Google SEMMYs
Honoring Great Google Content
Google – 2010 Winner
No Comments »
Let’s skip the corny, canned jokes and the awkward moments at the podium and just open the envelope, shall we? Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the 2010 SEMMY Award in the Google category is … drum-roll, please …
Google Enables Real Time Spam and More
Rae Hoffman, Outspoken Media | 12/9/09
Congratulations to our winner! Here’s a choice bit from the winning post:
I think the aspect of this “real time search” that frankly, scared the hell out of me the most, is the ability for predators to reach out to children with no way to stop them. At this point, I see no way to remove real time search from showing in the results. Safe search, even on the highest setting, to date, does not remove them. Suddenly, anyone can talk to my child while they surf Google.
Runners-Up
The top two runners-up in public voting were:
- Google’s New Search Engine Rankings Places Heavy Emphasis on Branding
Aaron Wall, SEO Book | 2/25/09 - Google Now Personalizes Everyone’s Search Results
Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land | 12/4/09
The winner and runners-up are welcome to grab the appropriate badge — we have a badge for both winners and runners-up.
How the Voting Ended
Here’s a look at how each finalist fared in the public voting:

Thanks to all who voted, and congrats again to the winner, runners-up, finalists, and all nominees. We look forward to reading your acceptance speech soon!
Posts Judged by

Google – 2010 Finalists
No Comments »The judges listed below have made their choices, and the finalists in the Google category for the 2010 SEMMY Awards are:
The Finalists
- Google’s New Search Engine Rankings Places Heavy Emphasis on Branding
Aaron Wall, SEO Book | 2/25/09 - Is Google Rewiring Our Brains?
Gord Hotchkiss, Search Engine Land | 3/6/09 - Google Now Personalizes Everyone’s Search Results
Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land | 12/4/09 - Google Enables Real Time Spam and More
Rae Hoffman, Outspoken Media | 12/9/09
Congratulations to each finalist! Please grab a finalist badge and let your readers know that public voting on the finalists has begun. (Feel free to encourage them to vote for you; winners historically have actively promoted the SEMMYS to their readers.)
Here’s How to Vote
Now it’s your turn to choose a winner! Please read each article above and decide which one you feel is the best. When you click below, you’ll be able to vote in this category only. To vote in other categories, please visit the pages listing those finalists. Voting is open now, and will close at end-of-day on January 29, 2010.
VOTE NOW IN THIS CATEGORY
(link will open in a new window)
Posts Judged by Eric Enge and Lee Odden

Google – All 2010 Nominees
2 Comments »Congratulations to the following nominees in the Google category for the 2010 SEMMY Awards! Our judge(s) will narrow this group down to 3-4 finalists. Please grab a nominee badge and let your readers know that public voting on the finalists is just around the corner.
- Google’s New Search Engine Rankings Places Heavy Empahsis on Branding
Aaron Wall, SEO Book | 2/25/09 - Is Google Rewiring Our Brains?
Gord Hotchkiss, Search Engine Land | 3/6/09 - Google Maps, Small Business & Society – who’s crazy?
Mike Blumenthal, Understanding Google Maps & Local Search | 5/21/09 - Requests for New & Improved Google Maps Features
David Mihm, Mihmorandum | 6/1/09 - Google Owns Your Internets
John Andrews | 9/4/09 - Why Googles behavioural targeting should creep you out
David Harry, Huomah | 9/28/09 - Hand Edits or ‘Vince’ at Work in Google Search Results?
Mark Jackson, Search Engine Watch | 10/27/09 - Google Redefines Disruption: The “Less Than Free” Business Model
Bill Gurley, AbovetheCrowd.com | 10/29/09 - How Google’s New Ad Formats Depart from Google’s Old Philosophy
Andrew Goodman, Traffick | 11/24/09 - Pay No Attention to the Little Man Behind the Curtain…
John Andrews | 11/25/09 - 25 Things I’d like to See Google Fix
Michael Gray, Wolf-Howl | 12/1/09 - Google launches a new spam industry
Michael Martinez, SEO Theory | 12/7/09 - Google Now Personalizes Everyone’s Search Results
Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land | 12/4/09 - Google Enables Real Time Spam and More
Rae Hoffman, Outspoken Media | 12/9/09
Posts Judged by Eric Enge and Lee Odden

Google – 2009 Winner
No Comments »
Let’s skip the corny, canned jokes and the awkward moments at the podium and just open the envelope, shall we? Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the 2009 SEMMY Award in the Google category is … drum-roll, please …
Google Sitelinks Research, Examples, Theories and Best Practices [Project Big Water]
Eric Lander | 10/16/08
Congratulations to our winner! Here’s a choice bit from the winning post:
We need to realize that Sitelinks uses an entirely independent algorithm than the traditional organic search results. Early indications were that order of Sitelinks was determined by the internal page strength of the pages included in the program. While I certainly believe that internal page strength is a factor involved, it’s certainly not alone.
Runners-Up
The top two runners-up in public voting were:
- What is a #1 Google Ranking Worth?
Aaron Wall, SEO Book | 5/1/08 - How Google Universal Search and Blended Results May Work
Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea | 6/12/08
The winner and runners-up are welcome to grab the appropriate badge — we have a badge for both winners and runners-up.
How the Voting Ended
Here’s a look at how each finalist fared in the public voting:

