To keep or not to keep? Wikipedia debates worth of Search Engine Marketing

Last Thursday, Wikipedia proposed deletion of the main entry for Search Engine Marketing, claiming that “the article is poorly written” and lacking independent sources. Wikipedia is looking to merge SEM with the entry for Search Engine Optimization, citing that “SEM is a subset of SEO work, [and] as such, it belongs in the SEO article."

Feedback from Wikipedia users has illustrated a noticeable divide; the dozen votes left since the proposal’s posting include six “strong keep,” one “keep,” four “merge,” and one “dunno” (undecided).

Naturally, this has caused an uprising of SEM advocacy among Internet marketers, masters and users. Editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, Danny Sullivan, voiced his opposition to the proposal, while deflating several arguments in favor of merging the SEM and SEO entries. Danny Sullivan “helped popularize and define the term ‘search engine marketing’ back at the end of 2001,” making him more than qualified to offer his two cents on the subject.

The main issues SEM advocates address in their comments are that SEM and SEO are significantly different, and the services offered by SEM and SEO specialists involve completely separate aspects of the Internet. To have the SEM article redirected to the SEO entry page would be presumptuous and, depending on the browser’s focus, unnecessary. Advocates believe that for these reasons SEM deserves its own Wikipedia entry. There is no date posted for an ultimate decision on the matter, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.