We Are Three: Search Engine Roundtable's 3rd Birthday

Tomorrow, December 2nd is our birthday. We were born on December 2, 2003. It has been three years of blogging, almost 4,000 blog posts, about 5 blog posts per weekday. I thought it would be fun to look back at the years and highlight some important and meaningful topics we covered over the years. But first a little history...

The most important thing that happened this year was that I went Off To Get Married this year. This year we won the Best Blog on Search Marketing by MarketingSherpa again, a huge honor for us to win back to back years. I launched my personal blog by Introducing the Cartoon Barry Blog in July of this year. We even started our own weekly podcast named the Search Pulse. I set up a very successful Google Coop for Search Engine Roundtable, if you haven't signed up yet, please do. Chris Boggs became our Associate Editor to provide forum coverage back on February 14st of this year. We released Search Engine Roundtable Supporter Seals which are being displayed proudly throughout the search community by many people. In December of last year, Search Engine Roundtable Opens Forums, which was a big success, today we have over 1,300 members and 6,200+ posts. Later on this year we won the KB Cafe Blog Awards and Best Search Engine Community Blog of 2005 by Search Engine Journal, another huge kudo for us.

Our most important asset is our reader. Those of you who read on a weekly, daily or hourly basis is what keeps us going here. Our numbers continue to grow and we love to see that. We also enjoy all the comments we get via blog comments, email and our forum. Thanks so much for being such a vital part of our success and continued growth.

Here is our special logo for the day:

Highlighted Articles From December 2005 - November 2006 (No Specific Order):

The Big Dogs Debate the Sandbox Theory, November 2005
Google Fights Paid Links & Yahoo Defends Paid Links, November 2005
Jeeves Retirement Post Live, February 2006
AdWords Quality Score Includes Landing Page, November 2005
Google Adwords Adsbot To Start Crawling Your Landing Pages, May 2005
WebmasterWorld Back in Search Engine Index, November 2005
Google Testing Refinement or Clustering Filter Links, January 2006
Wikipedia Results at Top of Google SERPs?, November 2005
DomainPark - AdSense for Domains Sparks Huge Forum Debate, January 2006
Yahoo! Switching Paid Ranking Model To Add Relevancy Factor: Project Panama, April 2006
Upgrading Yahoo! Search Marketing to Panama, October 2006
Danny Sullivan Hits Historic 10 Year Mark, April 2006
Reaction from the Search Community on Danny Sullivan's Departure, August 2006
Danny Sullivan Says Goodbye To Search Engine Watch, November 2006
Google to Manage Radio Ads: Google AdVoice?, January 2006
Google to Test Auctioning Ads in Print Publications, February 2006
First Feedback on Google AdWords Video Ads, July 2006
Google Finance Live, March 2006
Ratings & Reviews with Google Payments, April 2006
Welcome Google Checkout; Google Payments, June 2006
Google Calendar for Real?, March 2006
Long Rumored Google Calendar Makes An Entrance, April 2006
KinderStart Sues Google Over Being Dropped From Index, March 2006
MSN Senior Exec Speaks Boldly, March 2006
BMW German Back in the Index: But Still Cloaking, February 2006
Publishers and Arbitrage: Sucking the Life Out of Search Results?, April 2006
Windows Live Search Beta, March 2006
Google Officially Confirms Traffic Power Ban, February 2006
Big Daddy Data Center Feedback Request Threads, January 2006
Big Daddy Roll Out Complete, March 2006
Drop 30 Points in Google? Meet The "Minus Thirty" Penalty?, October 2006
Yahoo! Refunds Click Fraud Without Customer Requesting Refund, March 2006
Ask.com's CEO, Steve Berkowitz Heads Over to Microsoft, MSN Search, April 2006
Jim Lanzone the New CEO of Ask.com, April 2006
Click to Call Ajax Implementation by Google AdWords, February 2006
Google Launches Click to Call in UK, September 2006
Google to Return $90 Million to US AdWords Customers with Fraudulent Clicks, March 2006
Yahoo! Settles Click Fraud Suit, June 2006
Google Trends: Free Keyword Popularity & Trend Tool, May 2005
Latest Thoughts on the "Google Pontiac" Campaign, March 2006
Traffic Power Misses Appeal Wait Period; Traffic Power Versus SEO Book Case Dismissed, April 2006
Google AdWords Adds Demographic Targeting, March 2006
Google Click to Call Rumors Spread to Search Forums, June 2006
Google Shows Advertisers Their "Invalid Clicks" in AdWords Reports, July 2006
Google AdWords Advertisers Up In Arms Again Over New Algorithm, November 2006
Microsoft Begins Testing Content Ads Beta, October 2006
Are You Down With ODP Descriptions?, July 2006
Ask.com Launches Blog & Feed Search, June 2006
Sub Sub Domain Google Issues Explained Differently, June 2006
New York Times Changes Web Only Headlines To Be Search Engine Friendly, April 2006
NY Times is Cloaking But Not Spamming; Danny Sullivan Says, June 2006
Microsoft Banning Sites from Live.com For Link Exchanges, November 2006
Yahoo! Temporarily Removes Blog Search for Retooling, August 2006
Confirmed: Search Community Talks on Google YouTube Rumors, October 2006
Getting Listed in the Google Coop Directory, May 2005
Photo of Google AdSense Gift Digital Picture Frame, November 2006
AOL Makes Statement By Letting Go CTO & Two Employees, August 2006
Apax Buys Incisive Media Owner of Search Engine Strategies & Search Engine Watch, September 2006
Commission Junction to Only Allow JavaScript Links, May 2005