Thanks to all who voted, and congrats again to the winner, runners-up, finalists, and all nominees. We look forward to reading your acceptance speech soon!
Posts Judged by Jeff Quipp and Barry Schwartz

Google – 2009 Finalists
No Comments »The judges have made their choices, and the finalists in the Google category for the 2009 SEMMY Awards are:
The Finalists
- What is a #1 Google Ranking Worth?
Aaron Wall, SEO Book | 5/1/08 - How Google Universal Search and Blended Results May Work
Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea | 6/12/08 - Google Sitelinks Research, Examples, Theories and Best Practices [Project Big Water]
Eric Lander | 10/16/08
Congratulations to each finalist! Please grab a finalist badge and let your readers know that public voting on the finalists has begun. (Feel free to encourage them to vote for you.)
Here’s How to Vote
Now it’s your turn to choose a winner! Please read each article above and decide which one you feel is the best. When you click below, you’ll be able to vote in this category only. To vote in other categories, please visit the pages listing those finalists. Voting is open now, and will close at end-of-day on February 2, 2008.
VOTE NOW IN THIS CATEGORY
(link will open in a new window)
Posts Judged by Jeff Quipp and Barry Schwartz

Google – All 2009 Nominees
No Comments »Congratulations to the following nominees in the Google category for the 2009 SEMMY Awards! Our judge(s) will narrow this group down to 3-4 finalists. Please grab a nominee badge and let your readers know that public voting on the finalists is just around the corner.
- Google Gadgets Tutorial
Pat Sexton, SEOish | 1/22/08 - JayWeintraub.com – Internet Advertising Analysis and Commentary: Guilty Until Proven Innocent
Jay Weintraub | 3/9/08 - Google Thinks YOU Are a Black Hat SEO. Should You Trust Them?
Aaron Wall, SEO Book | 4/17/08 - What is a #1 Google Ranking Worth?
Aaron Wall, SEO Book | 5/1/08 - Googlebot Creates Pages Instead of Simply Indexing Them: New FORM Crawling Algo Goes Bad
Michael VanDeMar, Smackdown! | 5/23/08 - The Only Real Hoax is that Google Treats Everyone The Same
Michael Gray | 5/27/08 - How Google Universal Search and Blended Results May Work
Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea | 6/12/08 - Hey Matt Cutts Be Fair if You Are Going After Paid Links
Michael Gray | 6/20/08 - The Evil Side of Google? Exploring Google’s User Data Collection
Danny Dover, SEOmoz | 6/24/08 - Space Godzilla: Lessons in Monstering
Will Critchlow, SEOmoz | 6/27/08 - The Google Data Mine: Are You Using It Or Is It Using You?
Hamlet Batista, Small Business Trends | 8/8/08 - 9 Ideas How Google Suggest Could Change Search Marketing
Scott Clark | 8/25/08 - Google’s Chinese Wall Between AdWords Ads & Organic Search Results Disappears*
Aaron Wall, SEO Book | 9/19/08 - Google Sitelinks Research, Examples, Theories and Best Practices [Project Big Water]
Eric Lander | 10/16/08
Posts Judged by Jeff Quipp and Barry Schwartz

Google – 2008 Winner
2 Comments »
Let’s skip the corny, canned jokes and the awkward moments at the podium and just open the envelope, shall we? Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the 2008 SEMMY Award in the Google category is … drum-roll, please …
Why Google Can’t Just “Dump” PageRank
Dan Thies, SEO Fast Start | 11/9/07
Congratulations to our winner! Here’s a choice bit from the winning post:
The biggest benefit of using PageRank doesn’t come in at the ranking step, it comes in at the document retrieval stage, when you’re trying to decide which of 27,438,902 documents that matched the query text are actually worth ranking. The search engine’s job at the retrieval stage is to pick 1,000 documents to rank, without losing any really important documents.
PageRank excels at this. In fact, PageRank’s role in the retrieval process is why Google’s “Supplemental Index” exists.
Runners-Up
The top two runners-up in public voting were:
- What Is Google PageRank? A Guide For Searchers & Webmasters
Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land | 4/26/07 - Google 2.0: Google Universal Search
Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land | 5/16/07
The winner and runners-up are welcome to grab the appropriate badge — we have a badge for both winners and runners-up.
How the Voting Ended
Here’s a look at how each finalist fared in the public voting:

Thanks to all who voted, and congrats again to the winner, runners-up, finalists, and all nominees. We look forward to reading your acceptance speech soon!
Posts Judged by Lisa Barone, Rand Fishkin, and Chris Winfield

