Planet Ocean - SearchEngineNews

Keeping up with the changing landscape of natural search is both necessary and time consuming.

There are lots of resource sites out there, many free, some require a subscription. In our opinion, SearchEngineNews is a must if you are serious about keeping your knowledge base up to date. It provides a monthly update of what is new in both organic and paid search. They offer a 'dog ate it guarantee' which means that if you don't feel you are getting your money's worth, you can sign up and up until the last day of your subscription you can choose to cancel and get your money back - no questions asked. Currently (June 08) they are offering a week's trial before your card is charged.

At the beginning of every month (they wait a few days in January for things to settle down after the New Year and Christmas holidays - or perhaps they just need to get over the beech party on New Year's Eve!), a new password is sent out which allows access to the new content. This comprises three sections

• A resume of what has changed in the last month
• A Q and A section based on queries sent in by subscribers - yes I have had mine published in the past
• A complete updated version of the "Unfair Advantage Book on Winning the Search Engine Wars" - a mighty tome which covers just about everything.
  

The site offers a search facility which means subscribers have access to the complete archive of everything that has been published since the resource first started in 1996. Everything is dates so there is no danger of inadvertently using old material, but it is sometimes informative to see how things have changed over the years.

I do dip into other newsletters during the month especially when I have a particular issue I want to research but am happy to admit I rely on Planet Ocean to make sure I don't miss anything.

For me a monthly round up is invaluable. I don't have time to lurk in forums - how people earning a living have time to indulge in SEO chitchat has always puzzled me, so the bottom line is I recommend SearchEngineNews as being a value for money resource that gets the balance about right between including what I need to know to keep up to date with the latest search engine algorithm changes and information overload.

SearchEngineNews is based in Hawaii which must show the guys who run it know a thing or two. It does have a US bias but with the exception of Pandia almost all good resources do. Except with the very UK specific topics, I have never found this to be a problem

the following is an affiliate link and if you sign up Atracks will get a commission but we have subscribed to Planet Ocean for about eight years now and paid our subs in full - and will continue to do so, irrespective of any affiliate revenue.