We are three years old! Thank you all!

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums!

Like The Story? Vote For It On Yahoo Buzz! Or On Sphinn!

posted rustybrick in Blog Administration at December 1, 2006 8:06 AM Comments (21)

Comments

Happy Birthday Search Engine Roundtable! Keep up the good work.

martin

Posted by martin - webseo at December 1, 2006 08:20

Happy 3rd web birthday.. How many humans years is that ?

Posted by Gabs at December 1, 2006 08:33

http://forums.seroundtable.com/member.php?u=83

WOW!

Search Engines Web was member #83 and made the first post one year ago this week.

Looking at the profile, some threads started during the winter are STILL getting replies!

What a really good FORUM - EVERYONE knew immediately that it would be very successful!!

Posted by ! search-engines-web at December 1, 2006 08:58

Um, this post is about the blog. But I appreciate your feedback on the forums. :)

Posted by Barry Schwartz at December 1, 2006 09:11

congrats, i think 3 web years equals 30 human years which makes it an even bigger achievement

Posted by goodroi at December 1, 2006 09:45

Happy Birthday! and a great logo.
It's hard to imagine that it is really 3 years.
I am still trying to explain what a blog is to your mother.
Good move to clearly state the most important thing that happened (NOT JUST this year) was getting married.
You should continue posting until 120; here and at the new Search Engine Land (I'll comment there when it is easier).
.....Your proud Dad.

Posted by Leon Schwartz at December 1, 2006 09:50

Mazel tov :)

Posted by Tamar Weinberg at December 1, 2006 10:00

>> Um, this post is about the blog. But I appreciate your feedback on the forums. :)

You have a blog too????

LOL j/k
Cheers m8 and many happy returns

Posted by Wit at December 1, 2006 10:21

Grats, and many more :)

Posted by Simon Heseltine at December 1, 2006 10:37

Happy Birthday - a day early. I like the logo. Very Google-esque in concept *wink wink*
Looking forward to my continuation as a blog and forum reader. Cheers!

Posted by Kristen Owen at December 1, 2006 11:55

Congratulations on making it to the third anniversary, and here is hoping you enjoy many more.

As long as you keep doing what you're doing, SE Roundtable is a "must read" site. If I could only look at one SEO forum right now, it would be this blog.

Posted by Michael Martinez at December 1, 2006 12:18

Barry,

As you know your blog has been my "cup of coffee" every morning for the past three years. Not sure how I could start the work day without it.

Thanks for all your hard work and congrats on another great year. looking forward to what to come.

Jonathan

Posted by Jonathan Mendez at December 1, 2006 13:23

congrats barry+crew.. happy bday :) //g

Posted by gage at December 1, 2006 14:20

A fantastic achievement Barry, well done! Here's to another 3 :)

Posted by evilgreenmonkey at December 1, 2006 15:56

Congrats! I hope that there will be many more! :)

Posted by Jonathan at December 1, 2006 17:31

Happy Birthday and hope u all good luck!

Posted by kangzj at December 1, 2006 22:38

4,000 blog posts in just three years is a great achievement.I got lot of helpful information from this blogs.Happy birthday Search Engine Roundtable!
Hope it continues on and on.Best of luck for the future.

Posted by No Name at December 3, 2006 08:28

Congratulations man! Keep it up we'll always be here.

Thank You

Posted by Diddy1 at December 3, 2006 13:12

Happy birthday Search Engine Roundtable team! Nice work!Thank you

Posted by jasaitis at December 3, 2006 13:45

Congrats indeed! Keep up the spectacular work in the future.

Posted by Brevetoxin at December 3, 2006 13:53

Happy Birthday! congratulate! Three years - a significant period! Thank you

Posted by Bim Carr at December 4, 2006 02:37