The Semmys has just been officially announced, and is a new award site for the best Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing posts of the year, and is the brainchild of Matt at Small Business SEM.
The nominees this year are highly controversial, because they are inspired or originated from Matt’s own reading list, and are the posts which he highlighted in his monthly roundup posts as being the most important for his clients and subscribers to read if they missed them.
As such, the Semmys represent a subset of the content that is created, but possibly that also allows Matt to highlight articles that were in some way ground-breaking or were the centre of the news more than useful howto articles which might present excellent content, but are not necessarily “must read”. They are certainly going to be controversial…
Judging is broken down into 2 stages, with 25 judges being asked to come up with a short list of posts in their assigned categories. I am sure assigning judges was a hard task, because so many of the judges have their own articles nominated, and because of quite visible professional ties with other marketers.
The 25 Judges
- Aaron Wall
- Andrew Shortland
- Andy Beal
- Andy Beard
- Barry Schwartz
- Bill Slawski
- Brad Geddes
- Chris Winfield
- Christine Churchill
- David Mihm
- Deb Mastaler
- Eric Enge
- Jeff Quipp
- Jennifer Laycock
- John Andrews
- Lee Odden
- Lisa Barone
- Logoworks
- Loren Baker
- Matt McGee
- Michael Gray
- Rand Fishkin
- Simon Heseltine
- Stoney deGeyter
- Sugarrae
- Tamar Weinberg
- Todd Malicoat
- Vanessa Fox
The Articles I Had Nominated (yes 4 of them)
SEO Category
SEO Linking Gotchas Even The Pros Make
Google Category
Dancing With The Gevil – Defamed By Google?
Digg Favorites Slapped By Google
Blogs & Blogging
Optimizing HTML Links In The Aftermath Of A Blog Storm
For some reason none of my articles about Google and paid links were classed as rants, maybe I need to add some more attitude to those or keep them shorter.
In some ways that is a good thing, it has allowed me to be a judge for the Rant Category as well as SEO Tech
Take a look at those categories and let me know what you think – I will try not to let you sway my choices too much, but if you have a favorite, do let me know.
21 Comments
Some of the reactions to this are interesting to me. One person was upset to be included in the RANTS category and suggested I change the name. You seem to be mildly disappointed to NOT be included in the RANTS category, Andy. :-) I think it should be a badge of honor. A good rant is hard to write.
Anyway, thanks for being one of the judges. I can’t say I agree with the “highly controversial” label you’re applying here; it’s just an awards thing, after all. I’m hopeful that we’ll put together a good group of people to organize the 2009 SEMMYS to make sure a wider scope of content is included, not just the 200+ feeds in my Bloglines. But ya gotta start somewhere….
Matt, maybe next year you can select me for a rant post..:)
I can’t believe your rants about Page Rank didn’t feature – that was a rant that lasted weeks :)
Really great idea here. Congrats Matt!
“SEO Linking Gotchas Even The Pros Make” probably caused me more neurological activity than any other post I have read in the past year. It gets my vote.
I would like to nominate this post, but just do not know what category it should be in.
http://andybeard.eu/2007/12/google-dictating-nofollow-for-all-links-from-compensated-content.html
Well, everybody knows and understands each facet of the endeavor and sees it for what it is. Matt’s an authentic guy with a good commercial head. The logos really nice and the thing has an authoritative air.
I do believe this comes from a place that supports the SEM community. That said, I don’t quite understand the “get all the high-power buds together and vote for what Matt likes best” mentality. It’s rather curious and not uncommon in our industry.
I didn’t want to say anything. If we keep making up awards then after a while none of them will mean anything anymore.
Marty I understand that sentiment, but look on this as a way to highlight content that others might not have read.
The content that is useful for small business isn’t the same as the information that people close to the industry thrive on, and that is an important distinction.
Matt provides a valuable level of filtration, in much the same way as Tamar did with her top posts list, though Tamar maybe has a more varied focus.
My hardest task on this is to decide with Loren what qualifies as a good rant ;)
Marty, if the ultimate goal is to create an industry-wide method to recognize great content, what mentality would you suggest I should’ve started with?
Should I have not been reading so much in 2007? Should I have instead called on “low-power buds” (whatever that means) to help push the idea along?
Should I have hosted the awards on my own blog? Wouldn’t that have been a little more “curious”?
If you’d like to question my motives, feel free to email me directly. Thanks.
Please, it has no credibility with me. Maybe I don’t run around tickling everyone in that incestuous community’s balls every week but, IN THE VERY LEAST, I certainly deserved a NUMBER of nominations.
Warning, Big Twitter Is Watching You!
Sir Samuel Freedom: Social Media’s Errant Knight
Wikipedia – Google’s Anna Nicole Smith
Maybe, if you’re lucky, you won’t have to delete this – maybe Akismet or Spam Assassin will see the links and do it for you.
But, honestly, I might not be an ass-kisser or golden boy in the SEM community but my rants, raves and alternative commentaries on it definitely deserved inclusion.
Thanks buddy!
Sam
Congrats andy!
I suppose I shall have to rant better for next year.
Shady build that thingy I recommended you, and you will dominate the world..:)
Yeah I’ve got to side with Local SEO guide on this one “SEO Linking Gotchas Even The Pros Make” was a great post and well deserving of my vote.
Those were rants??? They were great posts.
Just joined MyBlogLog, so let’s see if my ugly mug shows up..:)
It’s the first time ive heard of semmys.. more so with and a rant category. Lol.
Yes this may be controversial but I think there were some great posts and I gotta give kudos to Matt for taking the time to gather and sort them and to get the judges together.
Of course he may have missed some good posts like my hilarious “9 short notes kids wrote to their favorite seo” but then again he missed all my articles because he, like most the internet world, don’t read my blog.
But am I crying about it or whining about it. Well yeah I guess so ;). Good job Matt and I wish all the best to the nominees! Now excuse me wile I go work on my semmy award winnng post for next year.
Sam you can be as controversial as you like here and I even fixed your comment link.
As there wasn’t nominations, its from Matt’s reading list this year as a whole, it is a subset of the whole content on the web and it might not be as biased as you think.
As an example Maki is pretty popular on sites such as Sphinn, but didn’t get any articles included.
Sam, no, Igor The Troll watching your videos..:)
What was that nice video you recently had?
of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Mason
All American like hot dog and apple pie!
wow, double the injustice! ;-) anyways, thanks for the usual levity and have fun judging!
Don’t worry Sam, Your Big Brothers are watching out for you..:)
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