SEM Awards: A snake in the midst?
July 19th, 2007 by 
Katy Orell
Every now and then people in this industry, like most others, get together for a little shindig, an awards ceremony. I was poking around for local and national award shows and came across this little gem, appropriately named SEM Awards.
I entered the site to check it out because I had never heard of these awards before. I have heard of industry awards by different names, but none so accurate as this. Upon closer scrutiny I found a few red flags.
First, the entire site was created in flash. Anyone in SEM knows that flash is nice to look at but BAD for optimization, and they are giving out awards for people who are the best in this industry? They don’t even have the correct technique for their own site!
Second, they had very little information about themselves. And when I tried to look for the winners, I was presented with a dinky little PDF file.
Third, the backlinks were four in number and all from a Mexican site. I thought this award was worldwide! The last link is really funny. It’s like a moving plaque to the best SEO in the world.
Is this a ploy to create a false award and give it to black hatters? Or is it an honest Joe who’s not really sure what he’s doing with this site?
I have tried contacting some industry experts to figure out what all this is about and I even sent an email to the SEM Awards to find out what their mission is. I will be sure to update the blog when I receive any response. Meanwhile if anyone out there has an immediate response to this post, perhaps I am wrong about my assumption that this site is fishy, leave a comment.
