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Sphinn Home » SEM
Universities May Be Failing Our Next Great Search Marketers
SEM News Source: http://www.search-mojo.com
Published: Jan 17, 2008 - 11:49 pm
Story Found By: janetdmiller 1488 Days ago
Category: SEM
I just had to rant a little bit here about how unbelievable it is to me that so many major colleges and universities do not offer courses in Internet marketing (or even cover search marketing at all). Rant with me, won’t you? I’d love to hear your experience here.
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from emd5005 1488 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I totally agree! I majored in advertising, but I never learned anything about internet marketing until AFTER I was graduated. It and guerilla marketing were mentioned in one of my courses, but we never learned anything. I"m actually planning on speaking to classes about internet marketing. Great post!

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from sem4u 1488 Days ago #
Votes: 0

When I graduated from university with a business degree in 2000, internet marketing hardly got a look in. It is a sad state of affairs if it is still like this today.

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from Eloi 1487 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I graduated from a communication and digital media degree in which I studied every single medium apart from the net (lol for the digital media!). So I did my dissertation on internet marketing, and now, I am now in talks with the people who use to teach me about leading a few of their classes! Shows how fast this industry is moving, but academics usually steer away from giving any kind of importance to search engines and search engine marketing because they see Google (and the net more generally) as a ’bad’ source of information. For them, if it doesn’t come from a library it’s not worth it.

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from ArnieK 1487 Days ago #
Votes: 0

You might be interested in a bit of research we did at Vertical Measures.  We searched the web and evaluated SEO & SEM courses offered at colleges and universities.  Unfortunately the list is not a very long one.  You can see the entire study at http://www.verticalmeasures.com/education.html 

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from WebmasterT 1487 Days ago #
Votes: 1

Imo, anyone who could teach a course at that level would do so at a pay cut so... I don’t see it changing anytime soon. I disagree with the ever changing stuff being a problem. Basically what I do now is pretty much what I wrote about in 94 and how I do things today is pretty much the same as I did in 94. Then too, I’m not an algo chasing link ho spammin and jammin’ my way to the top. If anything I’ve stopped doing more things then I’ve started. Social Media would be an example! half the articles on spihn are likely about or include social networking components, but other then the web 2.0 technology is there really that much difference between how you would promote a community 10 years ago and a social site today. Not really, the technologies and audience change but the bottom line methods are not really that different. Figure out who your audience is and where they go and put your stuff in front of them in a conscientious attempt to not be intrusive or invasive which would be why Facebook is IMO, trying the patience of it’s users. You don’t treat your users profiles like an open book, it isn’t and shouldn’t be.Algos don’t really change that much IMO, that is just a myth perpetuated by those on long term contracts for short term service! For instance in 14 years I’ve only had one algo change bite me. It was the paid link BS and who could foresee a technique older than Google would be whacked the way that whacked evryone. It only really affected one site but... that was one too many.

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from SlightlyShadySEO 1486 Days ago #
Votes: 0

We can learn it on our own.I did, and I’m still a 2nd year.

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from baiduyou 1485 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Page won’t load for me. Maybe if I try offering it a biscuit...

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from scottclark 1485 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I’m speaking today at a university as the first-ever SEO to come through their guest speaker program in a CS track, but we’ll see how it goes.   They also want to talk about what should be in an internet marketing course.   It’s a start.

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from incrediblehelp 1485 Days ago #
Votes: 0

My issue is why the core SE principles are not taught?  Things crawlable architecture, title tags and readable content never change.  Sure new ideas and concepts come along all of the time (link bating and social media) and it would require a professor that is a basically in the community of SEO/SEM to keep up and update his/her curriculum.  I used to be one of those guys that said it is not possible, but I truly think it is time for at least the core principles to be taught alongside web design.

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from telight 1485 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I agree! So much so that our company has partnered with a local university to help them create some classes around SEO as well as writing courses for marketing materials. Definitely in its infancy stages but the interest is there by both parties so should turn out to be fruitful.

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from SlightlyShadySEO 1485 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Heh. I know the web design class[read:joke] I took back in HS taught no SEO.We did learn the blink tag though!

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from ViperChill 1484 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I agree it could help people on the path, but if they want to learn it badly enough or get to know more about it they can really get involved online.Something I’ve done since the age of 16

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