August 15, 2004

Search Engine Marketing Book by Mike Grehan

by Brian Turner

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The Short Review

If you’re looking to perform SEO at a professional level, you absolutely need to know how search engines work - not just today, but how they are likely to work tomorrow.

Mike’s Grehan’s Search Engine Book does exactly that, following the trail of how search engines started, how they have developed into today - and what they may deliver tomorrow.

Amazingly, he does this without using any formulas or complicated descriptions, and the book remains surprisingly easy to read and communicates well with the reader.

As if that wasn’t good enough, Mike Grehan has packed the book with information that covers the search engine optimisation and marketing world, and concludes with a series of interviews he personally conducted with some of the leading figures in search, including directorial staff at Google - the information of which he refers to in the proceeding chapters.

If this book worth buying? If you ever want to do SEO at the commercial level, then it is absolutely essential reading. If you intend to succeed, that is.

Available at:

http://www.search-engine-book.co.uk

The Long Review

There are a number of books on the topics of Search Engine Marketing and Optimisation already out there. At just less than one-hundred dollars, Mike Grehan’s book is one of the most expensive. Considering that this is an e-book as well, how does it justify the expense?

Well, for a start, Mike Grehan is a very experienced figure in the search engine world, has been director his own e-marketing company - Smart Interactive - since the 1990s, and lectures at university on internet marketing. He’s well regarded enough that he has been able to set up one-to-one exclusive interviews with key figures in the search engine world, and he’s been interviewed himself by BBC TV, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, SearchEngineWatch.com, as well as the magazine for the Chartered Institute of Marketing. He is also a regular paid speaker at search engine conferences.

In the world of SEO, Mike Grehan is an authority voice.

So how does his actual book read?

Structure

“Search Engine Marketing: The Essential Best Practice Guide” is basically structured into 7 sections:

Introduction notes and general commentary and observations, including a short background to search on the web,

How Search Engines work, with plenty of notes on the theory, mathematical models, and practical implemention of search technology,

PPC and getting listed,

General SEO tactices, covering Whitehat and Blackhat techniques,

Useful sources, course, tools and resources,

The interviews,

Reference notes

The introduction covers basic Search Engine issues, with a nice little history of how search engines developed. Then it’s into “How Search Engines”, and suddently we’re deep in theory and comments on the the mathematical models used to power search engine algorithms. It is to his immense credit to the layman that he leaves out the relevant equations and mathematical justifications, and brings an oblique world of Term Vector Databases, Block Link analysis, and similar models, very much to our attention. No matter how much you *think* you know, there is a lot of deep and involved learning here.

Afterwards, the commentaries on Overture and Adwords are less intensive, and less a section of tutorials, as much as the general workings of the systems. Dealing with getting listed on search engines overs basic submission details, and there’s nothing taxing there.

The articles on SEO methods also focus more on the methodology, rather than by examples. So if you’re looking for a tutorial on Blackhat methods, you’ll not find it here. Again, a lot of the basics are covered, but the resources list is very comprehensive and wide-ranging, and certainly very useful.

The interviews are possibly the most famous section, though - this is where Mike Grehan gets to talk to major figures in the search engine world, not least technical directors, of Alta Vista, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves - and, of course, Google itself. He speaks to figures such as Craig Silverstein, Jon Glick, Andrei Broder, and Brian Pinkerton - and then shares a laugh with popular figures within SEO itself, such as Ralph Tegtmeier and Jill Whalen. Sometimes we’re faced with what is otherwise some basic company marketing, but Mike keeps the interviews focussed on the technical aspects of search engines and rankings - what they value most from search development and what they are looking to.

Basic references and notes follow, including a bibliography of around 200 research papers he has referenced in all the preceeding pages.

Criticisms

The book read for this review was the Second Edition, which - excepting for a few notes and corrections - effectively covers search engines up to 2001. Whilst that means there are missing chapters to follow on certain discoveries and theories, remarkably, it does nothing to throw the book off-track, and a lot that was relevant then is certainly relevant now.

Possibly one of the worst real criticisms is the format of the book itself - it’s written to be read as an ebook on a computer screen, but people like myself are wont to print it out and read as is. That means that the many links supplied in the book have no additionally provided naked URLs, so it’s impossible to follow certain discussions and wen references to the web if you’ve printed it all out on a printer.

Really, though, this book could benefit the reader a lot from being available as a printed copy and reference work, rather than simply as an electronic text.

An additional complaint is that the references in the bibliography are not dealt with in the usual academic manner of number notes, but instead are listed as an alphabetical reference at the rear of the book. That means that it can be difficult to keep up with which papers in the bibliography are intended to reference which individual sections of the book itself.

However, these are structural criticisms of the book itself, rather than of the actual semantic content itself, which remains lucid and comprehensive.

Positivisms

“Search Engine Marketing: The Essential Best Practice Guide” is possibly the most comprehensive book on search engines to date. Although it doesn’t deal so much with exact methods of SEO’s, which will no doubt disappoint the curious, what the book does is focus very much on the workings of search engines themselves.

This remains the key strength of the book, because it refuses to tell SEO’s how SEO’s work rankings, but sticks clearly in the subject areas of how search engines actually do it.

The coverage of the developmental history of search engines, and the comprehensive exploration of the theory and mathematical modelling of the search engine world, is truly a rich resource. The accessible way in which the whole discussion continues in layman’s terms is truly empowering.

General Comment

This is an essential read for those in commercial SEO, and hobbyists who are looking to get to grips with the more advanced elements and theory of SEO. There is a whole world opened up in here, and I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve learned a few things myself from it.

In fact, Mike Grehan’s website for promoting “Search Engine Marketing: The Essential Best Practice Guide” is called “search-engine-book.co.uk”. It really should be “search-engine-bible.co.uk”, because this is precisely what this book is - and a one stop all-in reference for every commercial SEO/SEM.

Overall

Anyone who is serious about SEO has either read this book, or needs to. There is little point in trying to practice SEO if you do not understand why you follow the actions that you do. Otherwise, how can you expect to change and adapt to the dynamic world of search engines?

There is plenty to learn in “Search Engine Marketing: The Essential Best Practice Guide”, and there is plenty of important theory explained and comments provided for, not least through the famous section on the interviews.

To return to the original question, does “Search Engine Marketing: The Essential Best Practice Guide” justify the price tag? Absolutely - as with any other worthwhile investment.

And as for the outdated comments - at the time of writing, the Third Edition is due out at any time. Ideally, though, we’ll see a paper printed version of this for general release and reference.

Either way, for people who are serious about SEO, this is an essential purchase.

Available at:

http://www.search-engine-book.co.uk

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