geolocation. This includes country, region/state, city, metro code/zip code, organization, IP address, ISP, or other criteria. A common usage of geotargeting is found in online advertising, as well as internet television with sites such as iPlayer and Hulu. In these circumstances, content is often restricted to users geolocated in specific countries; this approach serves as a means of implementing digital rights management. Use of proxy servers and virtual private networks may give a false location.

Article spinning is a writing technique used in search engine optimization (SEO), and other applications, which creates what deceitfully appears to be new content from what already exists. Content spinning works by replacing specific words, phrases, sentences, or even entire paragraphs with any number of alternate versions, in order to provide a slightly different variation with each spin — also known as Rogeting. This process can be completely automated or written manually as many times as needed. Early content produced through automated methods often resulted in articles which were hard or even impossible to read. However, as article-spinning techniques were refined they became more sophisticated, and can now result in readable articles which, upon cursory review, can appear original.

In the field of search engine optimization (SEO), link building describes actions aimed at increasing the number and quality of inbound links to a webpage with the goal of increasing the search engine rankings of that page or website. Briefly, link building is the process of establishing relevant hyperlinks to a website from external sites. Link building can increase the number of high-quality links pointing to a website, in turn increasing the likelihood of the website ranking highly in search engine results. Link building is also a proven marketing tactic for increasing brand awareness.

Covario, Inc. was an American search marketing agency and technology firm based in San Diego, California. The company specialized in international search engine marketing services and provided software tools for SEO, paid search, social media marketing, analytics, and local search optimization. Its customer base included technology, consumer electronics, financial services, retail, ecommerce, media, entertainment, publishing, and consumer packaged goods organizations. Covario was acquired by the Dentsu Aegis Network in September 2014, and combined with iProspect, the network's performance marketing arm, in early 2015.

Hummingbird is the codename given to a significant algorithm change in Google Search in 2013. Its name was derived from the speed and accuracy of the hummingbird. The change was announced on September 26, 2013, having already been in use for a month. "Hummingbird" places greater emphasis on natural language queries, considering context and meaning over individual keywords. It also looks deeper at content on individual pages of a website, with improved ability to lead users directly to the most appropriate page rather than just a website's homepage.

Google Search, offered by Google, is the most widely used search engine on the World Wide Web as of 2023, with over eight billion searches a day. This page covers key events in the history of Google's search service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of web search engines</span>

This page provides a full timeline of web search engines, starting from the WHOis in 1982, the Archie search engine in 1990, and subsequent developments in the field. It is complementary to the history of web search engines page that provides more qualitative detail on the history.

UnGagged is a search engine optimization and digital marketing conference. The purpose of the semi-annual event is to provide a platform for speakers to present uncensored content to audiences behind closed doors without recordings. UnGagged is an international event, but to date all of the presentations, media and related content has been produced in the English language.

References

  1. ↑ "The Master of Google's Search Algorithm Sits Down for a Q&A". smallbiztrends.com. 8 September 2016. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
  2. 1 2 D'Onfro, Jillian (23 June 2018). "Meet the man whose job it is to reassure people that Google search isn't evil". CNBC. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Graham, Jefferson (1 August 2006). "Got a search engine question? Ask Mr. Sullivan". USA TODAY. Archived from the original on 22 April 2022. Retrieved 22 April 2022.
  4. ↑ Stone, Elizabeth (23 March 2000). "Helping Webmasters Land in Search Engines' Nets". The New York Times Web Archive. Retrieved 22 April 2022.
  5. ↑ Sullivan, Danny (3 December 2001). "Search Engine Marketing: You Like It, You Really Like It". Search Engine Watch. Archived from the original on 19 September 2008. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  6. ↑ Sullivan, Danny (4 March 2010). "Does SEM = SEO + CPC Still Add Up?". Search Engine Land. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  7. ↑ Robbins, Michelle (6 October 2017). "Danny Sullivan joins Google, leaves advisor role at Third Door Media". Search Engine Land.
  8. ↑ Leaving Search Engine Watch Archived 23 January 2012 at the Portuguese Web Archive, Daggle
  9. ↑ Daggle Archived 8 July 2012 at archive.today , 23 October 2006, Danny Sullivan
  10. ↑ Wilson Oliver. "25 Blogs to Take Your Marketing Skills to Next Level". Content Inspire. Retrieved 8 August 2016.
  11. ↑ Google offers free voice-activated local search, CNET News.com, 6 April 2007
  12. ↑ After Long Delays, Yahoo Launches Panama Ranking System Archived 18 May 2007 at the Wayback Machine , MarketingVOX, 6 February 2007
  13. ↑ AFP and Google News settle lawsuit Archived 8 January 2007 at the Wayback Machine , Reuters UK, 7 April 2007
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