Google – 2008 Finalists
3 Comments »The judges have made their choices, and the finalists in the Google category for the 2008 SEMMY Awards are:
The Finalists
- What Is Google PageRank? A Guide For Searchers & Webmasters
Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land | 4/26/07 - Google 2.0: Google Universal Search
Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land | 5/16/07 - Google Punished My Site For Selling Links – NOT!
Jim Boykin | 9/27/07 - Eric Enge Interviews Google’s Matt Cutts
Eric Enge, Stone Temple Consulting | 10/8/07 - Why Google Can’t Just “Dump” PageRank
Dan Thies, SEO Fast Start | 11/9/07
Congratulations to each finalist! Please grab a finalist badge and let your readers know that public voting on the finalists has begun.
Here’s How to Vote
Now it’s your turn to choose a winner! Please read each article above and decide which one you feel is the best. When you click below, you’ll be able to vote in this category only. To vote in other categories, please visit the pages listing those finalists. Voting is open now, and will close at end-of-day on January 30, 2008.
VOTE NOW IN THIS CATEGORY (link will open in a new window)
Posts Judged by Lisa Barone, Rand Fishkin, and Chris Winfield

Google – All 2008 Nominees
1 Comment »The following are the nominees in the Google category for the 2008 SEMMY Awards. Our judge(s) will narrow this group down to 5-6 finalists. Congratulations to all nominees! Please grab a nominee badge and let your readers know that public voting on the finalists is just around the corner.
- Infrastructure status, January 2007
Matt Cutts | 1/10/07 - A quick word about Googlebombs
Ryan & Kendra, Google Webmaster Central Blog | 1/25/07 - Why Do Some SEOs Want Toolbar PageRank To Go Away?
Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable | 1/31/07 - Google Filters, how to get around them and exploit their loop holes
Joe Whyte, Rockyfied | 2/3/07 - The Personalized Results are Coming, The Personalized Results are Coming!
Gord Hotchkiss, Out of my Gord | 2/3/07 - Google Releases New Link Reporting Tools
Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land | 2/5/07 - Google on Letting Searchers Remove Pages from the Web
Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea | 2/22/07 - Google Censorship FAQ
Philipp Lenssen, Google Blogoscoped | 3/2/07 - How To Turn Google’s Paid Link Reporting Into Profit
Brian Provost, Scoreboard Media | 4/15/07 - What Is Google PageRank? A Guide For Searchers & Webmasters
Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land | 4/26/07 - Google Love Affair with Wikipedia
Michael Gray, Graywolf | 5/2/07 - Google 2.0: Google Universal Search
Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land | 5/16/07 - How to Find if a Page is in Google’s Secret Supplemental Results
Jim Boykin | 8/1/07 - Google Caught Selling High PageRank Links, Again & Again
Aaron Wall, SEO Book | 8/8/07 - Google Proxy Hacking: How A Third Party Can Remove Your Site From Google SERPs
Dan Thies, SEO Fast Start | 8/16/07 - Google Loves Transparent Links & Hit Counter Spam
Loren Baker, Search Engine Journal | 9/10/07 - Google Doesn’t Know the Face of “Evil”
Sugarrae | 9/25/07 - Google Webmaster Tools: A Comprehensive Guide
Eric Lander, Search Engine Journal | 9/26/07 - Google Punished My Site For Selling Links – NOT!
Jim Boykin | 9/27/07 - Dancing With The Gevil – Defamed By Google?
Andy Beard | 10/6/07 - Google Determining Search Authority Pages and Propagating Authority to Related Pages
Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea | 10/7/07 - Eric Enge Interviews Google’s Matt Cutts
Eric Enge, Stone Temple Consulting | 10/8/07 - Google PageRank Update & Link Selling
Loren Baker, Search Engine Journal | 10/8/07 - Here’s How to Stop Worrying About Google Once and for All
Brian Clark, Copyblogger | 10/9/07 - NoFollow is for Blog Spam…no Paid Text Links, wait…Paid Ads…Aww Heck, Just Stop Linking and Let Calacanis Decide the Rankings
Jennifer Laycock, Search Engine Guide | 10/15/07 - Digg Favorites Slapped By Google
Andy Beard | 10/24/07 - Now Mass Linking Is Dead, What Next
Duncan Riley, Gooruze | 10/25/07 - 8 Things We Learned About Google PageRank
Loren Baker, Search Engine Journal | 10/25/07 - Composing the Perfect Letter of Surrender
Robert Clough, Search Engine Guide | 11/1/07 - The SEO, the Press, and Pandering
John Andrews | 11/3/07 - Why Google Can’t Just “Dump” PageRank
Dan Thies, SEO Fast Start | 11/9/07 - Google Patent on Web Spam, Doorway Pages, and Manipulative Articles
Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea | 11/27/07 - Google Declares War on Paid Links: But Why Now?
Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable | 12/3/07 - Interview with Google’s Matt Cutts at Pubcon
Stephan Spencer | 12/17/07
Posts Judged by Lisa Barone, Rand Fishkin, and Chris Winfield




