In the grand tradition of Search Engine Roundtable’s comprehensive coverage of Search Engine Strategies (SES) conferences, I will be providing detailed and immediate coverage of the sessions for next week’s SES China conference. Barry Schwartz was nice enough to take me up on my offer to be SERoundtable’s official correspondent for the conference. Thanks Barry!

If any of you guys will be at SES China, please walk up and say hi :)
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My PLDT myDSL subscription is finally running 80% of the time. That should be good news after surviving 2-3 day connection blackouts with annoying consistency last week. But another thorn has emerged.
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Google is insisting that it’s not just all AdWords. In a recent sitdown with financial analysts in its Mountain View headquarters, executives from the company gave a positive albeit general forecast:
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Three Filipino sites to help shake the negative energy off our souls.

1. Manila You’re Not That Ugly - Johanna Pilar combines themes that I hold dear, e.g. travel, personal reflections and national pride in one insightful package.
2. Writing on Air - I’ve been a silent reader of Jim Paredes’s blog these past few days. His “I Will Return to Fight Another Day” post is something I can relate to on a very personal level.
3. Walk This Way - Carlos Celdran’s Manila urban guide/blog is both refreshing and insightful. I would sign up for one of his walking tours of Manila if only I wasn’t so lazy.

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From the running Text Link Ads thread in the SEO Philippines mailing list:

Are paid links ok?

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On the news that Google was pre-installing Google software on Dell computers, the Fortune Interactive Corporate Blog had this to say:

This may go a long way toward increasing the general public’s awareness of the importance of search engine optimization (SEO). Before long, industry jargon like pagerank, optimize, keyword density, and inbound links, may become part of the common vernacular.

There are many effects from such a change which would directly impact SEO and search engine marketing (SEM). Two such effects are:

• the average computer user becomes more search savvy
• more business decision makers see the importance of SEO and SEM

Getting the toolbar or desktop search will not raise the level of SEM knowledge. Regular Dell owners will probably see the Google toolbar as a popup blocker first and a shortcut to the Google.com search screen a close second. My dear Uncle Renato in Oxnard, California will never get around to understanding PageRank, the green pixie dust or the fact that the toolbar will be sending usage information to Google servers upon activation of the advanced feature set. He won’t know search engine optimization even if it hits him in the face. Don’t even get me started on Google Desktop.

Regular users still stand to benefit but the real immediate beneficiary is Google.
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