I’m sure this book was cutting edge when it was first published in February of 2004, but now it’s for the most part outdated. For the absolute beginner to this area, there are some good general points, but references to long-since defunct or consolidated web companies (Urchin, Inktomi,etc) make it difficult to understand just what’s still relevant. Google and Yahoo (and soon Microsoft) are defining the new landscape of this field as we speak…Try the new book from IBM press, “Search Engine Marketing”….chock full of the latest (as late as can be in this field) info.

Catherine primarily focuses this book on the paid side of search engine marketing. I am a search engine marketer and have generally worked on the “free” or optimization side of search engine marketing for the past year. I also have read at least a dozen books or ebooks on this subject.

Generally I think the return on the optimization side is much greater than on the paid side, but if you are a savy marketer using paid search engine marketing can bring rapid distributions and returns. I personally have been amazed at some of the high profile, high frequency search words which have few competitors on the market (even today.)

There is much to know about search engine marketing, and much of the info that is out there on either side (paid or optimization) is chuck full of misinformation. This book is new and kept general enough (covering a rapidly changing environment) to where there is not a bunch of misinformation. She even predicted that paid inclusion would go to a PPC model right before Yahoo! put the new system in place.

If you have enough money to be participating in paid search then this book could help you save some of it.